Create and publish your first signup

Create the signup

1. Sign in to OpenSignup. The first time you sign in, this creates your account.

2. On the Your signups page, choose New signup at the top.

   Some sites can fill in a signup for you. If you see What are you organizing?, say what people sign up for, when, and how many of each. Then choose Draft my signup, and check every slot before you publish.

   If you see A few details first, your site is asking a few questions before it fills in your signup. Pick what fits, add your own, or choose Draft with placeholders.

   To follow the steps here instead, choose Skip, fill in by hand.

3. Type a name in Title, like “Snack duty — Spring season”. You can add a few lines about it in Description (optional).

   

4. Choose Create signup. Your signup is saved as a draft. Under its title, it says Only you can see this draft until you publish it. There's no link to send yet.

Add slots

A slot is one thing people can sign up for, like snacks for one game. Each slot has one or more spots. A person can take one spot or several. A new signup starts with one empty slot.

1. Choose the slot marked Set what to open it.

2. In What, type what the slot is for, like “Fruit and water”.

3. Set the Date.

4. In Spots, type how many spots this slot has. If two families bring snacks to each game, type 2. Leave it blank for no limit.

   

5. Choose Done to close the slot. Your changes save as you go.

6. For the next slot, choose Add a slot and fill it in the same way.

7. To copy a slot, open it and choose Duplicate. The copy opens below it, ready for you to change its date.

You can't undo deleting a slot. To remove one you don't need, open it and choose Delete. Don't leave a slot empty: people see it as Untitled slot.

Publish and share the link

1. You can check your signup first. Choose Preview at the top of the page. On a phone, choose the three dots at the top, then Preview. It opens in a new tab and shows what people will see.

2. When you publish, anyone with the link can sign up. Choose Publish and share at the top of the page. On a phone, it's at the bottom of the screen.

   If every slot is empty, you'll see Nothing to sign up for yet, and your signup isn't published. Choose Fill it in to open the first slot. Fill it in, then choose Publish and share again.

   Once it's published, you'll see Now send people the link. Nobody has the link until you send it.

   

3. Choose a way to send it:

   • Copy link copies the link. Paste it into an email or a group chat.
   • There's a message to send with the link. It names your signup. If the slots have dates, it gives them. If every slot has the same time, it gives that too. If every slot has a limit, it says how many spots are open. It also says that nobody needs an account to sign up. You can change the message. Copy message copies it, with the link. Email it opens your email app with it.
   • On most phones, Share… is there instead of those two. It opens your phone's share menu, with the message and the link.
   • For a flyer or a sign-up table, choose Download to save a QR code of the link, with your signup's title under it. On a phone, choose QR code to show the code, then Save image. Most phones then open their share menu, where you can save the picture or send it. Choose Hide QR code to put the code away.

4. To send the link again later, choose Share. It's at the top of the page, or at the bottom of the screen on a phone. Or, next to Public link, choose the copy button.

   Next to the link, you can see how many spots are taken. On a phone, that's beside Share.

   

What happens next

• People open the link and choose Sign up on a slot. They type their name and email address, and can add a note. You can make the email address optional, as shown below.
• A slot with more than one spot shows how many are left, like 1 left. People can take more than one spot at a time. When a slot is full, nobody else can choose it.
• Each person who gives an email address gets an email saying they're signed up. It has a link they can use to change or cancel. Everyone sees the link on screen after signing up, and people who gave no email address need to save it.
• Search engines are asked not to list signup pages. Anyone with the link can open yours, so share it only with the people you want.

Reminders

If a slot has a date, people who take it and gave an email address get a reminder email the day before. Someone who signs up later than that gets one about an hour after signing up, unless the slot is less than an hour away. Each reminder has a link to stop them.

If you change the date or time of a slot people have taken, they get an email. It comes about 10 minutes after your last change, with the new details. This goes with reminders: if you turn reminders off, nobody is told when you move a slot.

Reminders are on for every new signup. To turn them off:

1. Choose Fields at the top of your signup.

2. Choose Date.

3. Clear Send a reminder email before this date, then choose Save.

Let people sign up without an email

A signup asks people for their email address unless you make it optional. Someone who leaves it blank gets no emails at all, not even reminders. They need to save the link they see after signing up. Only the browser they used remembers it.

To make the email address optional:

1. On a phone, the Settings link at the very top of the page is for your account, so skip it. Under your signup's title, choose the Settings tab.

2. In Sign-up form, under Ask for an email address, choose Optional. Once you save, the email box on your signup says Email (optional).

3. Choose Save. You'll see Saved.

   

If someone who left it blank loses their link, ask them to sign up again. If their slot is full, remove them on the Responses tab first, so there's room. Otherwise they show up there twice, and the old one is higher up the list. Remove that one.

You can switch back to Required later. Only people who sign up after that are asked for an email address. Anyone who signed up without one keeps their spot.