Author: Rolf Herbert Page 18 of 19

This is one in a series of posts where I will be discussing the new features and changes we have built into TeamKinetic Version 6 – a volunteer management system that will make your life easier.

As the size of the events TeamKinetic is being used for have increased, so have the complexities involved in making sure there are enough volunteers for all roles and that they are suitably qualified.

We have introduced a number of new features to aid administrators and providers in choosing their volunteers, such as:

a new experience field for each opportunity
the recording of a volunteer’s movements in and out of sessions on an opportunity.

we have also introduced an entirely new sort of opportunity.

Previously it was always assumed that when a volunteer joined a session they were accepted on that session unless they were told otherwise. For large events, this led to an over-subscription to certain sessions as volunteers could not indicate which sessions they were able to do but were joining the sessions they wanted to do. Now administrators have the ability to set an opportunity to be an application opportunity.

When a volunteer looks at an opportunity that is set to in “application” mode they are informed that they should indicate all the sessions they are able to do. Once the administrator has organised volunteers into each session they can mark that opportunity as confirmed.

At this point, all the volunteers are informed which sessions they have been allocated to. If a volunteer is unable to attend a session the administrator has the history of that session available and can quickly select a volunteer that indicated they could do that session but was not allocated to that session in the first draft.

This is a major new feature that will aid immensely in improving communication between the administrators and the volunteers and reducing the time it takes to even out the available volunteers across an entire event or opportunity.

You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

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Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it! We’ll even send you a little thank you.

TeamKinetic to become the volunteer platform for Greater Manchester.

By Rolf Herbert

On 9th February 2015

In News & Views, Press Releases

It is with great pleasure that TeamKinetic can announce they are now the volunteer platform for Greater Sport. Working with the County Sports Partnership to extend our hugely successful work with Manchester City Council. Greater Sport requested a volunteer service that offered the people of Greater Manchester more choice whilst allowing the Local Authorities a level of local administration and control.

As a County Sports Partnership, Greater Sport had identified how successful Manchester City Council had been in recruiting and deploying Volunteers both for their clubs and their major events program. They identified how as a CSP area volunteers could benefit from seamless sharing of volunteer opportunities across the Local Authorities whilst also providing the level of local insight demanded by the ten local authorities of Greater Manchester.

This did pose a number of major technical challenges, as each Local Authority had different requirements and were able to offer significantly different levels of support to their volunteers. TeamKinetic worked closely with GreaterSport to develop a workable solution and we are proud to announce our Pilot volunteer platform project is up and running with plans for a much wider rollout early into the new year.

It is ours and Greater Sport’s belief, that this new volunteer platform will allow the generous and sports-mad people of Greater Manchester to access some of the finest events and clubs the UK has to offer.

You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

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Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it! We’ll even send you a little thank you.

Opening the lid on TeamKinetic version 6 as it enters testing phase

By Rolf Herbert

On 19th January 2015

In Technical Updates

TeamKinetic version 6 has entered its testing phase and will be ready for release shortly. We’re very excited about this release and are thinking of naming it something other than a simple number increment as its a huge release and represents something of a milestone for TeamKinetic.

We’ve now got an ever-growing user base and engaged volunteers and the number of opportunities available has expanded rapidly. The software has also been used in more varied situations and types of organisations and we have got some fantastic feedback and ideas that has sparked quite a few innovations in the new TeamKinetic. I’ll be writing a series of posts talking about specific new features but here are a few quick facts about version 6.

Upcoming Features

We’ve committed 175 changes and bug fixes, ranging from tiny typos to entirely new features and workflows.
The CSS and styling has been rewritten to be more responsive and to accommodate the larger screens that are the norm.
A brand new media management page for looking after images and files that you can attach to emails.
New inline editable system emails for things like volunteer registrations and joining opportunities.
Approximately 5500 lines of code have been changed or added.
Simple binary thumbs up or down feedback
Integration with the Mandrill email service to help increase the success rate for email delivery and open rates.
New Google analytics service developed in house to track web views and visitors.
Custom URLs for your events

There are lots more features to tell you about but you can always take a sneaky peek on our Beta site.

You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

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Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it! We’ll even send you a little thank you.

TeamKinetic Version 5.2 Update

By Rolf Herbert

On 9th October 2014

In TeamKinetic Features, Technical Updates

You will be glad to hear that the geek squad (developers) have managed to do it again by squeezing out a final TeamKinetic Version 5.2 release before the much-anticipated Version 6 release.

TeamKinetic Version 5.2 offers a couple of very useful updates for administrators and volunteers in regards to custom fields and search functionality (see below).

The geeks have since been sent back down into the basement with a celebratory glass of diluted Vimto and a Sega Mega-drive with a simple instruction…..Complete version 6 and you will also get a game.

Version 6 Coming Soon…

Additional Custom Fields

For those of you who are now familiar with the custom fields, they allow administrators to add customised questions to the volunteer’s registration screen. This was originally limited to questions which required a TEXT, NUMERIC or YES/NO answers. This latest update allows you to also add questions that require the following types of answers: Drop down fields, Selection Fields.

Drop down fields allow the administrator to add questions which require the volunteer to select a single answer from a set list of answers. And selection fields allow the volunteer to select none, one or multiple options from a set list of answers.

Administrators can add custom fields by going to SETTINGS > CUSTOM REGISTRATION FIELDS from the menu.

All questions are editable and viewable by both volunteers and administrators, but please try to keep your custom fields to a minimum as the more fields you add, the more likely volunteers will be put off by the length of the registration form.

Volunteer Search Function Update

When volunteers search for opportunities using a keyword the system now also searches provider names.

For example if a provider called Nottingham Netball Team create an opportunity called referee, and the volunteer searches for opportunities using the word ‘Netball’. The updated function will now search opportunity name and also provider names for the word ‘Netball’.

The search function has also been optimised to speed up the return of your search results.

Version 6 Coming Soon…

That is all in terms of changes, but please let us know if you come across any issues with the functions mentioned above, and as always we will be delighted for any feedback.

You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

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Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it! We’ll even send you a little thank you.

Quickly remove volunteers from individual sessions

By Rolf Herbert

On 12th December 2013

In TeamKinetic Features, Technical Updates

At TeamKinetic we’re continually finding ways to evolve our volunteer management system to make volunteering easier for everyone. This new improvement revolves around how you can remove volunteers from individual sessions on an opportunity.

Previously, you had to click a button to remove a volunteer, wait for the page to refresh and then find that slot again if you wanted to remove a second volunteer.

Now, with our new Events-type opportunities, volunteers are much more likely to be moved around sessions and opportunities as space allows so we needed a much quicker way to remove volunteers.

We did think about doing it via checkboxes and a button. Yet in the end, we decided to go for an AJAX implementation that removed the volunteer when you click the button and then removes the volunteers panel once it has been successful, leaving you on the same page and location on that page to carry on.

Work smarter, use TeamKinetic.

You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

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Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it! We’ll even send you a little thank you.

Revamped TeamKinetic Training and Courses Function

By Rolf Herbert

On 4th December 2013

In TeamKinetic Features, Technical Updates

We’ve rebuilt the TeamKinetic training and courses module from the ground up to allow for a lot more flexibility when creating training events and courses.

You can now create a course with multiple, individually administrated sessions. So for example, a course could run every Monday for a month. Previously, you could only define how many days a course ran for, not which days and not over non-consecutive days.

In addition, you can now upload an application form for your users to download when viewing and there is more room for adding prerequisites and describing the training or course more fully.

All this extra session information is, of course, displayed to the user who can now see exactly what times and what days the course is running over and can also search for courses or training in specific areas.

Cheers, and keep volunteering!

You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

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Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it! We’ll even send you a little thank you.

Improved layout for providers viewing volunteers

By Rolf Herbert

On 2nd September 2013

In News & Views, TeamKinetic Features, Technical Updates

We’ve recently improved the layout of the volunteer session screen for TeamKinetic that providers use to leave feedback.

This screen now summarises the volunteer’s participation across all sessions at the top of this page, along with telling the provider how many volunteers are on each session as well as the session date and time.

This facility is great for opportunities with many sessions and gives a quick visual aid to discovering which sessions a volunteer is currently signed up for. In addition, providers can download a CSV file for each opportunity which also lists this information, giving them a breakdown of each session and listing all the volunteers on that session.

You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

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Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it! We’ll even send you a little thank you.

TeamKinetic Volunteer Search Tools: New Ways To Find Volunteers

By Rolf Herbert

On 5th August 2013

In TeamKinetic Features, Technical Updates

Being able to find volunteers within a few clicks streamlines the volunteer management process. TeamKinetic has added a few new volunteer search tools to help make life easier for you.

Across the top of the volunteer search page, you will now find links for each letter of the alphabet that will return all the volunteers whose name starts with that letter. It’s a great way to quickly find a volunteer whose name you know.

You can also search for some quick groups such as the top 25 rated volunteers or those with the most hours logged.

Give our volunteer search tools a try at the demo site for TeamKinetic.

You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

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Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it! We’ll even send you a little thank you.

New Mapping Functions

By Rolf Herbert

On 20th July 2013

In TeamKinetic Features, Technical Updates

Seeing all your volunteers and opportunities on a map is a great way to see your geographical reach and impact. Let’s take a look at the new mapping functions available within the TeamKinetic volunteer management system.

The mapping functions provided with VolunteerKinetic have proved very popular and give a quick visual report on where your opportunities and volunteers are located.

We have been steadily improving this feature and in the latest version 4 release we have included the ability to map volunteers from within groups.

Administrators have been able to create groups to assign volunteers to for a few versions now. This makes it much easier to contact certain groups or restrict opportunities to certain cohorts of volunteers. From version 4 onwards they can now also map these volunteer groups.

You can check out this feature using the demo installation of TeamKinetic.

You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

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Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it! We’ll even send you a little thank you.

Unified Hour Logging Screen and Prompt

By Rolf Herbert

On 12th July 2013

In TeamKinetic Features, Technical Updates

The latest version of the TeamKinetic volunteer management system has a number of improvements to help the volunteers log hours easily and improve the circle of volunteer management from finding and joining opportunities to recording hours and rewarding volunteers.

On the volunteer homepage, there is now an animated hint box that alerts a volunteer if they have outstanding hours to log.

This will slide in from the left highlighting the link the volunteer presses to log these outstanding hours. The log hours page now shows the volunteer every opportunity that has outstanding hours left to log. It gives the volunteer the chance to either log all the hours for each opportunity, or selectively log hours for individual sessions on each opportunity.

A new feature also allows them to log the fact that they could not attend a past session. This is recorded along with zero logged hours and can be reported back to the administrators to build up a reliability profile of each volunteer. The provider can also mark a session as not attended which has the same effect whilst also zeroing any hours the volunteer might have already logged for that session.

You can try out these features at the TeamKinetic demo site.

You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

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Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it! We’ll even send you a little thank you.