How to Schedule & Manage Trips

Otherwise, read on or jump to our video tutorials to learn how to schedule and manage your activities.

Not sure if it's a trip? Learn about the differences between events, courses, and trips.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Quick Guide to Scheduling an Activity
• Route & Places
• Activity Templates
• Clone an Activity
• Edit an Activity
• Manage a Roster
• Cancel an Activity
• Close an Activity
• File an Incident Report
• Video Tutorials
• FAQ

QUICK GUIDE TO SCHEDULING AN ACTIVITY

Step 1 - Select where the activity will happen
Go to the route/place page to search for your activity location. Once you find the route/place location, click the route/place title to view the route/place information. If you cannot find the route/place you are looking for, contact Member Services for assistance or request a new or updated route/place.

Step 2 - Schedule the activity 

First, choose the nature of the activity. If it is a standalone activity (a hike, climb, scramble, etc. not related to a course), use the 'trip' option and select the group/section. If it is a course-related activity or a seminar/clinic, choose one of those options and select the corresponding group/section.

Next, enter the date range for your activity. You can enter the same start and end date if it is a one day activity.

Step 3 - Choose the activity type, course activity template, or seminar/clinic template
For standalone activities (trips), the activity template is essentially the "type of activity". For course-related activities, the list contains the lecture and field trip activity templates for the course you chose. If it is a seminar/clinic, the list will contain seminar/clinics from your committee's seminar/clinic templates folder.  Activity templates dictate the badge prerequisites for your trip (i.e. if you pick an alpine scramble it will require an alpine scramble student or graduate badge).

Step 4 - Add specific activity and registration details
A fee field appears on this page, but most trips should be free. If you plan to charge a fee, please consult staff and your group. When fees are involved, your activity is likely best scheduled as a course, clinic, or seminar.

If you're starting at the same trailhead as the route/place but will be going to a different destination than the route/place title indicates, you can select an 'alternate route/place title' from a list. Visit the "Route/Place" tab on the activity's edit form and look for the "Alternate Route/Place Title" field. If there isn't one or if you think it's missing an alternate title, please let us know.

Also note that many defaults like activity type, difficulty, mileage, and elevation gain come from the activity template and route/place. These are just defaults, so be sure to edit them as needed for your activity.

Select "Request Leader's Permission" as needed, and leaders will be prompted to complete the Leader's Permission form.

What is "Leader's Permission": 

Colorado Mountain Club activities are led by volunteers giving their time to get other people into the outdoors safely. Due to the potentially hazardous nature of our activities, some of our leaders choose to require their permission - Leader’s Permission - to register. The process to obtain leader’s permission is not prescribed, and is up to the leader to manage on a trip-by-trip basis. Leader's Permission can be a critical tool for ensuring a successful trip, but good communication is key to avoiding frustration. 

We ask our leaders to provide detailed information about why they designated this prerequisite, what information they’d like for participants to provide to them, and their expected response time on emails in their trip notes section.

Step 5 - Click Save.

Step 6 - Add leaders to the activity.

Step 7 - Close your activity once completed.

NOTE: Activities may only be in the published or closed states. Though other states are possible because they are a native part of our website, states other than published and closed cause several issues for our volunteers and members. Activities are published automatically when added. Please be sure to leave all activities published until they are complete and it is time to close them. This includes activities that need to be canceled—set their trip result to canceled and then close them.

ROUTES & PLACES

Routes & Places are where we go and where we gather. They are part of every activity and the first step in scheduling an activity. Hiking trails, climbing routes, ski trails, local parks, and much more can all be found in Routes & Places. Each route or place contains information to help with trip planning including mileage, elevation gain, difficulties, maps, recommended guidebooks, and trip reports.

When scheduling an activity at a route/place, enter the date(s) for your activity in the "Schedule an Activity" widget. If the activity is a lecture or field trip, choose the "Course-related activity" button and the course from the drop-down list. For example, a Climb of Eleven Mile Canyon is a "Standalone activity" and the TCS Instructor Crack Climbing at North Table Mtn is a "Course-related activity." If you choose "Course-related activity," also choose the related course from the drop down menu to link to your activity.

If the route/place you selected is designated as an area that can only host one Colorado Mountain Club group at a time, the dates you selected will be checked for conflicts. You can avoid conflicts by reviewing the list of activities already scheduled for the route/place in its "Activities" tab.

If the route or place you selected can have more than one Colorado Mountain Club group at a time, the "Multiple Bookings Allowed" message will be displayed.  For locations that require additional reservations (for example, an in-town location like a library branch meeting room, or a picnic shelter at a city park), you are responsible for making a reservation for the space(s) you need through that entity's reservation process. Review the pertinent information in the route/place details or on the land manager's website using the "Land Manager" link.

Anyone may suggest a new route/place, and suggest edits or add pictures for routes/places that already exist, using the Route/Place Updates, Images & Resources Form.

Leaders may request a new route/place using the Routes & Places edit form.

ALTERNATE ACTIVITY TITLES

Routes & Places that leave from the same starting point and utilize the same route but go to a few different destinations have alternate titles that leaders can pick from if the general title is not descriptive of the activity they are doing.

For example, if you are leading a trip and the route/place is listed as Camp Muir & Anvil Rock, but you're only going to Camp Muir there should be an option to change the title when editing your activity to reflect that you are only doing Camp Muir:

ACTIVITY TEMPLATES

Activity Templates are what we do. They contain default information for the activity and prerequisite badges for participants, leaders or instructors.

For a "course-related activity" (lectures, field trips, and optional course activities) you will select from among the activity templates available for  your course. Visit the Scheduling a course page for more information.

CLONE AN ACTIVITY

Some activities may be cloned, based on a route/place setting that allows activities at that location to be cloned. Remember that an activity is made from an activity template and a route/place, so the combination of these two elements needs to be clonable.

If there is a route/place that you think should be allowed to be cloned, send an email to office@cmc.org with a link to the route/place and why you think it should be allowed to be cloned.

Note: The cloning process does not do the conflict check, so we typically need to limit the Routes & Places where we allow activity cloning to facilities where a reservation is required as a means of doing the conflict check. Adding conflict checking to the activity cloning process requires significantly more website development in addition to the user interface design (i.e. how do we handle and display clones where there is a conflict?). The system we built handles the vast majority of cases where we want to create several clones at once, and we have an item on our list for developing a one-at-at-time clone that does the conflict check which is much easier than the multiple clone with conflict checking. 

HOW TO CLONE AN ACTIVITY

Step 1 Open the activity you want to clone.

• Most likely it's an activity you led in the past, and the best place is  your My Activities page.
• If not and it's a trip, clinic, or seminar use the Find Trips search (you may need to use the "Starting..." filter to find an activity that is in the past).
• If not and it's a course-related lecture or field trip, try the Find Schools & Classes search (you may need to use the "Starting..." filter to find an activity that is in the past).

Step 2 Click on "Actions"  in the yellow admin bar and choose "Clone."

Step 3 Complete the fields on the clone form.

Step 4 Click the "Add Another" button to add another clone. Repeat Steps 3 and 4 to add as many clones as needed.

Step 5 Click the "Clone"  button to create the clones.

Step 6 Update the newly added activities if needed.

EDIT AN ACTIVITY

To edit an activity, find the activity on your My Profile page's My Activities section or from an activity search. When viewing the activity, click on the "Edit" button in the orange admin panel on the left side of the screen.  You may change anything about the activity except its Activity Template. If you chose the wrong activity template (i.e. you chose Intermediate snowshoe instead of Basic) you'll need to contact Member Services to re-select the right one.

Learn more with our step-by-step guide here.

VIEW AND MANAGE ROSTERS

To view or manage a roster, first find the activity on your My Profile page's "My Activities" section or from an activity search.

ACTIVITY PARTICIPANTS

Anyone logged in may view the blue roster tab in 'view' mode of the activity. The names of all who have registered appear on the roster. Your name and avatar link directly to your profile. If you wish to make your membership "Private," you can go to Edit Profile and check the "Make My Membership Private" checkbox.

ACTIVITY LEADERS AND ADMINISTRATORS

Leaders and Group administrators may view more detailed information, download the activity roster, email participants, add people to the roster, and cancel people from the roster by clicking on the "Roster" button in the orange admin panel on the left-hand side of the screen.

There is also a "Review" link for each individual on an activity roster. This allows leaders to review and individual's activity history and participation notes directly from the roster. Viewing participation notes is helpful for trip planning, ensuring safety during a trip, as well as positive group dynamics.

If you need to change the Primary Leader, edit the activity and choose the new leader from the "Primary Leader" drop down.

Leaders, instructors, and group members with administrative privileges can view participation notes. If a participant has administrative privileges on a group/section, they can see their own participation notes. All other members who do not have administrative privileges cannot see participation notes. This is also true for course rosters.

To re-open activities, administrators have to change the state from "Closed" to "Published."

Learn more with our step-by-step guide here.

CLOSE AN ACTIVITY

Once an activity is complete, it will need to be closed by the activity leadership. Closing it allows you to:

• Add last minute registrations and record cancellations.
• Set the Trip Result (successful, turned around, or canceled). This will automatically set all Participant Results to that status.
  • If you got everyone back safely you can choose ‘Successful’ even if you didn’t make it to the initial target summit or endpoint.
• If a  participants needs a different status based on their performance, please click Edit or Cancel to set the Participant Result. There are seven choices: Successful, Turned Around, Needs Improvement, Failed/Unsafe, No-Show, Waitlisted, and Canceled.

• Make notes about participants via the Participation Notes (these notes are visible to other leaders so they can help plan safer trips and be prepared to accommodate students). These participant notes should be strictly objective. Examples could be "Student struggled with rock scrambling section, advised more scramble experience before future climbs." NOT "Student is horrible climber."
• Submit an incident report if there was a safety incident.
• Enter volunteer hours you and others spent leading the activity
• If your trip ended up having a different mileage or elevation than originally planned, you can edit the activity and update that information (see above). That happens on a different screen than where you close the activity.

To close an activity, find the activity on your My Profile page's My Activities section or from an activity search. When viewing the activity, click on the "Roster" button in the orange admin panel on the left side of the screen. Under "Set Activity Results", you can choose a Trip Result, then click the "Save" button.  

If someone should have a different Participant Result than the Trip Result, click Edit or Cancel next to their name and select the appropriate result. Additionally, you can write a note about their participation in the Participation Notes section.  Once the roster accurately reflects each participant's status, scroll to the bottom and click Close Activity.

To find a list of your open activities, please visit the "My Activities" area of your CMC profile, and use the checkboxes to filter to show only open activities, as shown below.

Learn more with our step-by-step guide here.

CANCEL AN ACTIVITY

To cancel an activity use the "Closing an Activity" process above, choosing "Canceled" from the "Trip Results" drop down menu and click save. Then click the "Close" button down at the bottom. Closing an activity is required for canceled and successful activities alike. If an activity that has been canceled is not closed it will continue to present a route/place conflict if someone else tries to schedule a trip at the same location.
Learn more with our step-by-step guide here.

FILE AN INCIDENT REPORT

If there was an incident or accident on your activity, please file an Incident Report. When reporting, please give as much detail about the incident as possible. Do report even seemingly minor "near misses." If you have any doubt, do send us a report... it might just help prevent someone else from having a similar incident or worse.

To file an incident report, find the activity on your My Profile page's My Activities section or from an activity search. When viewing the activity's details, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "Report an Incident."

Video Tutorials

• How to Create a Trip Part I
• How to Create a Trip Part II
• How to Manage your Roster
• How to Edit, Cancel & Close a Trip
• What is a Route & Place
• How to Create & Update Routes & Places

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO SCHEDULE ACTIVITIES ONLINE?

1) Leaders are protected under The CMC insurance policy - if an activity is NOT listed online, the leader is NOT covered by the organization's insurance policy.

2) It ensures we don't have multiple CMC groups on the same route or at the same venue. Please note that if either a stand-alone trip or a course-related activity is scheduled the route conflict check will still occur, it will still show a conflict if you try and schedule a stand alone trip. The type of activity does not matter. This reduces our impact on the places we visit. 

3) Our Member Services team relies on the accuracy of  our website to answer questions that come in via email or over the phone. We can provide the best customer service if we have access to correct information.

4) It helps facilitate action should an emergency occur. Precious time can be lost  if an emergency has taken place and you do not have emergency contact information accessible  for our response team to utilize. Please include all participants and instructors on your rosters.

5) For courses, it makes it clear to the participants what they have next on their schedules because it shows up in the "My Courses" and "My Activities" area of their profile page. This helps prevent last-minute cancellations due to folks in courses double-booking themselves.

6) Reporting purposes as detailed below:

• Leader recognition - Our leaders donate huge amounts of times to our programs and we want to recognize those contributions.
• Matching funds and grants - Being able to report volunteer hours more accurately is also incredibly powerful for Colorado Mountain Club getting grants and for members getting their employers to match the time they donate with financial contributions.
• Incident reporting - This allows reliable documentation and analysis for future learning in case of an emergency or incident.
• Land Managers - we have specific permitting requirements and need to know how many groups, are going where, so we can effectively petition for more user days(for you!) and comply with legal regulations.

View our full FAQ here.