Preassignments are fixed, rotational scheduling patterns you can set up within VSP. They can be simple -- for example, a volunteer who serves once a week in a particular role at a particular shift -- or complex -- for instance, a volunteer who serves Monday and Friday at a particular shift on the 3rd week of the month every other month (shown below).

The quickest way to specify a rotating pattern for a volunteer is from inside an open schedule.

1. In an open schedule of a VSP installation or in the Admin view of the Web Terminal, click on the date an assignment will occur, then click on the position in which you want the volunteer scheduled.
2. Locate the volunteer's name on the right side of the screen and double-click or drag and drop their name into the position. 
3. A “Repeats...” bubble will pop up next to their name. Click on this box to check it.
4. In the window that appears, establish how the assignment should repeat. For example, specify that the volunteer is assigned to this shift every other week, and they will immediately be scheduled according to the chosen pattern. As long as you don’t specify an end date, the volunteer will be assigned  according to that pattern in future schedules.

Behind the scenes, this created a “preassignment” for this volunteer. Preassignments appear on  future schedules as soon as they are generated (that is, as soon as the "Create..." button is clicked in the Schedules pane of a VSP installation’s main window). A preassignment will always appear on the schedule skeleton. The only time a volunteer would not be scheduled for a preassigned position is if they have an unavailable time that contradicts their preassignment pattern. You can see all of the preassignments that have been created in your database by going to the Preassignments pane.

The Preassignments pane displays all your preassignments in one long list. You can sort this list by job or shift time, or filter the list to only see preassignments that match particular criteria, which is useful if you manage many rotations. You can also create, edit and delete patterns as needed. Please note that in a VSP installation, if you would like changes to take place on an existing schedule, you will need to have that schedule open in the background.