Volunteering at the HSBC UK national cycling centre
For me, volunteering is not just about giving up a few hours a week. It’s all about the changes you can be responsible for an organisation or a local community, the benefits you receive and the opportunities volunteering leads to.
Before coming to university, I worked in the third sector, and I knew I always had a passion for the music and events industry. I just did not have the experience or a way into the local industry. Through volunteering for charity events and volunteering at registration desks for music networking events, I was able to build a great set of connections.
This not only led to helping out at events for smaller companies such as Indy Man Beer Festival and Off the Record music conference but also to help land me some amazing jobs with my volunteer experiences.
So for anyone who hasn’t volunteered before, here are my top 5 reasons to start!
You get to meet new people!
Volunteering is a fantastic way to meet people who you may not have crossed path with otherwise and can act as really great networking tools.
You may end up meeting other volunteers working in the job or industry you want to be in, or just cracking people you can stay in touch with and become friends with.
You’ll be giving back to the community
Many volunteering opportunities are linked to community causes: such as Manchester Cares; volunteering for local hospitals or even volunteering for Scouts!
Some of these local causes often have little or no funding, so giving a few hours a week to help the running of these services can be crucial. It can be a great opportunity to give back to the people who need it most!
It is an easy way to develop your skills
Volunteering is a sure fire way to develop new skills and enhance the ones you already possess. There are several volunteering roles available, so it’s best to look at ones which really suit your personality and skill set.
The more volunteering you do, the more benefits you’ll experience; but don’t think that this needs to be constant dedication or a long-term commitment. Volunteering should always fit around your life and schedule, and remember it’s ok to have a day off every once in a while!
You can gain a new perspective of life
From my own personal experience, I have met wonderful people from all walks of life. More often than not, these people have completely different journeys to mine; by learning about their lives I have been able to see the world quite differently.
Whether you volunteer locally or abroad for a good cause, there’s always a strong chance you will meet someone who will change your opinion and view of the world.
Working at download festival
So, if you’re thinking of volunteering and unsure where to start, check out a few of the websites below.
For more information on how TeamKinetic can assist with your volunteer management and getting the best out of all your volunteers visit their website or contact them on – 0161 914 5757
With annual volunteers week kicking off, we thought it would be a good time to explain just exactly what volunteers week is and just how important it is. The whole week is about celebrating and thanking volunteers for the work they do all year round. This year we are very proud to be one of the 100 official partners of volunteer week 2019 for the first time thanks to @VolScotland.
Volunteer week began to be celebrated in 1984 originally being celebrated just in England. In 2013 they began A merger with the NCVO which led to volunteering week becoming a nation wide campaign. It does not matter how large or small a volunteering contribution is from an individual, everyone deserves to be thanked for their efforts which is what volunteering is all about.
How Important Is Volunteering To Society?
Many people are of the belief that volunteering is free. In ways that statement can be seen as true, volunteers do give up their time for free. However the idea that the third sector and volunteering is not worth a lot of money is incorrect.
Numbers show that volunteering is highly valuable to both organisations and the economy. Statistics show that volunteering is currently worth 22 billion. This is 1.2% of GDP in the UK. Volunteering and the third sector thriving can only be a positive thing for the economy.
The sheer amount of organisations that need volunteers shows just how necessary volunteering week is. In 2016, there were 165,000 voluntary organisations and a number of those are solely dependent on volunteers.
What Are TeamKinetic Doing For Volunteer Week?
I’m sure most of you will be absolutely bursting to know what TeamKinetic are doing for the 2019 volunteer week! So It’s a great shame that you’re going to have to wait! We have a lot of things planned for every day of the working week from the 3rd-7th.
To tide you over until we begin our full week of content we still have a host of industry blogs and YouTube Videos that you can watch on all of our features that can help you with any improvements you need with your volunteer management.
We have been improving volunteer management software for organisations for over a decade now and we have worked with some fantastic people. We are fast approaching 1 million volunteering hours which is something we are very proud of and hope that we can still be improving volunteering communities for many years to come and hopefully get to 10 million one day!
Paralympic Athlete Anna Jackson
Inspiring Volunteering Stories
Volunteering has had a presence in society for many years now meaning there are hundreds if not thousands of unique and inspiring stories that we could tell you about. Anna Jackson began her journey in sport playing hockey. After several operations on her knee it got to the point where she could no longer run meaning her love of playing and coaching came to an end. Unfortunately mental health issues followed and Anna developed depression. She says that wheelchair basketball changed her life. It allowed her to build her self confidence and identity back which just shows the power of just getting involved.
Anna went on to have a decade long career with the Great British wheelchair basketball team which even included participating in the 2000 Sydney Paralympics. As well as playing, Anna also coaches the sport and this is what she has to say about that: “I always say that, as a coach – whether as a volunteer or on the books – every day is a school day. I am always looking for new things to learn and try with my players and coaching clients. But the key thing about coaching is to help people to believe in themselves and their abilities.” This is one of the reasons volunteers week is so important. Saying Thank you and appreciating people like Anna for all the important work they do is something that should definitely be celebrated.
How Can You Celebrate Volunteer Week?
No matter if you manage volunteering, you are a volunteer or you have never been involved in anything before there are plenty of ways that you will be able to celebrate volunteers week. If you have in fact never been involved before the best way is to get involved! BothTeamKineticandDo-it both have 1000’s of volunteering opportunities up and down the country that you can get do and maybe even to start doing it regularly.
For those who manage volunteers, it would be great for you to think of a way you can thank them throughout the week or perhaps put something special on for them to make them aware just how truly appreciated they are.
How Can You Manage Your Volunteers Better?
If you want to supercharge your volunteer management and get better only managing but recruiting and retaining your volunteers We could be just what you’re looking for. We can help your create and build volunteering communities and make your volunteer programmes way more successful going forward. If you are interested in having a volunteer management software system please do not hesitate in getting into contact with us. You can either set up a free demo via our website or give us a call on 0161 914 5757.
We are confident that we will have a system that can cater to everyone. We work with organisations that range from local to global with small and large volunteer numbers. We’re so confident that we are competitive in price will price match anyone in the market.
My name is Elham Afzal (I go by El), and I’ll be guest blogging for TeamKinetic talking about my volunteer experience, and some of my career and professional life. As you will probably be seeing a few posts from me, I thought I would introduce myself and give you a feel of who I am and my journey.
So I am quite a busy bee, as you can imagine! However, I worked full time before coming to university to gain my Bachelor’s degree so having free time was quite a strange transition and why I’ve been keeping myself busy the last couple of years.
What volunteering means to me
Volunteering has always been part of my schedule, pre- and during university life! I have volunteered for Manchester Futsal (for just under 2 years now); Manchester Cares and British University Taekwondo League; as well as heaps of other sports and events related volunteering such as the GB Taekwondo championships.
My favourite thing about volunteering is that it a great introduction to an industry or job role that you may have never considered before. I have notoriously been rubbish with sports.
In year 9 I was kicked out of mandatory PE because my asthma was so uncontrolled, and I have always HATED any kind of exercise growing up, just because I could never do it.
Volunteering with sports at university has completely changed my perspective. I’ve not only been volunteering predominantly with sports teams (BUTL UK Taekwondo and Manchester Futsal as the main groups) but even joined the universities taekwondo team last year in September 2018, and I can proudly say I am loving being part of the team.
El x
For more information on how TeamKinetic can assist with your volunteer management and getting the best out of all your volunteers visit their website or contact them on – 0161 914 5757
Recently we hit a huge milestone in volunteer management. After ten years of being in the sector we have just reached one million hours of volunteering activity logged through the TeamKinetic system. This is something that as a company we are very proud to have achieved but realised it would not have been possible without all the people that both work on and use the system.
We want to take the time to thank everyone that has had any role to play in helping us reach this achievement. All our customers and staff but especially all the volunteers that participate and log every volunteer hour they have contributed.
We’re Not Stopping There!
Although we are very happy with a million hours, there is no way that we are stopping there! We are very keen to reach our next million and we would love YOU to be a part of that! If you are looking for a volunteer management software system or are keen on improving your volunteer management do not hesitate contact us.
We are also very responsive on our social media channels which are available down below:
We have a customer service line that is available Monday-Friday 9-5. When connected to a call you will be speaking to one of our experts who will be able to answer any of the questions you may have (0161 914 5757). If you have any other general inquiries please contact sales@teamkinetic.co.uk for more information. Alternatively you can visit our website and request your FREE demo of TeamKinetic today!
OurYouTube Channel is packed with videos summarising exactly how we can help you as well a load of videos on our many features that we feel set us apart from the rest.
To have a successful, functioning volunteer programme, you’ll need to avoid making simple but fatal mistakes. A detailed management strategy that puts the volunteer at the centre of it all is essential.
Volunteer management is like one big machine all the cogs need to work together in order to maintain efficiency, but sometimes this doesn’t always work out and errors are made.
Here are 3 volunteer management mistakes and how to avoid them!
Volunteers will be less inclined to donate their time if they can’t find you online
Avoiding a digital strategy now will cost you more in the future
Your organisation will not be as connected to its supporters
How to fix them
Invest time and money in creating a digital strategy. Many organisations still carry the assumption that going digital will cost them an arm or a leg, but there are several simple, free tools you can start using today. But utilising digital as an organisation doesn’t have to happen overnight. Start off with creating social media accounts and engage with hundreds of communities with the same ambitions as your organisation.
2. Lack of communication with volunteers
Communication serves as a foundation for planning. Without it, it’s very hard to get much done. So when it comes to managing volunteers there’s nothing more important than regular, clear communication. The workload on volunteer managers makes it difficult to keep track of everything and communication is usually the first thing that flies out of the window.
Issues it can cause
Volunteers don’t know what is required of them on the day (arrival time, logistics, location)
The struggle for volunteers to find upcoming opportunities
Frustration from volunteer could lead to their departure from your organisation
How to fix them
Volunteer management software of course! A volunteer system makes communicating with volunteers straightforward. TeamKinetic’s volunteer software comes with several tools to help you stay informed and connected to your volunteers. Automated emails can be sent out to specific opportunities and volunteer subgroups. Feedback functions also allow for regular interactions between the volunteer and opportunity providers.
Good volunteers will be sent to bad places and vice-versa
Potentially allowing a convicted individual to work with a vulnerable group due to low entry standards
Valuable time and energy are used up
How to fix them
When recruiting you should always start by understanding what it is you want out of the volunteer and define the role that is to be undertaken. Our volunteer software allows you to create specific, detailed opportunities with key information such as the volunteer requirements, perks of the opportunity and skills required. The system makes it easy to advertise volunteer vacancies with a click of a button. Opportunities can be shared across a wide range of channels such as social media, email and are linked to do-it.org.
We always try and avoid jargon but sometimes it is a little difficult when talking about the internet and software. When we talk about ‘domains’ we are really talking about the address or URL that your website will use so people can find you on the internet.
This is the address they type into their web browser to access your website.
TeamKinetic offers a variety of options with regards to the domain’s you can use, these options are somewhat dependant upon your choice of subscription.
In every subscription, there is some room for customisation and personalisation of this address.
So what are your options and what do they mean.
FREE subscription.
tryvolunteering.com/yourname
If you join us on our free version to use of TeamKinetic, you will be hosted on our FREE to access site TryVolunteering.com.
This means you will be assigned a web address that starts with “https://tryvolunteering.com” and you this will then be followed by your organisation’s name with all the spaces removed. So if your organisation name is “Harchester Utd FC” your website address will be.
Our Advanced level subscribers have their own application and as such have their own ‘subdomain’. What this means is you can add your organisation name to the start of the web address. An example would be
https://harchesterutdfc.teamkinetic.co.uk
From a user experience perspective, users feel more assured as your name is first in the address, and because the Advanced subscription offers significantly more customisation this combines for better overall user experience.
Enterprise Subscription
yourdomain.com
Enterprise subscribers have the benefit of greater customisation and personalisation. As an enterprise customer, you can select an available new and unique address for your site. Examples from our customers include
https://mcrvip.com
Or
https://Hockeymakers.co.uk
These URLs are purchased on behalf of our customers and remain the property of our customers but are managed by TeamKinetic on behalf of our customers as part of our ongoing agreement. In the event of that agreement coming to an end, we can arrange for that domain to be transferred or released depending on the needs of our customers.
A new domain is very easy to set up, requires no technical support or resource from our customer to manage, as TeamKinetic manage all this on our customer’s behalf.
Enterprise customers can also use a ‘sub-domain’ of an existing URL they already use our own. An example of this might be our customer the Youth Hostel Asociation who’s main website address is:
The volunteer team at the YHA wanted the TeamKinetic system to look and feel like it was part of the wider YHA web site. The best way to achieve this is to embed the TeamKinetic system into the YHA’s existing web brand. So the TeamKinetic system now live at
No matter what subscription you wish to use, TeamKinetic will support you in setting up your site and getting the address you want. We are available to walk you through your options and help you find the set up that you require for your volunteers.
For more information on how we can assist with your volunteer management and getting the best out of all your volunteers visit our website or contact us on – 0161 914 5757
Our ambition was to build the very best online volunteer management application in the world. Part of our definition of the very best means easiest to use, as well as the most useful features. Unfortunately when you build software there is a real danger of “JARGON”! We know volunteer managers want to be great at managing volunteers not specialists in information technology. So I wanted to try to explain in plain English how TeamKinetic works
Software and Application
We sometime use these words interchangeably, but they often share the same meaning, which is to describe the TeamKinetic product. Application does not necessarily refer to mobile specifically, but it can do sometimes. So now I’ve cleared that up!
Cloud-based
The TeamKinetic application uses a group of computers that are connected via the internet to enable the website and mobile apps you see to work. These computers or servers as we call them form our cloud. This cloud contains a combination of our own private servers and third part services from people like Amazon and Google.
All our computers are based in the UK.
Software as a Service
As the internet has become faster, the need to go to the shop to buy your software on disk or CD is now a distant memory. Now your Software does not even need to be on your actual computer but lives on the internet and is provided by someone who’s only responsibility is to make that software great.
Back in the day you would go to a shop and buy a physical disk or CD (depending on how old you are) with your software on there. Once you got home you would install that software onto your computer, those were such innocent times. That software would then remain on your computer until you replaced your computer or bought the next version from the shop and put that on your computer.
The someone in the case of TeamKinetic is us. That’s Steve, Rolf, me and the rest of our team. We have built and continue to improve TeamKinetic for you to use. We take your advice and feedback, mixing that with the user data we collect and we try to look at the best ways to continue to improve the TeamKinetic experience.
Being on the internet means that you can browse the web from anywhere, you can access your TeamKinetic application on the go or comfort of your home. More importantly, this approach means you can concentrate on your volunteer management, whilst we focus on keeping the website working or ‘live’ as we call it. TeamKinetic make sure your data is stored appropriately and in accordance with regulations such as GDPR. We concentrate on making TeamKinetic work on all the different devices, such as iPhones, tablets and laptops. We have even start to look at Alexa. You don’t need to worry about things like servers, security or accessibility standards as we take care of all that.
TeamKinetic’s Software as a Service approach means you can be confident that your volunteer management system will always work and will always be making the most of the latest developments in technology, social media, regulation and user behaviour trends.
Licencing
As we provide TeamKinetic as an ongoing service we have developed a business that requires an ongoing fee or subscription, we call this our licence. To keep the servers working and up to the job, to ensure the developers continue to improve TeamKinetic, our customers to continue to support our work through the licence fee. This fee ensures you continue to get the help and support, software updates and that we can keep the power lights on all those computers here a TeamKinetic.
The team believe strongly in a ‘no-surprises’ approach to pricing. Our customers can be confident that we will not hit them with hidden costs. Our licence covers everything you will ever need to set up and keep your volunteer application running day-to-day. We are transparent about the few things that fall outside the licence fee.
Volunteer Management Software (VMS)
Different companies may each have a slightly different explanation as to what is volunteer management software, but for TeamKinetic we want to offer a place where volunteers can go to manage their volunteering, where organisations can post, recruit, on-board, training, deploy and track volunteer engagements. Where a volunteer reward and recognition is built into the experience. Where data and insight are generated in real time.
This is all delivered in a website that is easy to use and super flexible for your needs and that can integrate with your other digital systems. It is not the same as Customer Relationship Management software and its also not the sames as Human Resource software or scheduling applications that are out there, but it’s a curious mix of all the above built for your volunteers. If you want to know more about the differences and similarities feel free to read more about it here.
Get in Touch
There will no doubt be more jargon to contend with as you look through the product description, so please feel free to get in touch if we have failed to explain it in plain English.
If you want to talk about the more technical aspects of TeamKinetic SaaS then please do not hesitate to email me or call the office on +44 (0)161 914 5757 or contact us via our website
When working in the third sector keeping on top of the law is important but it doesn’t have to be scary. Accessibility legislation that effects the sector is changing and here is a summary of what you need to know.
What Is The Law On Accessibility?
Accessibility law is changing and we think this is a great thing. Websites and apps are being used by more people, and being accessed in more varied ways and on more platforms than ever. It’s important that we can give the best experience possible on all platforms.
The law on accessibility states that resources must now be usable for:
Impaired vision
Motor difficulties
Cognitive impairments or learning disabilities
Deafness or impaired hearing
In the UK 1 in 5 people have a disability. Inclusivity is integral to modern society and particularly so in the third sector. Allowing the most amount of people to get involved is great for everyone and this is something that we aspire to.
What Do You Have To Do?
Officially what you have to do is make websites and apps ‘perceivable, operable, understandable and robust’. Which is not as daunting as it sounds!
You must also publish an accessibility statement this must include details of content that doesnt meet accessibility standards. If someone does request this document you must also provide details of why certain aspects of the website do not meet the criteria.
When Do The Changes Happen?
Don’t worry, you will not have to make changes straight away. New websites must be compliant by the 23rd September 2019 which gives us all considerable time to improve our accessibility.
Websites made before 2019 have a years grace period and do not have to be accessible till 23rd September 2020. Native applications must be made accessible by the 23rd June 2021.
Is Anyone Exempt From These Changes?
The changes do not effect everyone;
non-government organisations like charities (unless they provide services that are essential to the public or aimed at disabled people).
schools or nurseries – except for the content the public need to use their services.
public sector broadcasters and their subsidiaries.
Help Understanding Accessibility Law
Depending on the nature of your business/organisation there is a number avenues you can take to get advice about the upcoming changes.
The Government Digital Service is researching what guidance and support that public sector organisations need to meet accessibility standards. If you’re interested in taking part in this research, contact accessibility-research@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk.
How TeamKinetic Can Help?
If you require any further information please click here for the full government regulations of what exactly the accessibility laws entail.
If you are looking for a volunteer management system that will be fully compliant with the accessibility law changes look no further than TeamKinetic. We have been working hard on our 1.3 release to improve the accessibility for our volunteers.
Visit Our website here https://teamkinetic.co.uk/ Or give us a call on 0161 914 5757 to find out more about how we can help you. You can also reach out to us on our social media channels:
I have been concentrating on accessibility improvements and changes for the upcoming 1.3 release of TeamKinetic and I thought I would give a little background into what accessibility means for websites and what TeamKinetic have been doing to solve some of the issues in a non-technical post.
It’s a long post but here’s a quick check list of what the focus has been for this release;
Clear focus effects so a keyboard users knows where they are at all times
Keyboard accessible menu and sub menu
Keyboard accessible help tips, activated by the return key and closed by switching focus
Proper use of ARIA tags for all content that is initially invisible (such as help tips, pop up windows etc) so that screen readers will correctly read out the revealed text at the correct time
Correctly labelled form elements so that screen readers can always associate an input (such as a text element) with its description
Grouping together of associated form elements using fieldsets and legends. For instance, a collection of checkboxs for a yes, no, maybe, definitely answer. using a fieldset ensures that a screen reader user knows what question the answers belong to.
Keyboard accessible skip to content links that enable keyboard users and screen reader users to skip the menu and header portion of a webpage and get straight to the important stuff. Can you imagine how tedious it is to have to listen or tab through every navigation element on a webpage before you can read its content!
Correct description tags (alt tags) for all images
Improvements to link and button text by providing additional screen reader only text to give context to the link or button.
Making sure all password fields are marked as ‘new’, ‘existing’ or ‘repeat’ as they are often just labelled password.
Ensuring all webpages are accurately and uniquely titled and described.
Accessibility is often low on developers priority list, its understandable, the number of customers using assistive technologies is likely low compared to the numbers that do not. However the impact on those user that do, is enormous and by ignoring accessibility issues you are effectively blocking those users from accessing your content.
Although being able to access your website is a right for assistive technology users, and it is illegal to discriminate against such users, its also a positive process and a way to learn new skills, engage with a new audience and improve the intrinsic worth and value of your product.
Keyboard Accessibility
Keyboard navigation is perhaps the most important aspect of accessibility for websites. Navigating via a keyboard or something similar is employed by many users with mobility issues that cannot hold, move or control a mouse and also by many visually impaired users.
Keyboard users navigate through a website using primarily the tab key which focuses on item to item in the web page in the order it is served or in a specific order set by the website itself. Whilst focused on any element they can use keys such as the return key to activate the actions of that element, say a button to submit a form or to follow a link.
TeamKinetic enables keyboard navigation and all elements are focusable by the keyboard. There is a clear visual clue to which element is currently focused by the keyboard.
Menus
Its almost entirely universal that a website or application has a menu to quickly access different parts of a system. Its also very normal for the menu to have sub menus that are revealed when the mouse is moved over the heading (this is called a HOVER). As you can see below on the TeamKinetic menu the mouse pointer has been hovered over the menu heading and the sub menu is revealed.
But when a keyboard is used to navigate to the menu item the event is called FOCUS, not hover. If the website does not include the specific code for what happens when a menu element is focused by a keyboard event the user will not see the sub menu or any change in colour/appearance to indicate where in the menu they are.
TeamKinetic’s menus are now fully accessible by the keyboard with visual indicators of where the current focus is. When the focus is on an element with a sub-menu available there is a clear colour change and by pressing return the menu can be toggled on and off. Importantly, if the menu is not activated with the return key the user does not have to navigate through all the items of the sub-menu in order to reach the next item in the current menu.
Skip Links
Skip links are a very important and hugely convenient addition for accessibility. They are hidden links or buttons that a screen reader or keyboard user will expose that enable them to skip past all the header and navigation elements that are the same on every page.
The skip to content link only appears when using the tab key to navigate or when using a screen reader
Help ToolTips
Tooltips are little bubbles that pop up to give the user more information or context about a feature or action. Traditionally these have activated when the mouse is hovered over the target and the tooltip disappears when the mouse is moved away from the target.
This is problematic for keyboard users that never fire the hover event, only the focus event (see above) that will never see the tooltip and also for users with reduced motor control. We have converted all our volunteer help tooltips into an accessible form that will fire when the question mark is clicked or when it is focused by a keyboard user. To dismiss the tooltip you move the focus either by pressing the tab key or clicking the mouse anywhere that is not the question mark icon.
importantly the new help tooltips are also labelled carefully with the appropriate ARIA tags so that screen readers are alerted to the presence of new information and are aware when they reach the question mark icon that this will reveal new information when activated and can map the
Improved form labelling
For screen reader users it is important that the context and purpose of all form elements, like text boxes, checkboxes and buttons is clear from the element itself. It is easy for a visual user to tell which question a form element belongs to as it will be group visually, or perhaps via certain colours, on the screen, but will not be apparent to a screen reader user.
Example form showing the correctly marked up labels for the form elements
We have redesigned all the volunteer forms to make sure that the extra context required for screen reader users is included. We achieve this through judicious use of the LABEL tag for describing form elements, by grouping associated elements in a fieldset with a legend and by improving the quality of link and button text by included hidden text that only screen readers see.
Extra Screen Reader Context
Using special styles, it is possible to hide text from visual users but expose it to screen reader users. This is great for adding additional context to buttons and actions that make sense visually but are indistinguishable for screen reader users.
Imagine a long list of say opportunities, each with a button/link that says ‘More Details’ that you might encounter on the search page. It’s easy for a visual user to match the same identical button or link with the context of the opportunity you are currently looking at but not for a screen reader that will just list a long set of identical buttons.
Identical buttons that are easy to associate with the opportunity visually, but not so for a screen reader
The addition of the contextual text means a screen reader user knows, in this case, which opportunity is linked to which button.
The appearance to a screen reader of the repeated buttons without and with added contextual text
What Next ?
Most of the work for this release has been focused on the volunteer’s portal, with some global changes, like the accessible menu applied across the application.
We will be auditing all the provider pages to perform the same changes as above and finally onto the administrator pages.
We envisage that we will be constantly improving accessibility as best practise evolves and we discover new areas that are not optimised for assistive technology users. If you are such a user we would love to hear your experiences and suggestions.
Hi there and welcome to the 1.3 release of TeamKinetic. We’ve got some great new time saving features this time round, the normal raft of small fixes and tweaks and a large dollop of accessibility improvement as we journey towards a fully accessible system for all users.
Headline Updates
Full screen layout for administrators and providers. We’ve removed the logo header bar to give more room for what matters
Brand new dashboard for administrators and providers
Universal search across volunteers, opportunities and providers is available right from the top menu on all pages
New mapping library which produces we think, better looking maps
Trusted status for providers
Upload your own custom areas for reporting and searching
Contextual help bar available anytime from the top menu
Keyboard accessible menus
Accessible forms
Accessible help tooltips
Accessibility layout improvements
Front page slider image controls improved
New application options
New POD functionality
Pause or end participation in a flexible opportunity without leaving the opportunity and losing hours.
New Dashboard
We’ve completely redesigned the dashboard for administrators and providers and it is now very much focused around helping you to get the tasks you need to do, done!
New administrator dashboard
Authorisations, latest chatter messages, logged hours since your last visit and lots more are displayed right there everytime you login. We’ve added some insight into your programme, like who is logging hours, which opportunities or providers are performing badly and suggested tasks to keep on top.
We think this new dashboard will be a real time saver.
Universal Search
From the top menu bar you now have access to a number of new areas including the universal search. It’s a stripped down lookup service that will find matching volunteers, opportunities and providers.
Universal search and lookup
Its obviously not as fully featured as the specific search pages for volunteers, opportunities and providers, but its fantastic for navigating quickly between different things. It also gives you a little visual clue as to the status of each entity, red for access denied when a volunteer, unauthorised when a provider and closed when an opportunity and green for access granted, authorised and open respectively.
New Mapping Service
We are switching to Open Streetmap for our mapping service. This is a fantastic open sourced effort to map the world without the propriety nature and vagaries of being in the Google ecosystem. It also has we think more natural looking maps.
Open StreetMap
Contextual Help
We have built a foundation for us to enable contextual help on every page. This will be accessible from the help icon in the top menu and will reveal all the help topics and tutorials for the page you are currently using. Both administrators and providers have access and we hope it will help new providers especially, get the most from TeamKinetic, and of course ask you less questions!
The slide out help menu available on every page
We are working hard to get help for as many pages as possible on launch but we’ll be adding them progressively and in response to questions that regularly arise. Let us know if there are any topics you’d like to see in the help menus to aid your users.
Accessibility
I’ve already blogged about the accessibility improvements we have coming in this release. This has been a really rewarding process and I’m looking forward to some feedback for how we can keep improving in this area. Most of the effort has been concentrated in the volunteer’s portal but there have been improvements throughout.
New Administrator Controls
Include the volunteer stats in the weekly email. We had some reports that volunteers that were interested in volunteering but hadn’t yet taken the plunge, we’re getting discouraged seeing zero stats every week!
Overlapping session booking option. Using this you can control if volunteers can join sessions which overlap or conflict. We are working on providing a further control to determine how close the sessions need to be in order to initiate the conflict. Volunteers are informed if they attempt to join sessions which overlap, on either the same or different opportunities. By default volunteers are not allowed to join overlapping sessions.
Require volunteers to upload a photo before they can join any opportunities.
Display nationally shared opportunities on your version of the native mobile applications. When enabled users will also be able to view and join nationally shared opportunities direct from their applications.
Ending Flexible Opportunity Attendance
For very long running flexible opportunities its useful to know if volunteers are finished. Previously this was only really possible by asking the volunteer to leave the opportunity but that meant there was now a hole in the audit trail and information for that opportunity.
Volunteers can now click a button when logging hours to say they won’t be logging any more hours and have effectively left the opportunity.
Volunteers can now say they have finished with a flexible opportunity
The same functionality is also available for administrators from the volunteer list on the opportunity management page. Just click the pause icon to flip the volunteer to the finished state and the play icon to flip the back. The volunteers that have finished are separated from the still active ones so you can easily keep track of your flexible volunteers.
Admin display separating finished and active volunteers on flexible opportunities
Launch Date
We’ve processed close to 200 issues for this release and there are many small improvements and bug fixes throughout the application and we are excited to be releasing 1.3 on March 31st.
