It has been a busy few months at TeamKinetic during the Covid 19 summer, but we’ve still been updating and fixing TeamKinetic regularly. What we haven’t been doing well is letting you all know about the changes, apologies.
We have now pushed through our last interim updates and fixes before our next major release in Q1/2 2021. TeamKinetic is up to version 1.3.3!
Here is what is new.
New Opportunity Details Layout
We’ve, hopefully, improved the layout of the opportunity details or more info page. Peoples monitors are getting larger with a higher resolution, so we have adjusted the layout to a two column view.
On mobile or small screens this reverts to a single column display.
External opportunities
When adding a quick opportunity (super admins can enable quick opportunities for their providers from the settings area), you have an extra option to mark the opportunity as external. When selected the user enters what external organisation is responsible for the opportunity, the web address for more information/application, and the advertising end date.
When a volunteer views the opportunity they are informed its an external opportunity, and are redirected via an apply button to the organisations own website.
It’s a great little addition for when you want to advertise an opportunity that you think your volunteers would benefit from but are not actively managing.
Secret Opportunities
These are not clandestine opportunities for secret agents, but a way to hide open opportunities from search results and opportunity suggestions throughout the application.
Volunteers with the exact link will be able to view and join the opportunity as normal, but those without access to the link will not find the opportunity.
In all other regards the opportunity behaves just like a regular opportunity.
Add Volunteer Meetings in Bulk
You can now create and add volunteers to meeting dates directly from the bulk actions on the volunteer search page. So you can add 10 or 20 volunteers to a group meeting very easily.
We’ve also updated the text a little to make it clear that you can enter a zoom/meet link in the location field if your meeting is going to be virtual.
Private Notes for External Volunteers
You can now add private notes to external volunteer profiles. These private notes are not viewable by the administrators of the volunteers home application.
New Volunteer Search Filters
You can find two new filters in the TYPE area for a volunteers disability and special needs status.
Completed Community Task Report
We are still working on getting some more insightful reporting around community tasks in the next major version.
In the meantime, you can download a complete list of all completed tasks from the community task page. It includes dates, times and which volunteer that completed the task.
You’ll find the download button at the top of the completed task column.
Healthcheck Status Included in Member Downloads
This is an update for the accredit module in TeamKinetic (interested in managing events and printing access badges straight from TeamKinetic? Get in touch).
When you export event member details the export now includes their latest healthcheck status.
POD Report
We’ve included a small POD report in the main reporting area which tells you how many admins, providers, opportunities, volunteers, and hours are in each pod.
We will be adding some more detail in the next major release.
Public Roadmap Accepting Votes
You can now access our public roadmap straight from the help menu, read up on what features might be heading down the road and also importantly, vote on the features you would most like to see.
We will be keeping an eye on the votes and endeavouring to push the most popular features to the front of the release queue, so get voting.
New Help Videos
We have added a tonne of new help videos to the Tutorial Videos section in the your help menu.
They are super short informative videos about specific features or processes and well worth a look.
Increased Maximum Image Size
The maximum width of images for provider and event profiles is now 1900 pixels, so the quality of the image on large displays is now a lot better.
We have also adjusted some of the image processing to improve the size/quality performance.
Facebook Live
Please join us for our Facebook Live on Friday 13th at 2pm on our Facebook TeamKinetic Customer Group to see these new updates in action. Make sure you are a member of this group before 2pm tomorrow to make sure you can watch the live! Just click here to go to the group.
That was our first ever product steering meeting and we would like to thank everyone for their feedback and comments, we think it went pretty well!
This group was a chance for us to relay some ideas and details about possible updates to our system and get a feel for how our users felt about these updates. It was also a chance for us to listen to your ideas on future features which could be added to the system or at least were worth further exploration.
So with that, let’s show you what was discussed at the product steering group 16/09/2020.
Roadmap
The roadmap is what we are using to help with the potential new features being added to upcoming updates. We are developing this through the MoSCoW Project. These are the Must haves, Should haves, Could haves and Wish list. The MoSCoW project will allow a way of ordering potential features based on their feasibility, price, etc… This section is live on your systems and will be under the help menu and under the new entry ‘roadmap’.
The ‘must have’ section will be everything we plan on fixing for the next update. On each potential new feature will be a voting system so you can vote on which you definitely want and which you don’t. This will then bump up certain features which are popular.
If you have any new features you want and we haven’t mentioned, you can open a support ticket and choose ‘new feature’, this will then be added to a certain part on the MoSCoW project.
Rolf will be adding a comments section soon, so let us know what you like, what you hate and everything in between.
Watch the video below to see how to view the Roadmap and how to add a new feature.
Community Tasks – Where next?
Community tasks were set up in response to the COVID-19 crisis. They are small tasks designed to provide community support to people who are unable to leave their homes. To test out the community tasks you need to enable from the super admin settings and you can try out creating tasks without publishing them to your volunteers. Watch the video below to see how to turn on community tasks.
At the moment the way the community tasks work is they are separate from the opportunities volunteer page. We kept these separate at the beginning of this update to ensure volunteers wanting to help with COVID-19 tasks would just go straight to this site. However, we are now interested in knowing how we might integrate the two sites and features more effectively.
We think Community Tasks are useful beyond COVID-19 but we open to where they will ‘live’ with in the application moving forwards. If you have any comments on this please get in touch with us or fill in the questionnaire we have sent our on the subject and let us know what you think.
Native Mobile Development
Our native mobile development unfortunately all but stopped during the height of COVID-19 because our developers have been furloughed and unable to work.
This would have been a new version of our Apps for iOS and Android with all features you would expect added in and some neat new customisation available. We are committed to continuing to develop our apps but coronavirus forced us to make some difficult choices, one of which was to build our Community Task app using Progressive Web App technology.
Using Progressive Web App (PWA) for the community tasks site was fast to build and was easy to roll out and it had almost all the same features of a native app however it just uses the web browser on your phone instead of downloading the app store.
There are pros and cons of both app types of app and we are keen to know what you think about using PWA more in the future!
Native Mobile Development
Pros – Available on both IOS and Andriod, gives the best overall experience and integration with the mobile device.
Cons – Slow and significantly increases the lag for new feature incorporation.
Progressive Web App
Pros – Fast to build and implement.
Cons – Do not have access to all mobile capabilities, especially on iOS.
Focus – UI/UX
UI – User Interface
UX – User Experience
Whilst looking at our set guidelines and rules for our interface we wanted to make sure it enabled a good workflow for our users and let them focus on the tasks they were doing, so we named it ‘focus’.
Over the last 12 months we have been integrating this look across all the pages on the system. The new side bar gives access to extra features on that page and there is no restriction on sizing. Searching is much easier as the universal search bar is now at the top of every page along with the notification settings and help bar. The new alert messages will either be in red or green depending on urgency and the ones in yellow will be for standard messages.
Please let us know once you notice these changes, what works well and what doesn’t. We are heading down the root of changing all pages to look like the one above, so if you see anything that can be changed, set up a support ticket to explain.
Thank You!
We hope all of our clients enjoyed the Product Steering Group, there were some great comments and ideas being said which will enable us to create a clearer path for the future.
So we can get some extra feedback from our Product Steering Group, please fill in the survey we have created.
We can’t wait to hear more from you. And until next time…
Did you know that you can customise your TeamKinetic system’s volunteer registration emails? Changing the first email your volunteers receive can be a big step in improving your volunteer management.
How do I change the registration email?
Go to the Admin Settings Cog→ Customise Emails
Find the ‘volunteer registration’ email and click ‘Edit’.
You can now edit the default text and style it accordingly. When you click on the blue buttons on the right, a placeholder will be added to your text, and when sent, that placeholder will be replaced with the appropriate text; in this case you can use placeholders for your organisation name, organisation contact number, the volunteers email address, and a login link for the volunteer to follow.
What changes should I make?
That first email after registration should layout the next steps you want the volunteer to take. For example, this might be to upload a photo and a piece of ID. You could also direct them to the Resources & Help, where all the documents in your document hub are available, if your volunteers require extra information after registering.
You can alter options regarding volunteer photo/ID uploads via the Admin Settings Cog → TeamKinetic Options → Everything Else.
Volunteers can easily access these things through the left-hand-side menu on their dashboard.
They should go to the underlined tabs to upload a picture, ID, and view the document hub (in that order).
You can also add links to various areas of the system for easy access and attach files to the email. For example, you could share the link to take them straight to a search for COVID-19 related opportunities. This will help highlight ways volunteers can help their local communities. You can find your shareable link to all COVID-19 opportunities on your admin homepage:
If necessary, make sure to tell new volunteer about inductions, DBS and ID checks when they first join to allow them to get started with you as soon as possible. As an admin, you can keep track of DBS checks via Volunteer Management → Criminal Checks as well as visiting a volunteer’s profile directly via Volunteer Management → Search Volunteers.
You could also customise the ‘joined opp’ email that is sent when a volunteer joins their first opportunity to let them know what you want them to do next. Perhaps explaining the keywords used on the site, such as sessions, the different opportunity types, and how to log hours.
What else can I do to get volunteers started?
Switching on text messages is another great way to keep in contact with your volunteers. Text messaging can be switched on by going to the Admin Settings Cog → TeamKinetic Options → Notifications → Switch on Text Messaging.
Building your Document Hub can also be highly beneficial to your volunteers. You can add documents, links and text for your volunteers and providers, e.g. a code of conduct or training manual for new volunteers. To access the document hub, go to the Admin Settings Cog → Document Hub
Want more TeamKinetic tips?
Subscribe to our blog for more like this as well as other pieces relevant to volunteering and volunteer management. You can also follow us on Twitter,Facebook, and LinkedIn.
You can visit our YouTube channel to find further help navigating your system or call us on 0161 914 5757, we’re always happy to help you out!
These are all the questions asked during our webinar. To find something more easily, try pressing ‘ctrl’ and ‘f’ on your keyboard then typing a keyword.
Can I watch the Webinar again?
You can see the webinar we did on Friday 3rd April at 2:00pm below. If that doesn’t work click this link.
You can see the webinar we did on Friday 3rd April at 4:00pm below. If that doesn’t work click this link.
Where can I see/test these features out?
You can try out the task management on our demo site. Use the login details: Email = info@teamkinetic.co.uk Password = password You can view and download the volunteer app here. Use the login details: Email = kangarolf@yahoo.co.uk Password = password
Is this free to organisations/groups?
We are offering TeamKinetic Advanced for free to community groups for 3 months during this crisis. More formal organisations such as volunteer centres can access special pricing on our Enterprise addition if required. To get started, go to our website.
Do the mutual aid groups count as small community groups?
Yes, though if they require our enterprise edition there may be a small fee.
How do I switch these new features on?
Watch this short video that shows you how to set this up on your system.
Can we import existing volunteers via CSV or from another system?
There is no automatic way to import volunteer details, although it is possible, there would be a charge incurred for migrating the data. Alternatively, you can INVITE them via a CSV file and the system will track if they sign up.
This is often better as the information is up to date and you will know that you have captured all the relevant information. (When you migrate data there are often gaps in the information where we now require information that was not captured in the first instance.)
Is this all GDPR compliant?
Privacy by design is central to our development process. The new features comply with GDPR and you remain the data controller for your data.
On the front page, instead of using the words ‘volunteering operations’, why not ‘volunteer tasks’ since the app is called a task?
You will see in the latest version, once you switch on these features you have a box for ‘Tasks’.
Will existing volunteers have to register again as COVID-19 volunteers?
No, but you may have some new processes that they need to complete before you allow them to be a COVID-19 volunteer (e.g. upload their ID).
Do all existing volunteers get to see these opportunities?
All existing volunteers that have access granted to your current application (i.e. they have been cleared after registering) can access the new COVID application.
They will see opportunities whose criteria they meet (criminal check required, etc.) in distance order from either their current location (if given) or from the location entered in their profile.
They will only be able to see these new tasks via the COVID app, they are not visible on your main website.
Can we have custom fields?
You can not currently add custom fields to TASKS, but this may be something we explore in future development.
Can the text on the landing page be made clearer? People have ‘registered’ and assumed they are volunteering. But they have not joined/ applied for an opportunity.
We will look at the wording on the landing page.
We strongly encourage you to look at your current post-registration email and make sure you are being very explicit about what you want your new volunteer to do next.
We also know that some organisations have had some very good results by emailing all volunteers who have registered but not as yet gone on to join a volunteer opportunity. Hit those volunteers with some direct messages via email and SMS text explicitly telling them to sign up for a task or an opportunity. To do this watch the video below.
Is this standalone or can it be linked to an opportunity already in existence?
‘Tasks’ are standalone right now, this was done for speed of development and the unique situation this crisis presents. Looking to the future this will be something we will be looking to integrate into the normal TeamKinetic App.
Can you set age limits on tasks?
No.
Does it automatically add the volunteer hours and feedback?
Not currently, as these opportunities don’t necessarily convert very well to an hours metric. Though we will explore some other methods for tracking these Tasks.
In the ‘Search Volunteers’ filters, how do I filter volunteers I have already emailed?
You cannot directly search by volunteers you have never emailed. It is possible though to filter by those volunteers that have not joined an opportunity and/or that registered before or after a set date. So you can every month use the NUMBER OPPORTUNITIES JOINED in conjunction with the REGISTRATION DATE to select everyone in that month that has registered but not joined an opportunity and email them.
Does it use ‘Push Notifications’ via the app or are volunteers updated by email?
Not currently Push Notifications, but it is on our roadmap. Volunteers can be contacted by email and SMS text and via the chat function within Tasks. Push notifications are difficult to set up and are not consistent between iOS and Android. We will be looking at adding in-app notifications in the short to medium term.
Is there a safeguard in place in relation to the number of hours a task has been assigned before it’s completed?
The age of the Task is displayed in hours and days on the Task details. There are no reports or warnings yet around tasks that are beyond their target date by a given interval. They will, however, always appear at the bottom of the unassigned list.
Some of the referrals we’re getting through may be urgent in nature, is there a RAG rating on the tasks?
We don’t have a RAG (traffic light) rating on tasks. You could use words like urgent in the title for now.
When we have tried this in the past we find the system quickly becomes diluted as provider, given the choice, selects urgent!
Can you request certain volunteers do certain roles, i.e. if they are in Aldi already getting the volunteer to pick up multiple shops at the same time?
Volunteers can be assigned multiple Tasks by an Admin or a Provider user or they can also self-assign multiple tasks. So they could join multiple tasks which involve picking up food allowing them to complete multiple tasks in one shop.
Is there a place where people can record money changing hands?
As you can imagine, money is involved, there are significant risk factors to take into account, so it is not the type of feature we would want to rush, but it is something that we will look to tackle in the next few weeks.
Can we upload photos of shopping receipts?
This is a great idea for a feature and we will add it to the road map.
Is there a diary linked to this?
Not currently, though we have taken note of this and will be looking at different user interface options as we continue the development of the application.
Is there a word count on the notes area for example, where shopping lists are very long?
The word count will be sufficiently large to allow quite detailed notes. If you find it is insufficient please raise a support ticket and we will look at extending this.
Who will be putting the information on? Is it Volunteer Centre staff?
We envisage Tasks being added by both Admin users and Providers depending on the organisation, but mainly providers.
Who are the ‘Providers’?
A provider is someone/an organisation who advertises a volunteering opportunity.
Does it connect into local voluntary and community groups who are coordinating various volunteer activities?
Yes, this new TASK functionality will allow these community groups to register as a provider and manage their volunteers via your system.
Who can add tasks – any provider? Approved providers?
Admins can either allow ALL providers, only TRUSTED PROVIDERS, or SPECIFIC (handpicked) providers to add tasks.
Can we hide the ‘community tasks’ from some providers?
Yes.
How will it be coordinated with Local Authority contact centres?
We know the landscape varies across the country, so we are trying to build these features to be as flexible as possible. We have examples of the Task system linked to other systems within the council and examples of council staff being established as providers so they can add Tasks directly or via some sort of upload function.
Some centres are not managing volunteers directly, such as PAVS. But we see that this might work for our providers, it would be useful if a little “how-to?” could be produced for us to disseminate to the groups.
I think this would work for mutual aid groups, but it’s not our job at VC to do this – I think this is functionality for providers not for us. Mutual Aid groups in Gwynedd have already got systems set up – I don’t think they would move over onto a completely new system now.
We are not forcing anyone to use this system and appreciate you may have a solution that is working locally. As mentioned there may be the ability to link alternative systems together as we are doing in Greenwich, but this will involve a cost and some additional work.
The functionality is mainly aimed at providers, and specifically, community volunteer coordinators who don’t have access to tools to manage their volunteers.
Who actually checks the volunteers? Is it us Admins within the volunteer centres that approves the volunteer?
The on-boarding of the volunteers remains the same with regards to TeamKinetic. The volunteers still register the same way they did previously, you may decide locally that your process has to change to deal with the particular issues of this situation. But there are ‘flags’ against each volunteer to be ‘Cleared’, ‘Inducted’, ‘Criminal Check’, and ‘ID Verified’ which can all impact volunteers’ access to tasks. So if you specify that a task requires volunteers to have shown their ID, then it will only allow these volunteers to join the task.
What is being done around volunteer identification?
We have included the ability to mark a volunteer as having ID, and restrict tasks to ONLY volunteers who are marked as having submitted their ID.
If the volunteer isn’t assigned to a group/provider, who validates them and checks them?
Volunteers will appear to the Admin as they have previously, waiting to be cleared. You may wish to enforce additional checks or required documents such as picture ID or proof of a criminal record check. You may also wish for the volunteers to include a picture of themselves for example, which can be locked so they can’t change it after it’s been checked. These features can all be enforced via the Super Admin area.
Some customers are using text messages, requesting the volunteer upload the appropriate ID documents. They have set up a template text message that they send to the volunteer once they have agreed to do a task which has our organisation name and phone number on so that they can upload the appropriate documents.
Most of our existing volunteers don’t have ID on the system. Does the system stop them taking a task if they haven’t proved their ID on the system?
We have added a new flag for volunteers so admins can start to mark volunteers having provided ID. We will be adding this flag as a filter to the tasks presently. It will be a decision for each organisation if they want to go back and historically flag volunteers and use the ID restriction on tasks. We will be able to help with identifying volunteers with uploads, please get in touch via support ticket.
The lock feature you mentioned available on Downloadable Documents is not available on my system? I am a superuser and have been using Downloadable Documents all week.
Downloadable documents are different from the documents that are uploaded to a volunteers profile. Downloadable documents by their nature cannot be affected by a volunteer. It is possible however to upload a document to a VOLUNTEER’s profile and disable the volunteer from being able to remove it. Locking documents is covered in the ‘Adding Volunteer Documents’ video above.
How do you record who has DBS checks?
These checks are recorded in the same way as previously in TeamKinetic. Here is a short video on how you can do this.
DBS can only be added by an Admin user. These details are visible to providers via the volunteer profile.
How will Providers know if the volunteer needs to have had a DBS check? How will you be able to check that the volunteer has really had that?
Criminal records checks can be recorded in TeamKinetic by Admin users only. Tasks and Opportunities can be limited to those volunteers that have a valid check in the system.
This will depend on some extent to some support and training from the Admin users for the Providers.
I thought the DBS/criminal record check function was turned off for Volunteering-Wales.net?
The criminal check sections of a volunteer’s profile are always available. So you can always record a criminal check against a volunteer. There is also a super admin switch (which is currently switched off for Wales) that controls if the criminal check restriction is available when creating new opportunities.
It was switched off for PROVIDERS as many providers were saying that the opportunity required a Criminal Check, but the volunteer couldn’t join the opportunity as they didn’t have a criminal check against them in the system. But it is always available for administrators to add a criminal check to volunteers.
One of the issues is around managing these tasks. Many volunteers are doing these tasks on an ongoing basis and will agree with an individual as and when they’re required to go shopping. How will this work with the app?
We are already working on a solution to this issue, with tasks that are ongoing and require more than one volunteer and we expect to see those functions soon. We are looking into FOLLOWING A PROVIDER which could send an email to volunteers who are FOLLOWING, to inform them that they have recently added a task.
Is there an option to confirm ‘task completed’ and all satisfied?
Yes, see the short video below.
If new volunteers sign up for a task, how can providers provide them with code of practice/ safeguarding info appropriate to the task?
Can we build in Volunteer training/ guidelines as they sign up?
You can continue to use the Document Hub in the Super Admin area for both Volunteer and Providers, see the video below to see how you add documents.
Further Guidance from WCVA will be shared with our Welsh customers as it becomes available.
Can you assign tasks directly to someone who has not applied? I already have people on a waiting list?
Yes, below is a quick tutorial – how to assign a volunteer to a task.
How does the volunteer join their local support team (community group) on the site? Can our ‘Street Champion’ role only be open to volunteers accepted on that opportunity?
Right now that is not possible, but we are exploring the ability to be ‘linked’ to a provider for a future update. So a provider may have a group of local volunteers that they know and want only to engage with rather than other volunteers from the system, that they may not know.
Please can we as admins have the function to authorise these tasks? We don’t want volunteers taken advantage of and we don’t want the private data being passed into the wrong hands.
We are trying to add a pre-approval process by admins for all provider created tasks. We will endeavour to have this ready for release or soon after. You will always be able to DELETE unsuitable tasks until we can complete this change. It is a balancing act between not requiring administrators to get involved with every task transaction, but giving them enough control to be able to identify tasks that should be removed.
Can individuals register their requests for support (for example shopping requests)? Or the group admin has to record these individual requests of the system?
The admin or Provider can add tasks. At the moment if a person requires support they could either register as a Provider or contact an existing Provider or administrator so the task can be added to the system on their behalf.
This task app may work well if you add an ‘Ask’ session where the public can ask for support, then we can create a task from their ask… is this possible? we have people contacting to inform us about needs in the community for example.
It’s a great idea and one we will look at if people think there is an appetite for this.
How soon will the ID function be available?Can any individual that registers on the site print out a volunteer ID? Are we assuming that everyone will be a safe volunteer?
On the ID function and approval of it. WCVA is discussing at a Wales-wide level to get Police others buying in and support for the approach. We will update all hopefully next week on how those conversations have gone and how this feature may develop based on what the police state they require.
When we set up a task, can that task be saved as a template task so we can use it quickly to set up the next task? E.g. automatic upload of saved or previously typed words/data.
Not at the moment, there is only one field (Task Title) which may be a similar form task to task, and we have already added an auto-suggest functionality to this field. The other fields will be different from task to task (e.g. recipients address, or shopping list).
We will also explore CSV uploads and an API link where appropriate with clients to do so.
Can you download the documents uploaded by Volunteers in CPD & Documents area? We’re considering the most secure way to share images of say DBS checks with providers.
Yes, you can upload and download copies of documents. Though sharing Criminal Records Check information may have significant GDPR considerations as this is sensitive data. It would be our suggestion that you share the DBS number and direct your providers where necessary to check those numbers on the DBS website. Alternatively, you can check the number for them on the DBS site.
Is this new section of Volunteering Wales bilingual?
We will be working towards a bi-lingual interface, but initially, we will develop the English version as we know speed is paramount at this time, once we have an interface that is relatively stable we will look to add the Welsh language elements.
Are you going to have a limit on how far a volunteer can travel to apply for a volunteering role?
Opportunities are filtered initially by proximity and it is the assumption that people will be looking to help out near home. We have no intention of adding an arbitrary distance currently but if this becomes an issue we will be happy to revisit.
Is there a report built that shows things such as average time for completion, etc?
There is little reporting right now, but this is something we are aware of and will be thinking a little more about as we get more data.
The tasks need to clearly state who the provider is.
We are open to this type of feedback and we will see what we are able to do, to improve the user experience.
Does this mean that ‘Informal Groups’ COVID-19 Neighbourhood and Mutual Aid Groups are now able to register themselves as Providers, not just the usual formal (registered charities/Groups etc)?
Our usual minimum requirement to register a provider is a volunteering policy and insurance. Which may not be appropriate for those small groups, as we don’t know most of these groups how do we know they are legitimate?
If you know the people running these opportunities and Tasks then they are probably ok to be approved. Most are well-known people in communities and local councillors. It is open to local discretion.
Could the informal groups be registered as COVID-19 providers and keep them away from the main section of the site? Maybe only COVID-19 providers should be able to see COVID-19 tasks.
This is not currently available but is certainly something that could be considered in a future update. We will add it to our development road map.
Once a volunteer selects the task, is it no longer open to others, i.e. can more than one volunteer select one task giving the provider a choice of who’s best suited?
Not currently, but it has been talked about for a later version of the app.
If there is something already in use in a county can the function be turned off so volunteers aren’t trying to sign up to tasks that won’t exist?
Yes, this is an optional feature set that can be switched on and off as required by the Admin. You can see a short video on how to do that below. We are also allowing you to use these features on a provider by provider basis.
Do you have any publicity that would help us with promoting this new function, please? Coming from WCVA/WG seems to help us locally and is seen as more ‘official’.
We are working with the Welsh Government and other partners on this.
How are you going about promoting it to the community groups?
We need your help, please feel free to share TeamKinetic with other organisations or community groups you think might benefit.
What is the URL for the TeamKinetic blog?Will the comments be available on the blog as well?
Yes, and now you’ve reached the end of our FAQ section! Feel free to browse our other blogs by clicking here, or visit our website.
Still Have Questions?
Send us your questions via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or on the YouTube videos at the top of this blog post. We’ll try and respond ASAP and we’ll add them to this post or everyone else to see!
You can also call us on 0161 914 5757 or email us at info@teamkinetic.co.uk.
We have been slowly pushing out our 2020 Q1 interim changes for v1.4.1 and this will be complete by 7th February 2020.
You’ll have noticed a few differences already but these are the highlights, along with many bug fixes.
Improved Accessible Universal Search
The universal search is super useful but we know some customers are having trouble with the time delay used before searching and focusing the mouse on the results box.
This was done to improve its accessibility because without that switch of focus to the results window users of assistive technology and keyboard only users, would find it difficult to access the results.
We have listened to the feedback and have completely redesigned the universal search so that it is now even more accessible without annoying mouse users by switching focus.
The same results panel will appear but it now captures keyboard inputs so that using up and down, escape and return will enable keyboard users to navigate the list without ever switching the focus from the search box.
In addition all the correct ARIA attributes have been added and an additional assertive announcement for screen readers that will let the user know how many results have been returned and how to navigate them.
Login With Social Media (Single Sign On)
You’ll see a change to all login pages shortly; admin, provider, and volunteer login pages will have additional buttons for logging in with Google, Facebook, and for providers and admins, LinkedIn.
Your registered emails will have to match of course but if they do and you are already logged in with Google, Facebook or LinkedIn, you’ll get bumped straight to your dashboard just by clicking one of the social media sign in buttons. The first time you do this you may be asked to give TeamKinetic permission to receive your email address, we have to get that in order to match your account.
New Search Behaviours
We have adjusted the way the search filters are added to make them more accessible. Previously when you selected the type of filter it would be added automatically to the search. This renders it unusable for keyboard only users as they are not able to skip through the available filters without triggering their addition. So we have added a physical button you use to add the filter and some other improvements to make the search accessible.
New Search Filters
We have added some new filters to opportunity, provider, and volunteer searches, and also rearranged some others.
The new TYPE filter now contains multiple types of opportunity you can filter by, sessional, flexible, applying, and requiring references. We will be adding more as we test them.
For volunteer search we have added date FIRST and date LAST joined an opportunity along with a LINKED TO filter for finding which volunteers are linked to which providers.
Improved Reporting Text
We have updated the help tool tips on the reporting page to better explain what data is being shown. In particular around what is meant be converted, new, active, etc.
Universal Search Updates
The ordering of results has been changed so that older, less active volunteers, opportunities, and providers are less likely to appear in the top 5 results that are shown if there are many matches.
Dashboard Updates
We’ve altered the open opportunities display to remove the open/closed status (because of course they are all open!) and switched in a text category status which is also an accessibility improvement as the category is not communicated solely with colour.
There are lots of other smaller improvements, like adding more notifications to the top left notification area when actions are taking place, standardising button behaviour, harmonising more user interface elements and generally cleaning up!
Next in our on-going FaceBook Live sessions for TeamKinetic 1.4 we will be talking about gifting hours and how TeamKinetic approaches the whole idea of hours and rewards.
Usually a volunteer attends a session or a flexible opp and logs their hours which are then also logged and approved by administrators or providers.
Occasionally however volunteers might have done extra hours, or you want to incorporate hours from historical projects that you know the volunteer deserves.
For these situations you need to gift the volunteer owed hours.
Just pop along to the volunteers management page and find the HOURS tab on the left. Within that section you’ll see an area called Add Owed Hours. Here you can add a title or reason for the owed hours, say ‘Previous work on the footpath programme’, then enter the total hours and minutes the volunteer will be credited with.
These gifted hours are treated exactly like hours earned on opportunities and will show up in your KPIs and reports.
If you mistakenly add owed hours you can remove them at anytime.
When owed hours are added the full hour total is added to the volunteer and provider, so the totals are kept in balance.
I hope you are all settling into TeamKinetic 1.4 and enjoying the new features.
We’ll be continuing our weekly Facebook Live sessions over the coming weeks till we have covered all the new functionality and questions that have come up about the new release.
This week it’s all about the Document Hub that lets you create a repository of documents, links, and text that is accessible online by your volunteers and providers.
The document hub is available from the super admin settings menu (only visible if you are logged in as a super admin). From there you can add a resource for a volunteer or provider and create one of the three types; link, download, or just a plain text information resource.
For volunteers the resource area is available straight from their dashboard.
For providers it’s available from their help and resources menu.
The document hub is a great way to communicate your policies to your volunteers and providers, as well as to provide initial help and guidance for their first few experiences.
This is it… the release date is upon us and on November 5th the next version of TeamKinetic will be appearing on your desktops.
This Facebook Live session will cover the excellent filtering and searching options that we have added to the volunteer, opportunity and provider search. We will also be talking a little about the release schedule and what we will be doing to try to ensure a smooth transition.
The new filtering selection allows you to add multiple filters easily without having to scroll up and down, we’ve also included custom fields where applicable.
You can add or remove filters automatically and the results will update each time.
The navigation bar allows you to scroll through the results, change the displayed number of rows, and tells you how many results in total we have found.
You can also download all the results to a CSV, this will create a file with a copy of every row, not just the ones you are viewing at the time.
If you select any of the results using the checkboxes in the first column the bulk task options will appear at the bottom of your screen.
The available options will alter depending on which search you are performing, but in each case, a window will pop up where you can confirm your action and provide any further details.
If there is only one action available for a row it will just be a simple text link at the end, this is also the case when searching for opportunities.
If there are multiple actions you’ll see the triple dot icon that you can click to bring up the actions, these are things like impersonate, email, manage etc.
You’ll start to see this table search and filtering pattern turning up throughout TeamKinetic, we think its a vast improvement and we hope you’ll think so too.
In our final pre-release Facebook Live session we are going to be looking at the opportunity application process and how to get the most out of applying opportunities.
Many of our customers have specific on-boarding processes for specific opportunities or types of opportunities. These checks take place before a volunteer can join a session on an opportunity.
Unlike requirements like inductions and criminal checks, the application process is specific to the opportunity and so all volunteers are required to complete the on-boarding before being allowed to join an opportunity.
When creating an opportunity look out for the selection options and from there you can choose to create an applying opportunity and also specify some of the other pre-requisites like references.
When a volunteer finds this opportunity they will be presented with an option to apply and will be asked to complete all the pre-requisites.
They provider and volunteer will each receive an email letting them know the application has been received.
The provider or administrator can manage the applicants from the regular opportunity management page. From the applicants tab they can view all the current applicants, approve or deny applicants and download the applicant list.
Once approved the volunteer is sent an email confirmation with a link to the opportunity and can then go ahead and join sessions in the normal way.
If the opportunity is a flexible opportunity the volunteer is automatically joined to the single session that represents the length of the flexible opportunity.
It’s important to remember that when an application is received, the volunteer is not yet on the opportunity, their application must be approved AND they must choose their sessions (if the opportunity is session based).
In summary the application process looks like this;
Create an APPLICATION opportunity
Wait for volunteers to apply
Process your applicants on the opportunity management page applicant tab
Continue to manage the volunteers that have joined your opportunity after having their application approved
This week we will be discussing a much requested new feature, that will give you far more control than ever over the communications TeamKinetic sends to volunteers and providers; customising automated emails.
TeamKinetic keeps your volunteers and providers up to date, with notifications about opportunity activity, chat room messages, applications, registrations and many other actions and events.
We have default content for all these messages but now you can edit and customise over 30 messages.
Its dead simple to edit a message, just click the edit button to bring up a window like below.
Each message has its own set of replacements you can use which will be replaced when sent, like opportunity title, opportunity link or the volunteer name. Just click on any of the blue replacement buttons in the right column and they will appear at the current position in your custom message.