We understand it is very frustrating to find jobs disappear quickly even if you feel you respond to notifications immediately. If your district is competitive (too many subs, too few jobs), this is more likely to occur. Also, SubAssistant doesn't give you "advance notice" (notifications before jobs are listed online) nor can it "reserve" jobs for you. When SubAssistant sends a notification that a job is available, it is likely the same job is available to many substitutes at the same time, all who have the same opportunity as you to accept jobs. Also, throughout a school year, competition for jobs fluctuates, making job assignments easier or more difficult to secure.
When you see a message that the job is not available, it means the job was not available to accept at the time SubAssistant made the attempt or the job was already accepted by another sub. A job can become temporarily unavailable while the Absence Management system is accessing or modifying the job assignment.
If you're not having much luck accepting jobs, try to accept the job several times. It won't hurt anything, just be sure to allow the web page (if you're accepting from a text message or email) to load completely. When attempting to accept a job, try to accept the job immediately, but if you're not successful, wait five to ten seconds then try again. We recommend repeating this process for up to one minute before determining that the job is actually no longer available.
Also, it's important to know that SubAssistant checks your Absence Management account for available jobs once per minute (no automated system is allowed to check your Absence Management account more than once per minute) so, this means a job could be listed online for up to a minute before SubAssistant sees it, or it could be listed for one second before SubAssistant sees it. Jobs can be posted at any time, so the gap between the time a job is listed on your account and the time SubAssistant sees it is a matter of luck.
We know you won't always be able to, but if you are able, sign into your Absence Management account after receiving a notification and while attempting to accept a job. You may be able to better see what's happening with listed jobs and might have better luck accepting. SubAssistant is accurate and fast when accepting jobs, but it'll never beat the intelligence of a human who can better understand what is happening.
If you’re concerned you are receiving notifications too late, please see the other knowledge base articles that address related concerns:
See also: