This is one in a series of posts where I will be discussing the new features and changes we have built into version 6 of our volunteer management software TeamKinetic.
In TeamKinetic Version 6 there is a volunteer calendar that is available to both the volunteer and the admin. This shows all the volunteer’s sessions in blue and all available sessions in grey. This is a great way of quickly checking out what sessions you have coming up and also deciding if you can attend sessions on other opportunities.
In addition, there is a printable list of the volunteer’s sessions underneath the calendar which can be ordered by date or opportunity.
We’ve found that the calendar feature is especially helpful for those volunteers who are attending multiple roles at an event. These volunteers can plan their day more effectively with a visual representation of when and where their sessions are.
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This is one in a series of posts where I will be discussing the new features and changes we have built into TeamKinetic Version 6 – a volunteer management system that will make your life easier.
As the size of the events TeamKinetic is being used for have increased, so have the complexities involved in making sure there are enough volunteers for all roles and that they are suitably qualified.
We have introduced a number of new features to aid administrators and providers in choosing their volunteers, such as:
a new experience field for each opportunity
the recording of a volunteer’s movements in and out of sessions on an opportunity.
we have also introduced an entirely new sort of opportunity.
Previously it was always assumed that when a volunteer joined a session they were accepted on that session unless they were told otherwise. For large events, this led to an over-subscription to certain sessions as volunteers could not indicate which sessions they were able to do but were joining the sessions they wanted to do. Now administrators have the ability to set an opportunity to be an application opportunity.
When a volunteer looks at an opportunity that is set to in “application” mode they are informed that they should indicate all the sessions they are able to do. Once the administrator has organised volunteers into each session they can mark that opportunity as confirmed.
At this point, all the volunteers are informed which sessions they have been allocated to. If a volunteer is unable to attend a session the administrator has the history of that session available and can quickly select a volunteer that indicated they could do that session but was not allocated to that session in the first draft.
This is a major new feature that will aid immensely in improving communication between the administrators and the volunteers and reducing the time it takes to even out the available volunteers across an entire event or opportunity.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
We are very excited to announce the release of our new online Administrators Forum aimed at helping our users get the most out of their system.
Administrators can access the forum anytime from within the system by going to HELP>COMMUNITY from the upper menu. Once you have entered your username and password (which is the same as your normal administrator login details) you will have access to a large library of information to assist you with all aspects of the system from how to use specific functions to tips and tricks from other administrators.
Quick Start Guide
If you are a new user you can quickly get started on the system by working your way through the Quick Start Guide. The section takes you through the basic setup options to get you up and running, this is followed by a step-by-step guide to creating your first opportunity.
User Guide
Whether you are using the system for the first time or whether you are a Volunteer Kinetic guru, there is some great information within the user manual to help you get the most out of your system.
Knowledge Share
If you are an experienced user of VolunteerKinetic then we would really appreciate it if you could share your knowledge with other administrators via the Knowledge Share section of the forum.
Whether your tips are system-related or simply how to get more volunteers on your system, your experience will benefit other administrators with their volunteer programmes.
System Updates & Bug Fixes
A detailed description of what system changes have been applied with each update, including step-by-step guides to utilising new functionality.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
You will be glad to hear that the geek squad (developers) have managed to do it again by squeezing out a final TeamKinetic Version 5.2 release before the much-anticipated Version 6 release.
TeamKinetic Version 5.2 offers a couple of very useful updates for administrators and volunteers in regards to custom fields and search functionality (see below).
The geeks have since been sent back down into the basement with a celebratory glass of diluted Vimto and a Sega Mega-drive with a simple instruction…..Complete version 6 and you will also get a game.
Version 6 Coming Soon…
Additional Custom Fields
For those of you who are now familiar with the custom fields, they allow administrators to add customised questions to the volunteer’s registration screen. This was originally limited to questions which required a TEXT, NUMERIC or YES/NO answers. This latest update allows you to also add questions that require the following types of answers: Drop down fields, Selection Fields.
Drop down fields allow the administrator to add questions which require the volunteer to select a single answer from a set list of answers. And selection fields allow the volunteer to select none, one or multiple options from a set list of answers.
Administrators can add custom fields by going to SETTINGS > CUSTOM REGISTRATION FIELDS from the menu.
All questions are editable and viewable by both volunteers and administrators, but please try to keep your custom fields to a minimum as the more fields you add, the more likely volunteers will be put off by the length of the registration form.
Volunteer Search Function Update
When volunteers search for opportunities using a keyword the system now also searches provider names.
For example if a provider called Nottingham Netball Team create an opportunity called referee, and the volunteer searches for opportunities using the word ‘Netball’. The updated function will now search opportunity name and also provider names for the word ‘Netball’.
The search function has also been optimised to speed up the return of your search results.
Version 6 Coming Soon…
That is all in terms of changes, but please let us know if you come across any issues with the functions mentioned above, and as always we will be delighted for any feedback.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
After locking our developers in the basement for a number of weeks, TeamKinetic Update 5.1 is ready to launch with some cracking updates to your system.
Flexible Opportunities
For those of you who are not familiar with ‘flexible opportunities’, they are one of the three types of opportunities you can create within VolunteerKinetic (regular, non-regular and flexible opportunities). It is used for opportunities where you are not sure when the volunteer will be attending, and allows the volunteer and provider to log their hours as and when they do them.
Flexible opportunities do have a start and end date but they don’t have any set sessions, so the volunteer and provider are advised to agree between each other when the volunteer will attend.
Continual Logging
The new updated function allows volunteers and providers to log their hours multiple times during and after the opportunity has taken place, and VolunteerKinetic adds any logged hours onto their cumulative total for the opportunity.
Log Continuous Hours
Maximum Hours
The provider of the opportunity is still requested to enter a maximum number of hours for the opportunity when it is first created. Although this is usually a guess it gives the provider the chance to put a ceiling on the number of hours that a volunteer can log, and if required it can always be changed by the provider via the EDIT OPPORTUNITY page. The maximum number of hours can now be defined by the provider in either DAYS or HOURS, where each day is assumed to consist of 7 Hours. For example; a flexible opportunity with a maximum length of 3 days would only allow the volunteer to log 21 hours.
Auto Suspend Date
When providers create an opportunity they have the option of suspending it before the opportunity starts. This is usually used on large events to give time for the provider to organise the volunteers and send them relevant communications prior to the event taking place. A small issue was identified where the system was suspending opportunities the day before the desired suspend date. This has now been resolved meaning that if you set the Auto-Suspend date to 1st January, the opportunity will be available for volunteers to join until midnight on 1st January.
Registration Page Update
Select Country
The registration page now requires volunteers to enter their COUNTRY from a drop-down list. This is defaulted to UK, but if they choose a different country it will make their POSTCODE and COUNTY field non-mandatory.
At present the country is not available to view or edit anywhere other than the volunteer’s registration screen, it is simply there to allow volunteers from other countries to be able to register. In our Version 6 release, we plan to fully integrate this field throughout the system, allowing all users (volunteers, providers and admins) to view and edit this information where applicable. These volunteers will also show on the Map report, where they will appear in the centre of their country giving you an indication of your volunteers spread around the world, but more information on this will be available after version 6 is released.
Copying Opportunities
Administrators and providers have always had the ability to copy opportunities. This is often used when a provider (or admin) needs to create a number of similar opportunities, where maybe the only difference is when the session takes place. The updated ‘copy opportunity’ function automatically updates the START DATE and END DATE of the opportunity by checking the first and last session date within the opportunity, whereas this had to be changed manually after the session dates were changed.
That is all in terms of major changes, we have our Version 6 update to come out soon with some major changes and fantastic new functions for you to play with. Please let us know if you come across any issues with the functions mentioned above, and as always we will be delighted for any feedback.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
At TeamKinetic we’re continually finding ways to evolve our volunteer management system to make volunteering easier for everyone. This new improvement revolves around how you can remove volunteers from individual sessions on an opportunity.
Previously, you had to click a button to remove a volunteer, wait for the page to refresh and then find that slot again if you wanted to remove a second volunteer.
Now, with our new Events-type opportunities, volunteers are much more likely to be moved around sessions and opportunities as space allows so we needed a much quicker way to remove volunteers.
We did think about doing it via checkboxes and a button. Yet in the end, we decided to go for an AJAX implementation that removed the volunteer when you click the button and then removes the volunteers panel once it has been successful, leaving you on the same page and location on that page to carry on.
We’ve rebuilt the TeamKinetic training and courses module from the ground up to allow for a lot more flexibility when creating training events and courses.
You can now create a course with multiple, individually administrated sessions. So for example, a course could run every Monday for a month. Previously, you could only define how many days a course ran for, not which days and not over non-consecutive days.
In addition, you can now upload an application form for your users to download when viewing and there is more room for adding prerequisites and describing the training or course more fully.
All this extra session information is, of course, displayed to the user who can now see exactly what times and what days the course is running over and can also search for courses or training in specific areas.
Cheers, and keep volunteering!
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
We’ve recently improved the layout of the volunteer session screen for TeamKinetic that providers use to leave feedback.
This screen now summarises the volunteer’s participation across all sessions at the top of this page, along with telling the provider how many volunteers are on each session as well as the session date and time.
This facility is great for opportunities with many sessions and gives a quick visual aid to discovering which sessions a volunteer is currently signed up for. In addition, providers can download a CSV file for each opportunity which also lists this information, giving them a breakdown of each session and listing all the volunteers on that session.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
Being able to find volunteers within a few clicks streamlines the volunteer management process. TeamKinetic has added a few new volunteer search tools to help make life easier for you.
Across the top of the volunteer search page, you will now find links for each letter of the alphabet that will return all the volunteers whose name starts with that letter. It’s a great way to quickly find a volunteer whose name you know.
You can also search for some quick groups such as the top 25 rated volunteers or those with the most hours logged.
Seeing all your volunteers and opportunities on a map is a great way to see your geographical reach and impact. Let’s take a look at the new mapping functions available within the TeamKinetic volunteer management system.
The mapping functions provided with VolunteerKinetic have proved very popular and give a quick visual report on where your opportunities and volunteers are located.
We have been steadily improving this feature and in the latest version 4 release we have included the ability to map volunteers from within groups.
Administrators have been able to create groups to assign volunteers to for a few versions now. This makes it much easier to contact certain groups or restrict opportunities to certain cohorts of volunteers. From version 4 onwards they can now also map these volunteer groups.
