Pawpaw Analytics

Welcome to Pawpaw Analytics

Whether you're running a music festival, a community clean-up series, or a recurring fundraiser, Pawpaw gives you the tools to organize volunteers, track inventory, and keep everything running smoothly — year after year.

This documentation walks you through the platform's core concepts and features. We'll explain not just how things work, but why we built them the way we did. Our goal is to help you feel confident setting up and managing your events, even if you've never used a platform like this before.

The Apps

Pawpaw Analytics hosts several purpose-built applications:

• Hands Up Volunteer — The heart of the platform. Hands Up manages volunteer signups, shift scheduling, registration forms, and communication for your events. If you're here to organize volunteers, this is where you'll spend most of your time.
• ItCounts — Inventory and point-of-sale tracking. ItCounts helps you manage products, track transactions, run audits, and integrate with Square or Clover. Perfect for events with concessions, merchandise, or any physical goods.

Each app plugs into the same organizational structure, so your events, dates, and team permissions carry across everything.

My Organizations

When you first log in to Pawpaw Analytics, you land on the My Organizations page — your home base for everything on the platform. This is the list of all the organizations you're a member of, and it's where you go to navigate between them or create a new one.

Most Users Have One

For the majority of Pawpaw users — a festival organizer, a nonprofit, a community event crew — you'll only ever see one card on this page: your organization. That's completely normal. You'll click straight through to it every time you log in, and the page mostly just serves as a clean entryway.

That said, the platform is built to handle more.

Managing Multiple Organizations

If you're a contractor, agency, or enterprise operator, you may have two or more organization tiles on this page. Each card links to a fully independent workspace:

• Its own events, instances, and sub-applications (Hands Up, ItCounts)
• Its own billing and subscription tier
• Its own member roster and permissions

Switching between organizations is as simple as coming back to this page and clicking a different card. The left-hand sidebar also lists all your organizations for quick navigation without returning to this page.

Searching Your Organizations

Above the cards is a search bar. Start typing and the tiles filter in real time. You can search by:

• Name — type any part of the organization's name
• Permission — type a permission keyword (e.g., "billing" or "events") to surface organizations where your membership includes that permission

This is most useful if you're a platform admin or contractor managing a large number of organizations — finding the right one by memory alone gets tedious fast.

Organization Cards

Each card shows:

• The organization's logo (if one has been uploaded) or a default building icon
• The organization's name
• Two quick-action buttons: one to jump to the organization detail page and one to jump directly to Events

Click anywhere on the card to go to the organization's main page.

Creating a New Organization

Click + Create Organization in the top-right corner to launch the organization creation wizard. The wizard walks you through naming your organization, setting up your first event, and activating the apps you want to use — all in one guided flow.

Organization Settings

Click through to any organization from the My Organizations page and you land on the Organization Settings page — your control panel for everything that's shared across all your events. This is where you handle branding, manage your team, connect POS systems, and take care of billing.

At the very top of the page, your organization's logo and name are displayed together. If you have the right permissions, click Edit to rename the organization in place — the title turns into an inline text field, and a checkmark saves the change immediately.

Branding

The Branding card is where you shape how your organization appears across the platform — and to your volunteers.

Upload a PNG, JPG, or SVG (up to 50 KB) and it appears in the header here, on the My Organizations page tile, and anywhere else the platform displays your organization. Click Choose Logo to pick a file from your computer. A preview appears before you save; click Save to commit it, or Remove to go back to the default icon.

Every organization gets a short "vanity slug" — a custom path like /pawpaw — that works across every supported domain on the platform. This short URL is used in public-facing links such as volunteer signup pages, making it easy for you to share a memorable address instead of a long ID-based URL.

To change it, click Edit next to the current URL. Because changing your organization URL will break any existing bookmarks or links, the platform asks you to type the new URL a second time in a confirmation modal before saving. Take this step carefully — there's no automatic redirect from the old slug.

This is the contact address shown to volunteers on your Hands Up signup pages. If someone has a question while registering, they'll see this address and know who to reach. Leave it blank and it defaults to your billing email. Setting a dedicated address (like [email protected]) keeps your volunteers pointed to the right inbox.

Memberships

The Memberships card links out to the full Memberships page, where you manage who has access to your organization and what they can do.

Click Manage Memberships to get there. On that page, you can:

• Add a member by email — if they already have a Pawpaw account, they're added immediately; if not, an invitation is sent.
• Set a permission level when adding: Admin, Member, or Read Only.

- Admin — full access including billing and user management - Member — can view and create resources (events, locations, shifts, etc.) - Read Only — view-only access to events, volunteers, and inventory

• Edit or remove existing members from the table.
• Generate API Keys for automated integrations (if your plan and permissions allow it).

POS Integrations

If your event uses Square or Clover as a point-of-sale system, connect it here. The POS Integrations section shows one tile per supported provider. Each tile displays the current connection status and a Connect button.

Clicking Connect starts the OAuth flow — you'll be redirected to your provider's consent screen to authorize Pawpaw to access your merchant account. Once connected, the tile shows your Merchant ID and the date the connection was made. A Disconnect button appears in place of Connect; clicking it walks you through a confirmation modal that explains exactly what will (and won't) be removed.

For a full walkthrough of what you can do once a POS is connected — importing product catalogs, mapping locations, and syncing sales — see the Square and Clover integration sections in the ItCounts documentation.

Plans & Billing

The Plans & Billing section is where you manage your Pawpaw subscription. It's visible to members with billing permissions.

Current Plan — Once your organization has an active subscription, an info bar at the top of the section shows your current plan tier. Click View Pricing Options to expand the full pricing table inline, making it easy to compare your current plan against other tiers without leaving the page.

Manage Stripe Billing — Click Manage my Stripe Account and Subscriptions to open the Stripe customer portal in a new tab. From there you can update payment methods, review past invoices, and change or cancel your subscription. The portal is hosted directly by Stripe, so your card details and billing history are handled with full Stripe-grade security.

Usage This Month — Below the billing portal link is a usage dashboard that shows how much of each metered resource you've consumed this billing period. For example, if your plan includes 12,000 communication emails per month and you've sent 4, you'll see "4 / 12,000" with a progress bar. Overage pricing is shown for each item so there are no billing surprises.

How Events Are Organized

Before we dive into any specific feature, let's talk about how Pawpaw organizes things. This structure is the backbone of everything else.

Organization → Event → Event Date

Think of it like nesting dolls:

1. Organization — The group that puts on the events. This is your top-level workspace.
2. Event — The recurring thing you do. "Nelsonville Music Festival," "Summer Concert Series," "Annual Charity Run."
3. Event Date — A specific occurrence of that event. "2026," "Fall 2026," "Spring Session."

Let's make it concrete. Stuarts Opera House is an organization. They put on the Nelsonville Music Festival, which happens once a year. So in 2026, the Event Date is simply "2026." Next year, they'd add "2027."

A few things to know about Event Dates:

• Timezone is set at the Event Date level, so multi-timezone organizations can handle each occurrence correctly.
• Copying works across Event Dates within the same Event — your shifts, forms, and rules all come along for the ride.

Hands Up Volunteer — The Big Picture

We think of the volunteer signup flow in three parts:

1. Registration Form — Collect the information you need from volunteers
2. Shift Selection — Let volunteers pick when and where they want to help
3. Communication — Keep in touch before, during, and after the event

Each of these is deeply configurable based on your subscription level, but even the free tier gives you a solid foundation to work with.

Registration Forms

The registration form is the first thing your volunteers see. It can be as simple or as detailed as you need:

• Free tier gives you a preset form with basic contact info gathering — name, email, phone.
• Higher tiers unlock custom colors, fonts, question types, waivers, confirmations, and more.

Forms aren't just for collecting info — they can enforce requirements. Need a signed waiver? A dietary restriction survey? An age confirmation? The form handles it.

Shift Selection

After a volunteer submits their registration form, they move on to shift selection. This is where the real magic happens, and we've put a lot of thought into making it flexible.

Shifts are grouped by Locations — think of locations as areas of work or duty groups. A typical setup might look like:

• Parking — Parking Attendant shifts
• Guest Check-In — Front gate shifts
• Concessions — Food and drink shifts
• Main Stage — Setup and teardown shifts

Communication

Once volunteers are signed up, you need to stay in touch. Hands Up provides tools for email communication, letting you send updates, reminders, and thank-you notes to your volunteer crew. Communication features scale with your subscription tier.

Registration Forms & Surveys

The registration form is the first thing your volunteers see when they sign up. It's powered by SurveyJS, a battle-tested form builder that gives you everything from a simple name/email intake to multi-page forms with conditional logic and custom branding — without needing a developer to touch a thing.

The Default Form

Every event starts with a default form that collects the essentials: first name, last name, email, and phone number. On the Free tier, this form is read-only — it works great out of the box and you don't need to touch it. The form saves its definition with your event date, so you can customize it year to year or copy it forward.

Customizing Your Form (Starter and above)

With a Starter subscription or higher, you unlock the Survey Builder — a drag-and-drop form editor where you can add, remove, and reorder fields. Add a dietary restrictions question, a "how did you hear about us?" dropdown, a required waiver checkbox, or anything else you need to collect.

The builder auto-saves as you work, so you never lose progress. There's also a "Save Now" button if you want to be sure, and a live preview so you can see exactly what volunteers will see before publishing.

Question Types

SurveyJS supports a wide range of question types. Here's a taste of what's available:

• Text — Single-line text input (names, short answers)
• Comment — Multi-line text for longer responses
• Checkbox — Multiple-choice, multiple selections allowed
• Radio group — Pick exactly one from a list
• Dropdown — Compact pick-one selector
• Boolean — Simple yes/no toggle (great for waivers: "I agree to the terms")
• Date — Date picker
• Phone number — Phone input with formatting validation (custom to Pawpaw)
• Rating — Star or number scale
• File — File upload field

For the full list of supported question types and options, see the SurveyJS documentation.

Themes & Branding (Basic and above)

The Basic tier unlocks the theme editor. You can customize colors, fonts, border radius, and spacing to match your organization's brand. Stuarts Opera House, for example, might style their form to match the Nelsonville Music Festival's color palette — consistent branding helps volunteers feel they're in the right place from the moment they land on the signup page.

Conditional Logic (Pro)

The Pro tier unlocks conditional logic — the ability to show or hide questions based on a volunteer's previous answers.

Example: Add a question "Do you have food handling certification?" If they answer yes, show a follow-up field for their certification number. If they answer no, skip it entirely. No need to build two separate forms or ask everyone a question that only applies to some.

Tier Summary

Creating Shifts

Shifts are the time slots volunteers sign up for. Every shift lives inside a Location — that's the organizing unit. A Parking location might have five shifts spread across a weekend; a Main Stage location might have a dozen. Before you can create shifts, you'll need at least one location set up.

There are three ways to create shifts, and each one is the right tool for a different situation.

Method 1: Drawing on the Calendar

When you open a Location's detail page, the default view is a calendar rendered in the event's timezone. To create a shift, just click and drag on any open time slot. When you release, a "Create Shift" modal pops up pre-filled with the exact start and end times you selected. Adjust the name, capacity, and other details, then save. The shift appears on the calendar instantly.

The calendar toolbar lets you switch between Month, Week, and Day views, navigate forward and back, and zoom in or out to show more or fewer hours. Already have shifts? You can drag an existing shift to a new time slot, or drag its edge to resize it — both actions save immediately via the API, no modal required.

Clicking an existing shift opens a popover with a quick summary: name, time, capacity, and point value. From there you can jump to the full shift detail page, open an edit modal, toggle "Accepting Signups" on or off, or delete the shift.

Method 2: The Create Shift Modal

If you'd rather not draw on the calendar, click the Create Shift button in the Shifts card header. This opens the same modal without pre-filled times. You fill in all the fields manually:

• Name — What volunteers will see (e.g., "Parking Attendant")
• Start Time / End Time — Date and time in the event's timezone
• Capacity — Maximum number of volunteers for this shift
• Points — How many points this shift is worth (default: 1)
• Description — Optional longer description of what the volunteer will be doing

The modal also has an AI Generate button: describe the shift in plain English and the AI will populate the form fields. Useful when you have a mental image but don't want to type out all the details.

Shift-Level Rules

Every individual shift supports two rule overrides that you can set from the shift's detail page:

• Minimum Age — Prevent volunteers below a certain age from signing up for this specific shift, regardless of what the location or event-wide rules say.
• Shift Password — Require volunteers to have a specific password saved in their session to see and join the shift. This is how you create "hidden" shifts for staff, sponsors, or VIP roles.

Method 3: Bulk Shifts Creation

For events with a regular repeating schedule — same shifts every day, or every weekday — typing each one individually would be painful. That's what Bulk Shifts is for.

Click Create Bulk Shifts on any Location page to open the Bulk Shifts tool. The interface is built around Shift Templates — cards where you define a shift pattern once and then select which days it should apply to.

Each template card has:

• Start Time and End Time (in the event's timezone)
• Shift Name, Description, Capacity, and Points
• A row of day checkboxes — one for each day in your event's date range, plus any custom dates you add

Check the days you want, and that template will generate one shift per checked day. Add as many templates as you need — "8am–12pm setup" is one template, "12pm–5pm operations" is another.

Multi-location support is a standout feature. At the top of the page is a Location Selector where you can pick one or multiple locations. When you submit, the platform creates the full matrix: every template × every day × every location.

Bulk Rules let you optionally attach a Minimum Age or Shift Password rule to every shift created in this batch. Enable a toggle and it applies to all generated shifts.

Duplicate detection is built in. If you run the same batch twice, the system checks each shift against existing ones in that location. Exact duplicates — same location, start time, end time, name, and description — are skipped automatically and counted as "skipped" in the result summary.

Cross-day shifts work correctly. If your end time is earlier than your start time (e.g., 10pm–2am), the platform detects this and sets the end date to the following day automatically.

AI Bulk Generation

The Bulk Shifts page has a "Generate with AI" button that opens a text prompt. Describe your schedule in plain English:

"Morning shift 8am–12pm for 6 people on all days, afternoon shift 12pm–5pm for 4 people on weekdays only, teardown shift 5pm–8pm on Saturday and Sunday only"

The AI generates template cards pre-filled with the times, names, capacities, and — where possible — the correct day checkboxes pre-selected. Supported date keywords: all, weekdays, weekends, day names (monday, tuesday, …), and specific dates in YYYY-MM-DD format.

Adding Custom Dates

The day checkboxes in Bulk Shifts are pre-populated from your event's date range. But sometimes you have a pre-event setup day or a post-event cleanup day that falls outside that range. Click Add Custom Date in the toolbar to pick any date, and it'll appear as a new checkbox on every template card. No need to change the event's dates just to accommodate an edge case.

The Rules System

Rules are how you control who can sign up for what. They're one of the most powerful parts of Hands Up, and they follow a simple principle: the more specific rule wins.

Rule Hierarchy

Rules can be set at three levels:

1. Event Date (broadest) — Applies to all locations and shifts
2. Location — Applies to all shifts within that location
3. Shift (most specific) — Applies only to that individual shift

When rules conflict, the more granular level overrides the broader one.

Password Protection

Locations and Shifts can be password-protected, which controls visibility. Here's how the hierarchy works:

Say you have a Parking location with a password-protected shift:

• Parking Attendant Shift password: Secret123
• Parking Location password: HiddenPhrase456

Anyone who enters Secret123 will be able to see the Parking Attendant shift specifically. Anyone who enters HiddenPhrase456 will see all Parking Location shifts except the ones with their own passwords. This lets you layer access — a general location password for most shifts, with individual shift passwords for special assignments.

Points System

Shifts have a Title, Description, and Point Value. Point values open up clever rule combinations.

Available Rules

Signup Constraints

• Minimum / Maximum Shifts — Control how many shifts a volunteer must or can take
• Minimum / Maximum Points — Require a minimum point total or cap the maximum
• Minimum / Maximum Locations — Require volunteers to spread across locations or limit them
• Minimum / Maximum Shifts at Location — Fine-tune per-location shift counts
• Minimum / Maximum Total Shift Time — Control total hours committed

Capacity & Access

• Shift Capacity — Maximum volunteers per shift (when it's full, it's full)
• Location Capacity — Maximum volunteers across all shifts at a location
• Shift Active — Enable/disable individual shifts without deleting them

Demographics & Overlap

• Minimum Age — Event-wide age requirement
• Location Age Requirement — Override age requirement per location
• No Time Overlap — Prevent volunteers from signing up for overlapping shifts
• No Time Overlap (Same Location) — Only prevent overlaps within the same location
• No Time Overlap (Different Locations) — Only prevent overlaps across different locations

Access Control

• Shift Password Required — Require a password to view specific shifts

Communication Center

Once your volunteers are signed up and their shifts are locked in, the real work of keeping everyone informed begins. The Communication Center is where you send emails to your volunteer crew — whether that's a pre-event briefing to everyone, last-minute instructions to the team working the main stage, or a quick note to a specific volunteer about their assignment.

You'll find the Communication Center in the left-hand navigation of your Hands Up instance, right alongside Members, Shifts, and Reports.

Who Can Use the Communication Center?

Email communications are a Starter tier feature and above. On the Free tier, you'll see the Communication Center in the navigation but the compose form will be locked. If you're the billing admin for your organization, you'll see an "Upgrade Plan" link directly on the locked page.

Higher tiers unlock the ability to send to larger audiences and include higher monthly email volume allowances — so as your event grows, your plan scales with it.

Choosing Your Recipients

The "Send To" section is the first thing you configure. You have four options:

• All Volunteers — Everyone with at least one shift assignment in this event. This is your go-to for event-wide announcements: "Gates open at 10am, please arrive 30 minutes early."
• By Location — All volunteers assigned to shifts within a specific location. Perfect for targeted briefings: send parking instructions only to the Parking location team.
• By Shift — All volunteers on a specific shift. Use this for precise communication: "The 8am–12pm Main Stage Setup crew: please bring your own work gloves."
• Individual — A single volunteer, searched by name or email. Useful for personal follow-ups or one-off logistics coordination.

When you select "By Location" or "By Shift," a dropdown appears populated with all your event's locations and shifts. When you select "Individual," a live search box lets you find a volunteer by name or email — matching results appear as you type.

Before you write a single word, it's worth clicking Preview Recipients. This shows you exactly who will receive the email — names, email addresses, and shift counts. The preview shows the first 10 recipients with a count of additional recipients beyond that.

Composing & Sending

The composition form has two fields: Subject and Message.

The message editor uses Trix, a lightweight rich-text editor. You can apply basic formatting — bold, italic, lists, links — and the output is sanitized HTML that renders cleanly in email clients. File attachments are not supported.

The email your volunteers receive is delivered through SendGrid using a clean, responsive template that shows your event name prominently in the header and your message in the body. Every communication email includes an unsubscribe link at the bottom. If a volunteer opts out, they won't receive future communications emails from your event — though they will still receive essential transactional emails (like signup confirmations).

Once your recipient group is set and your message is composed, clicking Send Message opens a confirmation dialog showing the recipient count one more time. Confirm, and the emails go out. Emails go out quickly — the platform sends concurrently so even a large crew gets their messages in seconds rather than minutes. Your plan's monthly volume limit applies to communication emails; the count shown in the confirmation dialog is what will be deducted from your allowance. After a successful send, you'll see a confirmation banner showing how many emails were delivered.

Transactional Emails

Beyond the Communication Center, Hands Up sends a handful of transactional emails automatically:

• Signup Complete — Sent to a volunteer when they finish registration and shift selection
• Admin Notification — Sent to your team when a new volunteer signs up
• Member Added — Sent when a volunteer is added to your roster directly by an organizer
• Volunteer Invitation — Sent when you invite someone to join as a volunteer

These use dedicated, pre-built templates and are sent via the same SendGrid infrastructure. They're available on all subscription tiers, including Free.

Tier Summary

Members & Volunteers

Once your registration form is live and your shifts are set up, volunteers start joining. The Members section is where you see who's signed up, manage their shift assignments, review their survey responses, and keep track of what's happening across your crew.

You'll find Members in the left-hand navigation of your Hands Up instance, alongside Shifts, Reports, and Communication.

The Volunteers List

The members list is your live dashboard of everyone who has registered for your event. Each row shows a volunteer's name and email, how many shifts they've taken, and a preview of those shifts — location, name, and time. Click any row to open the volunteer's detail page.

At the top of the list you'll see the total volunteer count. Below the table, any pending invitations (people you've invited who haven't signed up yet) appear as a separate list with a "Cancel invitation" option.

Filtering and search are built right in. The toolbar above the table gives you:

• Search — Type any part of a name, email, or survey response text. Results filter in real time as you type.
• Location filter — Narrow to volunteers assigned to shifts within a specific location.
• Shift filter — Narrow to volunteers on one particular shift.
• 0 Shifts — A quick toggle to show only volunteers who have registered but haven't signed up for any shifts yet. Useful for follow-up communication before your event.

Active filters appear as dismissible badges below the toolbar, so it's always clear what's being applied. Hit the × on any badge to remove that filter individually, or use Clear All to reset.

Adding Volunteers

You can add volunteers two ways: they can find your registration link and sign up themselves, or you can add them manually from the Members page.

Click Add Volunteer to open the add modal. Enter an email address and Pawpaw checks what to do:

• If the person already has a Pawpaw account, they're added to your event instantly and receive a "You've been added as a volunteer" email.
• If the email isn't in the system yet, a pending invitation is created and they receive a signup link. Once they complete registration, they appear in your volunteer list automatically and the invitation disappears.

Either way, you'll see the result immediately — either a new row in the members table, or a new entry in the pending invitations list.

Volunteer Detail Page

Click any volunteer in the list to open their detail page. This is the full picture for that one person.

The page is organized into four cards:

Volunteer Information — Name, email, total shift count, and the date they joined as a volunteer. Simple, but it's the quick reference card you'll use constantly.

Shift Assignments — All the shifts this volunteer has taken, grouped by location. Each shift shows the name, time range, description, and point value. You can add a shift directly from this card — useful when a volunteer asks to be added to something manually, or when you need to make an assignment that bypasses the normal signup flow. You can also remove individual shifts with the trash icon next to each one.

Survey Response — The volunteer's answers from your registration form. If they submitted a response, you'll see all their answers laid out with question labels and formatted values. If you need to correct something (a typo, a changed dietary requirement, an updated phone number), click Edit Response to modify any field and save.

Activity Timeline — A reverse-chronological log of everything that's happened for this volunteer in your event: when they joined, when they submitted their survey, each shift assignment. System log entries for any warnings or errors appear here too. The timeline is paginated at 10 entries per page, so you can scroll back through the full history of a volunteer's relationship with your event.

Removing a Volunteer

At the bottom of every volunteer's detail page is a Danger Zone with a "Remove Volunteer" button. Removing a volunteer permanently deletes their shift assignments, survey response, and instance membership. A confirmation modal spells this out before you commit.

The Command Palette

When you're managing an event across dozens of locations, shifts, and volunteers, jumping between pages can get tedious. The command palette is your shortcut to anywhere — open it, type a few characters, and navigate straight to what you need. No menus, no back-buttons, no hunting.

Opening the Palette

Press ⌘K on Mac or Ctrl+K on Windows/Linux from anywhere in the platform. You'll also find a "Go to…" button in the breadcrumb bar at the top of every page — handy if you prefer clicking.

Searching

When you open the palette, it immediately loads your organizations and events. Start typing and it filters that list in real time. Type two or more characters and it runs a deeper server-side search — reaching into event dates, locations, and shifts as well.

The search is case-insensitive and partial-match, so "nels" will find "Nelsonville Music Festival." Matching characters are highlighted in the results so you can see exactly why something surfaced.

Keyboard Navigation

The palette is fully keyboard-driven:

• ↑ / ↓ — move up and down through results
• Enter — navigate to the selected item
• Escape — close the palette

You never have to reach for the mouse.

Quick Actions for Hands Up

When a result is a Hands Up instance (an event date's volunteer management workspace), you'll see quick-action buttons alongside the result row. These let you jump directly to Survey, Shifts, Members, or Reports without navigating through the instance first — a single keystroke from anywhere to the exact tool you need.