Check people in at a shift
Open the shift when it starts
Use Run shift from the Schedule.
Mark each person Showed up
They are credited with the shift's scheduled length. No-show removes those hours.
Add walk-ups with Check in
They are credited the same way. Search your roster, or type a new name and press Add (name) and check in to add them on the spot. A full shift needs a higher number needed first.
Log hours for someone
Open Volunteers, then Timesheets
Press Log hours.
Choose the volunteer and program
Or General if the time was not for one program.
Enter the date and hours
Between a quarter hour and 24 hours. Exact start and end times are optional, unless your organization turned on Require exact times.
Press Record hours
You see "Hours recorded and approved."
Bring in hours from before Ember
Open Volunteers, then Timesheets
Press Import past hours. Owners and admins see it.
Paste your sheet
Copy the cells from Excel or Google Sheets, headings included, and paste them. Or upload the sheet saved as CSV. Each row is one person on one day: a name, the date and the hours.
Press Continue
Ember guesses which column is which from your headings. Change any that are wrong. If every date could read either way, like 03/04/2026, Ember asks whether the month or the day comes first.
Press Check the rows
You see what the import will do, and any row it can't use, with why. When a name could be more than one person on your roster, Ember asks you to choose.
Import them
Press the button that shows how many entries. The hours count as approved and are marked Imported. Nobody is emailed about them.
Wrong file? You can take the whole import back, right away or later. To take one back later, press Import past hours again: earlier imports are listed there with Take back. The hours come out of every total, and anyone it added stays on your roster.
When volunteers log their own hours
A volunteer who signs in to their volunteer portal sees Log your hours: shifts they signed up for that ended in the last 30 days and have no hours yet. One tap logs the shift's scheduled length. Those hours wait for your approval, and the volunteer sees them as Pending review until you decide. If you check someone in at the shift, their hours are already recorded and the shift does not appear there.
What the hours are worth
Ember values each approved hour at what you count an hour of volunteering as worth. You can set that for a program or for your whole organization. If you set nothing, Ember uses $36.14, the national value of a volunteer hour published by Independent Sector (2025 data). The value shows in Impact Reports. Volunteers never see dollar figures.
Hours waiting for approval
Hours from check-ins and Log hours are approved straight away. Hours volunteers log themselves wait in Awaiting approval on the Timesheets tab, with Approve and Send back. Sending back needs a note, and the volunteer sees it in their portal, fixes the entry and resends it. Owners and admins approve. Staff and coordinators can approve hours for programs they are assigned to, unless Coordinators can approve hours is off in Organization settings.