Only a month since the last interim release and here we are again!
As you can tell from the version number bump this is a mostly minor release but there are a few goodies in there.
Email Failure Reports
Our Enterprise level customers can now see a report of the last month’s email failures. This includes hard bounces, where the email was returned for some reason and could not be delivered, rejects where the email address does not exist, and spam responses where the user has reported the email as spam.
In the case of rejects and hard bounces, the volunteer or provider email is marked as INVALID and in the case of spam reports they are marked as DO NOT SEND EMAILS. In both cases the email address will no longer be sent any bulk group, or weekly emails.
We are working on including the email content and subect so that you know which email raised the error and failed.
Event Area Updated
The event area has now been updated to match the look and functionality of the volunteer and opportunity search and manage pages. It looks a lot easier on the eye and for those of you that run a lot of events, you can now easily search them.
Storage Improvements
We’ve mow moved nearly all of the image and document storage to Amazon’s S3 which should improve load and caching times for images like the opportunity images, event images, downloadable documents etc.
There will not be any visible changes and it should be totally transparent to our customers.
Club Functionality Integrated
For those enterprise customers that use ClubKinetic, this has all been integrated into the main top menu bar under the, obvious heading, clubs!
The pages have also been updated to match the layout and functionality of the main areas.
New Qualifications Search Filter
For those customers that use volunteer qualifications you can now filter your volunteers on their uploaded qualifications.
Refreshed and Update News Area
For the administrators the news area has been refreshed and now looks and acts the same as the main areas of the application.
More Sortable Tables
We’ve added some simple sorting to tables that are not paged through many records, for instance the open opportunities table on the admin dashboard. Just click the column header to sort and each time you click the sort direction will be reversed.
There are also the normal smaller bug fixes and visual immprovements throughout the application. Many thanks to everyone that opens support tickets with ideas or lets us know if something isn’t working properly.
You’ll already be on the new release by the time you read this, so enjoy and get in touch if you have any comments.
Hot on the heels of 2.09 from December we have another interim release for you. This one focuses on improvements to the expenses functionality after feedback and suggestions from our fantastic users. As always though, there is plenty of stuff to talk about.
Volunteer Expenses Improvements
Volunteers now have a few more options; they can update their bank details at anytime, delete unprocessed expense claims, and quickly view any current claims. Additionally if the claim has not yet been processed the volunteer can also update any of the details. We’ve also adjusted the layout so it looks better on small and mobile screens.
Administrator Expense Improvements
Administrators can now create a new expense claim for any volunteer without impersonating them. Just tap in the name of the volunteer and complete the form, dead easy.
When exporting the expense details to a CSV, we now include a link to the uplaoded receipt file if it exists, which makes it easier to pass the details on to a different department.
The volunteer’s bank details are now also visible and editable on their management page. All processed claims when marked as paid, are stored along with the bank account details that were recorded at that time, so you will have a nice audit trail if accounts change.
New Custom Emails
We’ve added a couple of new custom email and also split the emails up into three tabs; sent to volunteers, providers and admins.
You can now edit the password reset email to add more information and instruciton if your volunteers are struggling. This email was previously sent but was not customisable.
We’ve also added a brand new process for when a volunteer removes themselves (see below) from the system and we’ve added a custom email to go along with that process.
New Restore Feature For Volunteers
Previously when a volunteer deleted their own account they were taken back to the homepage and their data and login details were immediately removed.
Now the new custom email (see above) is sent and the volunteer is given some information about what happens now; when their data is destroyed etc. Most importantly, the email contains a special link that the volunteer can use to restore their account if they change their mind, or in case of a mistake. The volunteer has 48 hours to restore the account before its removed.
More Customisable Registration Fields
We’ve added the data sharing confirmation questions to those that are customisable from the super admin pages. So you can now update the label and the tool tip for these fields.
We’ve also improved the tool tip recognition code for your customised registration fields so they show more effectively now.
Dual Language Support for Custom Questions
We did previously support dual language for custom questions but now super admins can edit and adjust all their own custom questions at anytime from the same interface as the main language questions.
Dual Language Support for Customised Registration Questions
Additionally super admins can now also adjust the text, labels and tool tips for all the required registration questions instead of relying on the fixed translations.
Provider Search Speed Improvements
You may have noticed the provider search page was slowing down and took a number of seconds to return the first set of providers. These slowdowns when using the same database query as previous are due to table size effects and data complexity. The same query works fine upto a tipping point, then its slows down precipitously. The query has been redesigned and is now nice and snappy again.
As this is an interim release, we dont have the beta test period we employ with our larger release. This means this release will be hitting your browsers this week. Get in touch if you have any questions or feedback.
Our sincere apologies for the length of the outage reported today, we always strive to give our customers the best possible service and we failed today to identify and resolve the issue quickly enough.
What Happened?
From approximately 08:30 on Thursday 30th December our services started reporting connectivity issues. These increased in severity until at approx 09:15 it was not possible to connect to any of our services. At this point our main network connections were reporting a network cable unplugged error.
The issue was restricted to wider network access and at no time was data loss an issue, the services continued to run successfully and data integrity was retained.
Full service was restored at approximately 13:30.
Why Did This Happen?
A network switch was reporting spikes in packets sent by our services and eventually hit the maximum threshold for packet traffic within 30 minutes. This activated the StormGuard feature of the network which helps to prevent malicious traffic taking over the network by isolating the offending section of the network.
No corresponding increase in traffic was reported and general network traffic generated by our services was within normal limits.
The switch was reset but would repeatedly trigger StormGuard and block access to our services.
What Did We Do?
Initially we requested that all cabling was checked, and this was found to be in place and seemingly active. We then checked our network drivers and reset all connections. It was suspected at this point that there may be a hardware failure of our own network cards and so a new server with new network cards was provisioned in case we needed to move data if we could not restore connections.
Whilst the new server was provisioned we started to audit connection points further up the network chain, that are out of our direct control, with our provider. Eventually a network switch was identified as blocking traffic from our servers.
Once the switch was identified as the cause of the outage, but no corresponding issue was found on the servers we requested that the network switch was switched to its redundant backup partner.
The switch is a deep level switch shared by other independent services and so the switch to the redundant partner takes time to effect.
Once the partner switch was brought online and the block removed all services were restored and all data fully available.
What Are We Still Doing?
We are monitoring network traffic between our servers and the switch and have instigated an audit of the server logs and access to rule out any possibility of malicious programs or access.
What Could Have Prevented This Issue and What Now?
We did not identify the ultimate cause quickly enough. The server interface does not include any indication of this block that is applied further upstream. Our service provider has already prepared some guidance on how to identify this issue in the future and is looking at ways to include StormGuard notifications in the user interface.
This issue was not caused by a bug or misconfiguration but a hardware failure. We could not have prevented the hardware failure, they will happen eventually, but as we were not aware of the potentially blocking actions of StormGuard it took us longer than necessary to restore access.
We will be updating our disaster recovery procedure to include making checks on upstream switches and other network hardware in the case that there appears to be network hardware issues with our servers.
We have had very few outages in our history. This is the first major outage that affected all customers and was persistent for more than a few minutes. Our last unexpected downtime was reported on March 20th 2021 and lasted for less than 3 minutes.
You can view our current and historical status report at https://teamkinetic.statuspage.io/
Another great value interim release for you all, and only a few weeks since the last one! This one is all software based, no hardware or infrastructure updates, which is much better for my health and sanity =)
Update Feedback from Volunteer Dashboard
Providers and admins can now update a volunteers feedback from the feedback section on the volunteer dashboard page. Just hit the update link and you can save it right there – no refresh required.
New Translation Engine
For those customers (Enterprise only) that use an alternative language to English (get in touch if you are interested) we have now brought all translations in-house to our own replacement engine.
This has a number of advantages; we can update and add new replacements fast, translator marked Super Admins can provide translations right there in the Super Admin area, and they can request new replacements to be added.
Using our own replacement and translation engine has increased the page load time for translated pages by four fold, an excellent result.
Send Custom Newsletters Whenever You Want
The bulk email system has been updated to use the same HTML wrapper as the weekly newsletter, so all your bulk emails will now look better and have more branding elements for your organisation.
When creating bulk emails you can now select any number of opportunities to be included in the email. You have the option of including the events that week and if you want to show the volunteer’s statistics across the top. These are all displayed in exactly the same way as within the newsletter so its now possible to send a newsletter type email to any of your volunteers, for any of your opportunities, whenever you like!
We have also rearrange and refactored the preview and draft buttons so you can now send a preview email to your email instantly and save a draft copy without leaving the page. We also now update the saved draft each time you hit the save draft button, rather than creating a new draft.
Expenses Module – First Phase
This is another great Enterprise only option to help you manage your expenses. You’ve been able to mark an opportunity as expenses provided for quite a few versions now. This new module closes the loop for expenses.
Volunteers can select applicable opportunities from their dashboard, upload a receipt, an explanation of what the expense is for, and the amount they are claiming.
Admins get an alert when a new claim is submitted by a volunteer and can manage them all from a simple interface.
The admin can view the receipt, adjust the claim amount, and update the claim status. A full history of changes and notes is maintained and viewable underneath the main claim.
We have also added some additional profile data points for UK bank account and sort codes which are only requested and stored if a volunteer makes an expenses claim. One day we hope to create some in app payment methods but we’ve yet to find one that has been acceptable to the majority of our customers yet…but we are still looking!
The managed expenses module is an enterprise only feature. Administrators can switch this module on and off and allow trusted providers to be able to mark an opportunity with the managed expenses flag. The managed expenses runs alongside the regular expenses flag, so anyone can still mark an opportunity as paying expenses, and this will show in the search filters and opp description, but only enterprise admins and trsuted providers will be able to add this managed aspect to those expenses.
Front page customisations
Our new front end (if you are not using it we suggest switching it on as volunteers seem to prefer it!) has some extra customisations, and now they are all also available in your chosen alternative language (enterprise only).
If you can’t find a suitable image, then it will fill the background with some of your chosen colours with a subtle animation effect so it will still look great even without an image.
Accreditation Improvements
We’ve standardised all the accreditation badge prints now so there will be zero variability between badges no matter how you print them.
We’ve also added the help and support menu to the accreditation menus so you can open support tickets straight from there without having to return the main volunteer menu.
The event access screen now accommodates the full 12 possible areas for each event and correctly displays access for each selectable zone.
There have also been quite a few small improvements and enhancements to the UI/UX as we harmonise it with the main application.
You can try out these features as normal on the beta site before the interim gets pushed out on 5th December. We’ll be notifying everyone and getting together some training videos and materials to make sure you can hit the ground running.
Closing Opportunities Added to Dashboard
Opportunities that are closing within 7 days are now shown to providers in their dashboard under the tasks panel.
These have been available on the administrators dashboard for a little while now but have now been brought across to the provider dashboard as well.
Happy Birthday Message for Volunteers
Just a little message on their dashboard when it is their birthday, wishing them the best and thanking them for volunteering.
We’ll be adding more life events to these notifications over time, like anniversaries of them registering, joining their first opportunity, logging their first hours etc.
Restore Recently Deleted Volunteers
We receive quite a few support tickets where administrators have accidentally deleted a volunteer, or deleted the wrong volunteer.
So we have implemented a restore feature that will work for 48 hours after the deletion. You can use the new DELETED filter in the volunteer search page to find all the volunteers that have been deleted in the last 48 hours. To restore a volunteer just hit the checkbox next to their name and then use the CHANGE STATUS bulk action in the bottom blue bar to restore them.
Once the 48 hour period has expired you will not be able to restore that volunteer. We can restore volunteers after this period for upto 30 days from cold storage backups but there is a charge.
Administators cannot restore a volunteer that has removed themselves, for obvious reasons; however all their hours are anonymised and retained.
Anonymised Hours from Deleted Vounteers Included
You can now see your anonymised hours from deleted volunteers in the quick stats area of the reporting pages. It combines the totals and highlights the total from deleted volunteers in brackets.
The date of removal is used as the hour logged date.
We have had a busy few weeks and have rolled out another interim release packed full of useful changes and updates suggested by our users.
Additionally we have also updated our infrastructure over the last few weekends with minimal distruption. All our servers and virtual environments are now on the latest server operating system and our database has also been updated to a new version. We’ve also thrown some more hardware at the application and I hope you have noticed some snappier responses.
Custom emails for opportunities
You can now add a custom email to an opportunity that is sent when a volunteer joins INSTEAD of the universal email (the universal email remains accessible and customisable as before). So if you have a special message to give to volunteers that join certain opportunities here is your chance.
It’s super easy to use and access, quick check box to say you want to use a custom email then you will see the normal editor window where you can craft the email.
Administrators can add an attachment to these emails from the normal list of email attachments you are used to seeing in the bulk email and email customisation areas.
Remember, this email is sent INSTEAD of the universal one, so be sure to include full details.
Custom email for role applications
Just as above, now when super admins are creating or editing roles they can add a custom email that is sent when a volunteer applies for that role.
It all works identically as for custom opportunity emails, and once again is sent instead of the universal email.
Close applications for an opportunity
Admins and providers can now hit a button on the APPLICANTS tab for apply first opportunties which will close applications for the opportunity without closing the opportunity. This enables already accepted volunteers to carry on as normal, and access new sessions, without attracting any new applicants.
Opportunity image enforcement option
Super Admins can now elect to switch of the mandatory upload of images for each opportunity. This option is OFF be default.
Information about the opportunity the intial role application was for
When a volunteer first applies for a role we record which opportunity this was on. We used this to enable the auto application to the opportunity if it was required, once the role applicaiton was complete and successful.
We have now started to show this information on the role management page so you know which opportunity the volunteer was originally interested in.
The volunteer also gets this information, along with a link to the original opportunity so they don’t need to hunt around to find it.
New and fixed reports
We have added a pie chart showing the proportion if volunteers on events and opportunities that have reported as having special needs or disabilities, downloadable of course.
The pie chart showing the ethnicity of volunteers on opportunities and events was not using distinct volunteers, but all the joined sessions. This has been fixed and is now accurate and the total volunteers will match the number given in the summary for volunteers.
Improved profile editing for volunteers
The layout when editing the profile for a volunteer has been tidied up and the various layouts for external volunteers, provider editing pages have also been improved.
We have split out the location aspects of their profile from their personal details, so you can update and edit independantly. This will help where location details have not been recorded properly but you still need to update other aspects of their profile.
Feedback report is now downloadable
Added a download button to the feedback report page so you can grab a full list of all the feedback at anypoint.
New filter for searching volunteers
You can now choose in the TYPE filter, to show volunteers that will and that will not receive bulk emails. A volunteer only receives bulk emails if they have opted in, have a valid email address, and have been granted access.
Faster searching
The opportunity search page speed has been improved by excluding distance calculations where possible and also using a boundary box method of finding matching opportunities rather than calculating the distance from the volunteers location and all other opportunites.
This is not as accurate but much faster and the accuracy is perfectly acceptable for this search. This means that empty or null searches, which are by far the most performed search such as;
can return the maximum 250 opportunities in less than a second.
Providers having multiple accounts is now optional
The ability for providers to create their own sub accounts for collegues to use to login is now an option. You can find it in the super admin menu > options > everything else tab.
Better ordering of completed opportunities for volunteers
When volunteers view their opportunity tab in their dashboard, completed opportunities were ordered by their start date (age). We’ve switched this around now so that the opportunities are ordered by the date of their last session on that opportunity. So the opportunity that was mostly recently completed is at the top.
In app criminal checks
We are just finishing our initial development of in app criminal checks with KnowYourPeople in the UK. This wil mean you can fill out a simple form in the app, send it off and within 24 hours or so you will have the completed criminal check details available on the volunteers profile.
They will also send the certifcate to the volunteers address and your organisation name will appear on the certificate.
We don’t have finalised prices for the each check, but we are confident they will be less than £12 per check for the enhanced version.
If you are interested in trialing this new feature please get in touch.
Over the weekend we have been finalising the interim release for TeamKinetic 2, we have fixed many minor bugs and issues and also added some functionality that was missing or didn’t quite make the cut for the initial release. You don’t need to do anything, and all installations will be upgrade by Sunday evening.
Edit opportunity images after creation
You can now choose a different existing opp image, or upload a new one when editing an existing opportunity.
Custom Opp Badges in Alternative Language
If you uuse an alternative language in your installation you can now create and edit custom opp badges in your alternate language. The alternate language is also displayed to volunteers of course if they have selected it.
Providers Can Edit Their Users
Providers can now edit their created users and reset their passwords instead of having to delete and re-create.
All Provider Users Can Reset Their Own Passwords
The FORGOTTEN YOUR PASSWORD link and reset process now also works for the extra provider users as well as for the main central account.
New Role Application Notification
Administrators now get a notification when a volunteer applies for a role the first time.
New Providers Can Access Help Menu
New providers that have not yet been cleared can now access the help menu and help resources, including the contact pages. This will help new providers orientate themselves before they are cleared.
New Opportunity Features Are Copied
The new opportunity features that we have introduced are now also copied across to the new opp when copying an existing one.
Volunteers Can Withdraw an Opportunity Application
Once a volunteer has applied for an opportunity a button will appear allowing them to withdraw that application. This button is visible until the application has been accepted or refused.
Sticky Table Headers
For volunteer, opportunity, and provider searches, where the resulting data list can be pretty long; we have added sticky table headers. As you scroll down the page the column headings will get fixed to the top of the page so you can always easily see which column you are looking at.
Volunteer Feedback
When feedback from volunteers is not enforced (Super admin – Options – Opportunities – Enforce opportunity feedback), any feedback given to a volunteer from a provider is still shown. Previously this option worked as a switch to turn feedback on or off globally.
Provider Notification Improvements
A number of the provider notification emails have received some improvements, like the volunteer’s session list being included when a provider is notified about a new session signup by a volunteer.
Thanks for all your suggestions and for letting us know about any issues or bugs you have found, its always useful.
Roles are a brand new feature for version 2, they sit above opportunities and enable a prescribed on-boarding process for volunteers. Roles are a great feature for organisations that have regular opportunities that are undertaken under the same set of compliance, training, or on-boarding rules.
An opportunity can belong to one or no role and once a volunteer has successfully completed the steps for a role, they can subsequently join any opportunity that belongs to that role; the role authorisation is valid across any opportunity in that role.
Creating Roles
Creating role is only possible for super admins and is accessible via the super admin menu in the SETUP section.
Click the add button to create a new role. You’ll be presented with a split screen form with the role name and description on the left, and the default four stages on the right.
Start by filling in the role name and its description to help volunteers decide if they want to apply for the role.
When you are ready to start adding tasks to your stages click the add button. This will open up a sheet with the task name and notes for that task. Additionally you will see a checkbox labelled ‘Volunteer can complete’. If this box is checked then the applying volunteer will be able to mark this task as complete without any admin oversight. This is great if you just want to check a volunteer has read a document or get an auditable confirmation that some step has been carried out.
You do not have to add tasks to every stage, the tasks do not need to be completed in order, and a stage can have no tasks at all if you prefer to put all the tasks in one stage.
Once created you can edit, archive or restore a role and the setup page shows you a brief summary of the role and its current status. When editing a role you can add or remove tasks and update the role name and description. Be aware that adding tasks will not affect those volunteers that have already been accepted on the role.
Managing Role Applications
All admins can manage volunteer role applications and outstanding role applications will appear on the admin dashboard for attention.
Just hit the manage button and the full status and history of the application will be shown. This is a pretty comprehensive screen but super easy to use.
You can move the status of any task forwards or backwards, from pending to started and finally complete. You can add notes that other administrators can read and update the overall status of the role application to approve or deny.
We have the intermediate status of STARTED for a task so that if a task takes time to process for an admin, another admin doesn’t repeat any work whilst the first admin is completing the task.
Importantly all steps taken are logged and viewable in the application log window. You can see here when tasks were started, completed or reverted back a stage, when people left notes, or when a volunteer has completed a task.
A volunteer will see their role applications on their dashboard. By clicking the more details link they will get a full breakdown of the current role and from here will be able to complete any suitable tasks.
Adding a Role to an Opportunity
It’s a simple task to add a role to an opportunity. If any active roles exist, they will appear in a drop down when creating a new opportunity.
If you update an existing opportunity and add a role requirement it will only affect volunteers that join after that point; existing volunteers will not be affected.
The 2021 Q2 major release for TeamKinetic is now approaching our beta test phase where we invite and encourage all our users to have a poke around!
It’s a full jump to Version 2 as we have totally updated the volunteer application with the latest .NET platform (admin and provider to come), have introduced some new features and done some major work to align the design and feel across the whole application. We’ve also got some brand new native apps for android and iOS that will be out a few weeks after the desktop release.
Here are some of the highlights for this major release milestone.
Volunteer Roles
Many of our larger customers, and those with greater governance requirements will get alot from this new feature. It’s a bit like super charged APPLY FIRST feature!
A role is a set of steps that must be completed before a volunteer is approved on an opportunity. Super admins define the role, which is organised around four steps, each with as many (or no) tasks as you require. Each role has its own name, description, and a spot to add some information that is emailed to the volunteer when they first apply for a role.
Roles are applied to one or more opportunities, and once a volunteer has completed all steps on a role they can join any opportunity which requires that matching role, once they have satisfied any other pre-requisites to joining.
For example; if a volunteer joins a litter picking opportunity which has a role called ‘basic role’ then they will be required to jump through a number of onboarding steps as defined by the ROLE. But once they have done this they can go onto join any other opportunity which is also linked to the ‘basic role steps’ and it will not require them to go through the steps again (as they have already completed those role steps).
Each task can be flagged as actionable by the volunteer or administrator, they can complete that task from their dashboard when they have satisfied the requirements.
Administrators are alerted when a volunteer joins an opportunity requiring a ROLE, they are alerted via the actions tab on their main landing page.
The administrator can then monitor and record the volunteers progress through each of the steps within the ROLE, through to completion.
Each role task can be started by an admin, then completed and a full history log is maintained and visible at all times.
An application can be approved once all the tasks have been completed, but there is no enforced order to task completion.
When a volunteer is approved on the ROLE they are emailed (custom emails available of course) and shown a list of corresponding opportunities that they are now eligible to join.
Additionally, if a opportunity has its own APPLY FIRST status and a role requirement, then once the volunteer is approved for the role they are automatically placed in the applicants queue for that opportunity, they wont have to do anything else.
New Scheduling Features
We’ve added a brand new feature for adding volunteers to sessions. You can now select any number of volunteers and add or remove them from any number of sessions in one hit!
You can select from the current joined volunteer list, or search for new volunteers.
It’s super simple but much quicker than moving them individually (still available).
We’ve also re-designed our day schedule report so it’s much easier to see what is going on day by day.
You can still view any period and restrict it to certain opportunities or events, but now you’ll see every day in that period in a calendar like display.
You get the day, all the opps that have sessions on that day, how full the session is (full sessions are highlighted) and can click through to view a list of volunteers on that session.
You’ll be able to see empty days and poorly subscribed sessions really easily, then click through and start adding volunteers using the new multi-add feature we just introduced!
Re-Designed Applicants Dashboard
Applicants are now clearly divided into new, successful, and denied. You can instantly approve or deny a new applicant and then revert that decision and mark them as newly approved. This was something that proved popular in the roadmap voting.
The on-screen messaging and alerts have been improved and standardised so you’ll always know what’s happening.
Modern Front Page
Although our existing front page allows for a lot of customisation, many of our customers have been asking for a simpler cleaner look to their front page.
So we’ve have added a new modern layout that will be the default for all new customers. It’s got much simpler settings, just a single image and a message box, to worry about, looks great on all screen sizes, and gets right to the point so volunteers can login and register quickly.
Multiple Provider Accounts
This is a useful little feature for when there are multiple individuals at an organisation that all need to login as providers as manage their opportunities, but dont want to share login details.
Providers can now create and manage their own user list without any intervention required from the admins or super admins. Just add a name, email address and password and they can go ahead and login.
Multiple Meetings and New Meeting Features
Previously a volunteer could only have one active meeting at a time, now you can book and manage as many meetings as you like for volunteers.
Additionally we have added the ability to specify if the meeting is to be virtual, and if so, to add the link to the virtual meeting, or if not the location of a face to face meeting. You can also add a custom message which gets sent along with the normal custom email for new meetings, so you can let them know any extra information they need.
We’ve also tidied up the induction section of a volunteer manage dashboard and added the meeting details there. From here you get a link back to manage meetings and can also add a new meeting for the volunteer right from their dashboard.
Opportunity Badges
These are linked to opportunities showing that the opportunity is linked to a specific award scheme.
Example: If logged hours on the opportunity can go towards a volunteers Duke of Edinburgh Award, then they might attach it to the ‘DofE Opportunity Badge’.
Just add a name, description, and a badge image to create your opportunity badges. These can then be added to your opportunities, filtered on in the search and are displayed to the volunteers.
Great for quickly indicating to your volunteers what sort of opportunity its likely to be.
Gender List Editable in Alt Language
For those of you that take advantage of our alt language feature and translations (and if you don’t..why not?!) you can now view and edit your gender lists in your chosen alt language.
These are instantly reflected on the registration pages..which brings us to…
New Volunteer Registration
Volunteers begin their registration either by providing an email address, or by registering with Google or Facebook.
If they use and email address they will receive an email with a special link to confirm their email address and continue with their registration.
This will cut down drastically the number of bogus registrations and also reduces the initial inertia for registration. This first step of registration is recorded and we’ll be able to get some great insight into what is preventing volunteers from completing their registration.
We have also worked on the registration page itself; made it shorter, improved the location section, and added more on-screen help.
We think it’s a definite improvement and will hopefully lead to a higher rate of successful registrations.
New Search Page
The public search page is now more compact and the events have been moved to the right so they don’t obscure the results.
When viewed on smaller screens the layout adjusts accordingly so events are still visible.
Opportunity Images
You might have noticed in the screenshot for the search page that we now support adding images to opportunities!
We know from our experience that this has to be quick and painless or providers just don’t bother. So we’ve put in place a number of features to try to make this easy for providers.
Images are mandatory for opportunities, you cant add your first opportunity without uploading at least one image
You can select from your previous images, so once you have one you don’t have to keep uploading
When creating an opp, it will default to your last used image
ABOVE: Admin/Providers view when creating opportunityABOVE: Volunteer view of opportunity with image
It really couldn’t be easier! These images are responsive and will adjust in height and width to cope with any sized screen.
Everything Else
Multiple groups are selectable from the bulk email screens
Can add files to the private notes section
Course management improved
More admin options available
More opportunity sharing data available along with suggestions of other organisations you might want to join forces with
Volunteers can see how many slots are available in each session before they join
Induction questions are now sortable
New report showing the ethnicity breakdown of active volunteers
Much of the work we will refer to in this paper is based on figures collected from May 2020 until present as this reflects the period where the MCR VIP project went live to the public. We will be explicit if we are referring to data from beyond that time.
It
is also worth noting that much of the activity on the MCR VIP system
was either stopped or severely limited during the COVID 19 response.
This was in part due to the difficulties associated with face to face
volunteering.
The
City Council did not use TeamKinetic initially in it COVID response
and as such the figures do not fairly represent the time as for a
large period there was little traditional volunteer activity being
undertaken which was being tracked or recorded in TeamKinetic
Implementation
The
project got underway in late 2018 with a plan to identify and train
service leads from Libraries, Galleries and Culture, Parks and Green
Spaces, Sports, Neighbourhoods.
The
initial implementation saw the formation of a project board. The
initial Project Manager was Adam Neill but he left shortly after the
formation of the project board. Other members of the board included
Programme Manager Trevor Roberts.
Strategic Lead – Neighbourhoods Mark Rainey, Project
Manager – MCRVIP Elaine Mills, Physical Activity Officer and
previous leads officer for MCR VIP Craig Abel and ICT Business
Analyst Liz Avison. Other people who had input during the initial
planning phase included corporate communications.
The
initial rollout of the project saw a training plan developed that
would train and support the “admin” users of the site. Volunteer
leads were identified in each service area and a combination of
onsite and virtual training days delivered. 22 MCC staff were
trained as potential admin users of TeamKinetic.
In addition, it became apparent that to our support of the Admin users there was also a need to provide additional training to what was referred to as Providers. We ran training workshops for Provider level users across the services who engage volunteers. Over 70 officers were trained to act as Opportunity provider within the system, as well as undergoing additional training on how to work with and engaged volunteers both using the system and in the real world.
This
work was delivered through a combination of speakers and events and
was devised to raise the profile of volunteering amongst the various
services and to provide basic “how-to” information for officers
who may not have had much experience in managing and working with
volunteers.
It
also provided opportunities for system users to provide feedback on
their experiences directly to TeamKinetic to support the ongoing
development of the product.
Our
soft launch target date with international volunteer’s week
20th-26th May 2019 though some activity had
started before that date as the system was still being used across
Sport and Events.
COVID-19
COVID-19
had a significant impact on traditional volunteering across
Manchester as such activity on the system dropped to almost zero in
April to June and has stayed way below the previous level since then.
It
is also worth noting that much of the activity on the MCR VIP system
was either stopped or severely limited during the COVID 19 response.
This was in part due to the difficulties associated with face to face
volunteering. TeamKinetic was used extensively across the UK in
response to COVID-19 and continues to be used to support communities
across the UK and TeamKinetic were recipients of an award from NHSx
and NHS England concerning their community support features for at
risk communities called TechForce-19.
The
City Council did not use TeamKinetic initially in it COVID response
and as such the figures do not fairly represent the time as for a
large period there was little volunteer activity being undertaken
which was being tracked or recorded in TeamKinetic.
It
has been discussed with Elaine as to how the TeamKinetic COVID
Community Task features could be explored for use across other civil
contingency and resilience planning situations and as part of the
ongoing COVID-19 and in specific response to mass testing and
vaccinations when rolled out.
Data
Usage
A total of 1732 people signed up to the MCR VIP system since the 20th May of which 417 have gone is to become active, which is a rate of 24% for the year. If we only look at the year from May 2019 until March 2020 we see that rate is actually much closer to 44% so we can again assume COVID has had a significant impact on the activation of volunteers.
We normally expect to see in a TeamKinetic system for Local Government a rate of about 40-55% of volunteers who register become active within 12 months of registration.
Active means they have signed up and completed a volunteering opportunity and have had hours logged against that opportunity in the system. There has been a reduction in conversion rates this year again as a result of COVID-19.
Location and Economic Breakdown of MCR VIP Volunteers
The heat map below shows your volunteer density across the city and the surrounding boroughs. The bulk of the volunteers since May 2019 are Manchester residents but you can see pockets of activity across the all the neighbouring areas.
Heat map showing the volunteer density in Manchester city and surrounding boroughs.
Volunteering by Index of Multiple Deprivation Rank (IMDR) for all volunteers registered since 20th May 2019.
This chart includes all volunteers including those who reside outside Manchester.
The Graph shows the number of volunteers by decile. That is the number of volunteers with a home postcode that is ranked using IMDR.
1 = bottom-ranked postcode area in bottom 10% ranked area of England
10 = top-ranked postcode area in the top 10% ranked area of England
This data is interesting as volunteering is perceived to be a traditionally middle-class activity and this is generally supported by research from NCVO and Community Life Survey Data undertaken by DCMS.
What can be seen quite clearly from the MCR VIP data is that across Manchester and its surrounding areas Volunteering is very well represented in the areas of highest deprivation. This is of course impacted by the fact Greater Manchester has more areas that fall into the bottom 50% according to the IMDR rank, but I think it is also compelling that the people of Manchester demonstrate that poverty is not a defining factor in their willingness to volunteer.
This finding is even more important when you consider the following question.
‘Does volunteering in the UK contribute to increased personal wellbeing and health?’
Yes, it does. This question was the central topic of the Happy Days Report, published by State of Life in 2019. The report provides “the most robust quasi-causal estimates to date of the impact that volunteering has on an individual’s life satisfaction and self-perceived health.”
The paper finds that having volunteered in the last 12 months is associated with an increase in life satisfaction of 0.034 on a 1-7 scale in the first differences model. This corresponds to 0.057 on the ONS endorsed 0-10 scale if we apply a linear transformation. This effect is roughly comparable to living in a less deprived neighbourhood and also roughly equal in size to one-sixth of the increase in life satisfaction associated with full-time employment vs. being unemployed.
The Happy Days report shows that alongside life satisfaction, robust quasi-causal positive associations were also found between volunteering and self-reported general health, mental health measured by the GHQ index. There is also a positive association with the other ONS-endorsed measure of ‘feeling that things in life are worthwhile,’.
Volunteering is shown to have a positive impact on trust in all demographics and particularly those who start with a trust deficit (in the UK this is lower socioeconomic groups – ‘A Bit Rich’ 2019).
Mixing with people from different backgrounds is important and the 2019 ‘A Bit Rich’ study found that volunteering has a positive role to play on trust and social diversity/mixing:
• Volunteers have around two-thirds higher odds of reporting trust in people living in the neighbourhood, compared to non-volunteers.
• 44 per cent of all volunteers reported having mixed with people from different ethnic backgrounds or religions in the past 12 months, compared to only 31 per cent of the general population
The key finding of the research quoted above is that the evidence from the 2019 work on the diversity of income and ethnicity in volunteering (A Bit Rich and ABC of BAME) shows that the wellbeing and health benefits of volunteering are considerably higher for marginalized groups compared to other groups.
Age
The age profile of the MCR VIP volunteers is interesting as again it does not reflect national trends or patterns. Volunteering is often found to be a pursuit of older individuals, this often as a result of them having the time. The employment of a digital system such a TeamKinetic reduces barriers to entry especially for younger volunteers who are digitally engaged. It speeds up the process of volunteer recruitment, a significant factor in younger people volunteering.
Another significant consideration is that the MCR VIP system works seamlessly with Manchester University Sport and Manchester Metropolitan University Student Union system which are also powered by TeamKinetic. This ensures MCR VIP always has its opportunities available to young, motivated student volunteers.
Ethnicity
Volunteering on the MCR VIP system is as multi-cultural and diverse as the city the volunteers represent. Volunteering across the UK tends to be thought of as a predominantly white activity but it’s clear that this is not the case in Manchester with over half of the registered volunteers described themselves as non-British White.
It is widely acknowledged that volunteering, under non-pandemic circumstances, is more widespread in the upper socioeconomic groups L1 to L10 and in the white ethnicity groups. It would appear that this is not necessarily the case during the pandemic. It does seem clear that the use of technology to recruit volunteers lowers barriers to entry for BAME individuals.
To volunteer traditionally would be heavily influenced by issues of social network and social capital. Many BAME individuals and communities do not have the same access to opportunities, as they are not often linked into the established networks to enable them to take advantage of the opportunities available.
As discussed earlier, there is strong research to suggest that volunteering can play an essential role in developing Social Trust and building better social cohesion. Volunteers tend to have more interactions with individuals who have a different ethnic background to theirs than non-volunteers.
Gender
Data from across the voluntary sector would normally suggest a 60%/40% gender split in favour of women to men.
Sports Volunteering is often the reverse of this with a 60%/40% split in favour of men to women. So the results of the MCR VIP gender spilt are quite surprising.
There is some quite compelling research that suggests that volunteering has a stronger impact for UK women than for men, thus being a potentially useful instrument in fighting gender inequality. As reported in the Happy Days study in 2019.
The report also highlights higher wellbeing increases associated with volunteering at the extremes of the income distribution, but particularly for the lowest income category – suggesting that ‘volunteering can be promoted as part of a policy intervention aimed at improving the quality of life of vulnerable groups in society.
Opportunity data
Volunteers recorded 2256 hours of volunteering in the system from 20th May 2019. These hours took place over 277 opportunities.
The top 10 most popular opportunities regarding the number of hours undertaken by volunteers are:
1
Festival Of Manchester 2019
2
The Manchester Trophy 2019 – General Volunteers
3
The Manchester Trophy 2020 – General Volunteers
4
Nature and Chill a.k.a let’s grow fruit, veg and mushrooms or DIY
5
Manchester International Swim Meet
6
Family workshop Summer Volunteers 2019
7
The HSBC UK | National Track Championships 2020
8
Manchester Digital Champions
9
Packing food bags for families in Greater Manchester – Help us feed families
10
Help Teach English in an Informal atmosphere,
The variety of opportunities in the top 10 says something to the variety of Manchester’s volunteers and the diversity of the offer MCR VIP has developed since its relaunch. Events, as you can see, are always popular due to their short-term nature and volunteers tend to find them exciting. We can also see opportunities that are ongoing and have more challenging criteria for entry such as Manchester Digital Champions in the top 10. To see these types of ongoing opportunities in the top 10, especially taking into account lockdown shows how volunteers can provide ongoing, regular services. This type of volunteering could be argued has the highest impact for the residents of Manchester.
Safeguarding
It appears that no volunteers have had a DBS recorded in the system during the period from May 20th. We did see the Identification Verification system used 18 times as part of a project to support members of the public during COVID-19.
MCR VIP has not used the more advanced safeguarding features and this may be an area that could be explored further in the future. These tools can be used alongside Volunteer photographs and Volunteer ID badges that are produced in TeamKinetic with embedded QR code technology. This allows TeamKinetic to be used when managing opportunities with a higher risk profile such as Adult Social Care.
Application Analytics
MCR VIP has seen the following web traffic since 20th May 2019.
1,251,940 site visits
These visits have been across all devices and have used most browser technology. We have seen a significant increase in mobile access to the site, and this now accounts for 62% of volunteer site traffic. This is why TeamKinetic is proactively developing with mobile responsive design and continue to develop our iOS and Android native offer which should see new apps available in late Q1 of 2021.
Economic Impact of MCR VIP volunteers
Volunteering is a rare, universal, and valuable good that unites us all. It is the glue that holds our societies together in everyday life and at times of crisis. Volunteering is helping each other out of free will. It is arguably why we have survived and succeeded as a species – our ability to collaborate and support one another. Volunteering is millennia old and all religions have at their core a message about volunteering – helping those less fortunate than yourself is a key philosophical teaching we try to impart on our children. As a result, we think volunteering is a sleeping giant in our economy.
Andy Haldane, the Chief Economist at the Bank of England, estimated volunteering to be worth between £50 and 200bn , approximately 2.5% and 10% of UK GDP. This calculation also included several extra layers or concentric circles of value. Haldane described the circles of value as layers of an onion. The figure below depicts the ‘Halo’ of value that stretches out from the volunteer. This model represents a step by step approach to valuing volunteering and it halo effect that we have adopted for the reporting of impact for this project. We are still lacking some of the data we need to undertake this level of evaluation, but I want to take this opportunity to outline what is possible using TeamKinetic.
To calculate the value of the volunteer’s hours, which in the diagram above is represented by the central circle, we have opted to use a cost replacement approach. For simplicity we have applied a single wage replacement rate based on a domiciliary healthcare assistant, midpoint, band 2 agenda for change :
£9.89 per hour + 25% (NI / tax employer £2.47) = £12.36 per hour
These are lower hourly rates as normally a staff provider would need to add on their ‘oncosts’ in addition which range from 10-33%. I would then remind you to apply a potential (+) variance of up to 33% on the final figures. Based on these numbers we can demonstrate the following.
2256 hours X £12.36 = £27,884
I think we could make a pretty strong case that had COVID-19 not occurred we would image this figure to be considerably higher and maybe even 3 times higher if the bulk of the volunteering had not stopped.
Using the Concentric Circle model, my next suggestion is that to further this work we would need to undertake some additional data collection to understand the direct wellbeing effects on the volunteers themselves. This work can be done using a simple survey that would allow us to capture some data on how volunteering makes your volunteers feel. We can use this data alongside data sets such as the British Household Survey and the Census to evaluate our volunteer population against the general population. Where this work had been undertaken before we have seen a consistent effect that volunteers tend to be healthier and happier, this type of work would enable you to say to what extent they are happier and healthier and what value does that have.
The next circle of the evaluation would focus on the recipients of the volunteers time. We would look to develop an economic model that allows you to calculate beyond cost replacement what the value and impact the volunteer have on those they support. An example might be a Digital Champion Volunteer may actually help 12 other people; it would be really useful to understand what that help is worth to those people who are beneficiaries of that volunteering. This way we can estimate which type of volunteering generates the greatest social impact and use this information to invest in the volunteering that makes the largest impact on Manchester residents.
The final stage of the evaluation would be to explore the less tangible benefits such as social trust, social capital and community cohesion. The impact on and reduction of social isolation and loneliness. These concepts are often quite difficult to measure at an individual level but very useful at a population level.
TeamKinetic is a powerful volunteer management tool with a huge amount of functionality to suit every type of organisation. The key to maximising its impact on your volunteer programme is the configuration options. This training session covers a basic introduction to the different types of users and how to set up your TeamKinetic system to work specifically with your organisation. Do you want external organisations to be inducted before they can create opportunities? Do you want external organisations to be able to register at all? All these types of settings will be explained in detail during this extensive configuration training session.
Who Should Attend?
Either new administrators OR existing administrators who would like a full refresher on the configuration options available within TeamKinetic.
Document hub (Adding files for access by other users)
Reporting and Data
Setting up custom geographical areas for reporting
APIs and Widgets
Customising achievement badges & award badges
Other general settings
All the other settings that are available and what they mean for your organisation and programme.
Questions and Workshops
Any questions will be answered and workshopped in the final segment, helping you to apply what you have learnt to your own unique programme.
How do I sign up?
You can access this training from your HELP > EXTRA TRAINING menu. Purchase the number of credits you need and then click on the BOOK button and select your dates.
You can check the latest training dates from within your system. Just go to ‘Help & Support’ → ‘Extra Training’
