TeamKinetic is pleased to announce on Sunday, 22 April 2018, the latest update of our volunteer management software went live.Combining the Volunteer, Access and Club Kinetic into one singular application. TeamKinetic V 1.0 brings with it a host of new features and functionality, in this blog we look to explain specifically what they are:
Why TeamKinetic v 1.0?
We have now fully integrated Volunteer, Club and AccessKinetic and our old version numbering was based on our VolunteerKientic releases. So it’s time for a new beginning.
What should I look out for in this release?
This is a huge update with great additions to TeamKinetic’s functionality as well as under the hood changes to improve speed and reliability.
Look out for TeamLeaders, volunteer referencing, our new ‘Focus’ design, Android and iOS apps, more customisation and GDPR compliance.
Check out the new features on the demo site before they go live on your site
To access the demo site as an admin click here
From here you can see the new layouts, features and improvements.
Data Protection and Security
GDPR changes
You can see a summary of the changes we have applied for GDPR here
Information Governance ToolKit
As part of our commitment to the highest standards of data protection and information governance, TeamKinetic has undergone extensive self-assessment and external assessment by the NHS Information Governance team.
Apps and mobile
iOS and Android
As the march to mobile’s dominance in how many people interact with digital technologies continues, TeamKinetic have been working hard to catch up with this trend and provide an effective user experience available across all mobile devices. We have created a single mobile app that all volunteers can access.
Version 1 of the iOS and Android App is now available for your volunteers from the Apple App store and the Google Play store. From your mobile device, you can access the app store and SEARCH “TeamKinetic” and you will be presented with our app to download for FREE.
Below you can see how this should look. The Apps are only accessible to your existing users. All new users must create an account via the website before they will be able to use the app. This is just for Volunteers at the moment, but still includes all the basic features you would expect including searching for opportunities and logging hours etc.
This is our first attempt in the mobile space so as always we welcome your feedback on your experience as we will look to improve this over the next 12 months.
We plan to prompt users to download the app when they log onto the site. 
TeamKinetic now on Google Play and iOS APP Store.
Design and usability improvements
Volunteer opportunity management area
Making it easy for a volunteer to manage their opportunities continues to be of the greatest importance to our design process as this significantly influences the volunteer’s engagement with the site. We have looked to bring all elements of opportunity management into a single area so a volunteer can easily join/ leave sessions, leave feedback, log hours, see a map of the opportunity location and join the opportunity Chat.
Using the new focus layout, volunteers can quickly see the navigation and actionable areas of the page.
More customisable emails
It has long been our ambition to give you the ability to edit all emails that the system sends. Over the next few months, you will notice the editable ‘customise emails’ list will grow as we expand this function.
Combined viewing and editing volunteer profile page
Volunteer information is now neatly and logically situated on a side menu, allowing easy access to all their information. We have removed the EDIT button and instead made the fields editable directly from each page.
Combined viewing and editing opportunity page
We have replaced the opportunities green menu bar and replaced it with a slicker side menu, removing the need to scroll down endlessly to find what you are looking for.
Shorter improved menu for volunteers
In design, less is often much more. This is why we continue to strive to reduce clutter and simplify the volunteer experience. It has been our aim to have all key volunteer functions only one click away from the front page.
The Volunteer front page acts as a snapshot of everything that volunteer needs to know. This will continue to be a work in progress as we look to improve the user experience, but this is the largest overhaul to the volunteer pages since we started some 10 years ago. As always are keen to hear your feedback.
Full set of sharing icons for volunteers to share opportunity details to social media
Where possible we have tried to make it simple for volunteers and providers to share their opportunities via existing social media, leveraging their existing audience reach.
“If you want more volunteers you need to ask!” is the simple advice when it comes to volunteer recruitment. Building an audience for your opportunities using social media makes asking even easier.
Simplified volunteer qualification and document upload and review
Many opportunities require volunteers to hold specific certified skills or qualifications, these might be achieved through in-house training or awarded by an external body. We have simplified how a volunteer can record their qualifications and training.
We have also added the ability for Admin users to be able to add training and qualifications on behalf of volunteers and lock these documents so volunteers can not remove or alter them.
Each volunteer now has a single page where they can quickly review all relevant certification and training.
New Features
References
References…References…References!!! The bane of many volunteer managers lives. All that paper flowing around, and waiting for people to respond can be a nightmare.
TeamKinetic now offers a complete digital solution, allowing you to create your own custom reference forms which are automatically emailed out to referees. When the referee completes the form, they are automatically attached to the volunteer ready for you to review.
This mean no more referees getting bombarded with the same referee form, as they can be reused for other opportunities. You can also create higher level reference forms for more demanding opportunities, allowing you to customise your questions in relation to the role.
Say goodbye to references stuffed in filing cabinets and say hello to the digitisation of your entire volunteer reference system.
TeamLeaders
Teams of volunteers often have a leader, someone who has been volunteering for years, the ‘go to’ person when things go wrong. For many organisations this person is a very valuable asset to your volunteer programme, and often knows what is happening on the ground more than the administrator or the provider of the opportunity.
You can now mark these people as TeamLeaders within the system, giving them a superior status, and more importantly allowing them to confirm when volunteers have attended. This automatically logs the hours on behalf of the provider allowing a more accurate representation (in real time) of what is happening on each volunteer opportunity.
Maximum sessions per event
When an exciting event is added to your system there is often a rush by volunteers to get on the best opportunities, as many volunteers will be aware that they may not be accepted for every one they apply for, they often try and join many more than they can practically manage.
For this reason we have built a ‘Max Limit’ function into each event, allowing you to stipulate how many sessions each volunteer can join on a single event.
Map view when searching opportunities
Over the past few months we have had a number of requests to make it more simple to find opportunities based around a particular location. The addition of a map view whilst searching opportunities offers a very effective visual tool to help volunteers look for opportunities that are near them.
Opportunity chat rooms
Do your volunteers use facebook groups or WhatsApp to communicate amongst themselves? This can pose some potential risks to you and your organisation. To understand more about these risks read our article on the subject here. To mitigate the need to use external sites such as these we have added an “Opportunity” chat room. This is an area where volunteers can talk to other volunteers or the provider on an opportunity.
User safety is of paramount importance so we have equipped the chat room with language filters that limit the use of offensive language, as well as users having the ability to report offensive or inappropriate comments. Only volunteers on that particular opportunity can use these rooms, so access is strictly managed and people can be removed or blocked from commenting if they are not using the chat room in good faith.
Volunteers do not automatically share any personal data with each other in the chat unlike with other social media.
This function can be disabled for your application if you do not wish to use it, we want to improve the social side of volunteering in a safe setting and we saw this as an important first step.
Minimum notice for leaving a session
This particular feature has been under debate for a long time and has been asked for by a number of customers. As an administrator, you will now be able to set a minimum notice period that a volunteer must give if they intend to leave an opportunity.
For example, volunteers will not be able to leave an opportunity less than 48 hours before it takes place. Instead, if they attempt to do that they will be presented with a pop-up message on the screen that says if you wish to leave this opportunity “please contact the provider on Tel no…..” And the provider can remove the volunteer from the session, but the volunteer will be prevented from removing themselves.
Please be aware of the unintended consequence of enforcing this feature. Volunteers who can’t leave the sessions may just not turn up, and you may be unaware and under-resourced as a provider.
New sharing page for administrators to track what opportunities are being shared and from where
You can now see which systems are sharing opportunities on your search pages, and how many opportunities they are sharing. Ideal for when you want to find out information about a particular external opportunity.
Reporting
Additional reports and quick stats
We have compiled some new exciting statistics for you and revamped the reporting library. You can now see how a full breakdown of how many volunteers are engaged with the system including; How many have joined at least one opportunity, how many have joined and logged hours and how many have joined multiple sessions.
The reporting page is also broken down into sections by using a side menu, making it much easier to navigate. And it includes a handy DATE RANGE facility, allowing you to integrate particular periods of time.
Zooming capabilities on web analytics graph
The Web Analytics reports now include the ability to select a specific date range, allowing you to pin point particular time periods when you have done promotional drives or canvasing, so you can see in more detail what impact your work has had in regards to people using your system.
Identifying inactive volunteers
The following definitions have been developed to create better clarity
For some time, Admin users have been asking how they can easily identify the level of participation volunteers have with your volunteer programmes. To help simplify this process we have developed the following definitions to describe a volunteers level of participation:
A “Converted” is volunteers who have joined one or more opportunity sessions.
An “Active” is a volunteer that has attended and logged hours for one or more opportunity sessions.
A “Repeat” is a volunteer who has joined sessions on two or more opportunity sessions.
TeamKinetic hopes you are as excited about these changes as we are.
If you have any additional questions or would like to find out more, please feel free to get in touch with one of the team via email or phone us on 0161 914 5757.
Please note this list is comprehensive but not exhaustive.
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