TeamKinetic version 6 has entered its testing phase and will be ready for release shortly. We’re very excited about this release and are thinking of naming it something other than a simple number increment as its a huge release and represents something of a milestone for TeamKinetic.
We’ve now got an ever-growing user base and engaged volunteers and the number of opportunities available has expanded rapidly. The software has also been used in more varied situations and types of organisations and we have got some fantastic feedback and ideas that has sparked quite a few innovations in the new TeamKinetic. I’ll be writing a series of posts talking about specific new features but here are a few quick facts about version 6.
Upcoming Features
We’ve committed 175 changes and bug fixes, ranging from tiny typos to entirely new features and workflows.
The CSS and styling has been rewritten to be more responsive and to accommodate the larger screens that are the norm.
A brand new media management page for looking after images and files that you can attach to emails.
New inline editable system emails for things like volunteer registrations and joining opportunities.
Approximately 5500 lines of code have been changed or added.
Simple binary thumbs up or down feedback
Integration with the Mandrill email service to help increase the success rate for email delivery and open rates.
New Google analytics service developed in house to track web views and visitors.
Custom URLs for your events
There are lots more features to tell you about but you can always take a sneaky peek on our Beta site.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
We are proud to continue our support of the NCVO and are happy to announce that we will be attending the NCVO Trustee event on the 10th of November 2014, taking a display stand at the event.
If you would like to arrange a meeting with the team or the opportunity to see the software in action at the event then please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We look forward to talking to th delegates about how we can help them recruit, manage, deploy and retain their volunteer workforce for the future.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
For the first time, TeamKinetic will be taking a display at the Leadership Convention 2014 on the 12th and 13th of November, we look forward to listening to the speakers and taking the opportunity to talk to the various organizations in attendance about how they see Volunteering and the impact it could have on their business moving forwards.
If you are attending the Leadership Convention 2014 and would like to book an appointment to see a demo of the software or would just like to talk to us about how we could help you and your Volunteer workforce, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
Forces are taking on helpers for forensics and at crime scenes as cuts bite, says union
Police using Volunteers for key jobs (Guardian 19/10/14)
Daniel Boffey The Observer, Saturday 18 October 2014 21.20 BST
Beat officers: Police on crowd control at a property fair at Olympia, London, last week.
Their numbers have been cut by 20% in recent years. Photograph: STEFAN WERMUTH/REUTERS
Police forces are quietly taking on unpaid volunteers as crime scene investigators, forensic experts and emergency planning officers as 20% budget cuts bite, it can be revealed. Forces across the country have been taking on volunteers to fill some of the most sensitive police staff roles and some are seeking to escalate their recruitment drives. There are now 9,000 police support volunteers replacing 15,000 staff jobs lost since 2010. Some forces report plans to double or triple their voluntary staff in the next year.
A report by the public sector union, Unison, due to be published on Monday, complains that there has been no public debate about the trend for volunteers to move from peripheral roles, such as chaplain or custody visitors, to key positions. Home Office guidance on police support officers stipulates that volunteers should not under any circumstance replace the roles of directly employed police staff. Yet responses to Unison’s freedom of information requests provide a long list of job roles carried out by volunteers, many of which have been or are paid roles. These include involvement in forensics, crime scenes, the drug testing of people in custody, emergency planning, property detention, deployment management and the provision of scientific support.
The authors of the union’s report, Home Guard of Police Support Volunteers to Fill in for Police Cuts, write: “The idea of police volunteers has a long history in the shape of neighbourhood watch and the special constabulary. However, the recent rapid rise in the number, and the exponential growth in the roles of police support volunteers, breaks any consensus that may have existed around volunteering for, or with, the police. The impact of the cuts on the police staff workforce has been particularly savage, with 15,000 jobs being cut across forces between 2010 and 2014.
“In this new era of scarce resources, holding to the historic Home Office principles for volunteering schemes has become that much harder. In this report, Unison suggests that these ground rules are now being regularly breached and are in need of urgent review.”
The forces reporting the highest number of volunteers are Thames Valley with 70,459, Surrey with 32,000 and West Yorkshire with 19,432, although Unison say that they do not have an issue with many of the roles filled.
The report also reveals that there have been moves by some within the College of Policing to introduce unpaid police community support officers (PCSOs). Lincolnshire and Northampton police forces were said to be willing to pilot the proposal. PCSOs are civilian members of police staff employed as uniformed non-warranted officers. Pay for PCSOs varies from force to force from between around £16,000 to around £27,000 a year, but there have been widespread redundancies in recent years.
Unison say that with the support of others within the college, the idea of supplementing their ranks with unpaid volunteers had been blocked for now, but they warn of “a worrying trend”.
The revelation comes as police staff in England and Wales, including community support officers and fingerprint officers, are to be balloted for industrial action in protest at a 1% pay offer.
Last week unions representing civilian staff said they were angry that after a two-year pay freeze they were being subjected to the same restrictions as other public sector workers. NHS staff, including midwives and nurses, went on strike on Monday.
Deputy Chief Constable Martin Jelley at Northamptonshire Police, which is doubling its voluntary staff to 1,000, and where some volunteers are employed in forensics or intelligence, said: “We have many volunteers who assist us in a wide variety of ways, as do many other organisations; they provide important support to our officers and staff, helping keep our communities safe.” Policing minister Mike Penning said the deployment of volunteers was the responsibility of each force. He said: “This flexible approach allows forces to respond to the individual needs and priorities of their local communities.”
It is with a huge sense of pride we are happy to announce the Sports Volunteering Conference run in partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University is to return again next year. This year’s event was a real pleasure to be involved in and although we have learned some really useful lessons for the next event, we are already planning and looking forward.
The day was filled with positive stories about how Volunteering and the volunteers themselves make such a difference to events, organisations, and everyday sports people. Hearing from a wide range of speakers who shared their experiences on the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, Universities and just about everything else in between was really inspiring.
The conference was also an opportunity to pose some difficult questions that as Volunteer organisers and and strategic planners we need to look at. It was clear that there is a real need for greater insight and understanding about what motivates volunteers, are there different types of volunteers and how we get our clubs to better engage with a wider Volunteer workforce.
Over the next few days we will be releasing some more notes on the event and the slides that were used by the presenters so please feel free to share and use as you require, and I look forward to seeing you all at our next event in 2015.
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:
As our current customers are aware, there is a number of functions within VolunteerKinetic which utilise gamification to incentivise volunteers to log their hours. The main function for this is through digital badges which are clearly visible within the volunteers dashboard when they login. The badges change as the volunteer records more hours within the system.
Recent research has shown that there is evidence that this approach can have a real impact on users actions:
250 volunteers have contributed more than 5000 volunteering hours in 25 World Cup days.
London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic legacy charity Join In have been working with ITV to provide volunteer support for their major summer of sport.
‘Fever Pitch’ is ITV’s flagship World Cup community programme, using the power of their coverage from Brazil, alongside some of the world’s finest international beach soccer teams to inspire more than 2,000 kids and community members from around Manchester to be active this summer.
ITV have brought a flavour of Copacabana to the old Granada Studios with a 3,000 capacity arena, samba dancing and a real beach right in the middle of the city.
Join In are the home of the London 2012 ‘Games Makers’ and their volunteers have a reputation for making grassroots sports events extra special. Supporting local children and young people during the day get a taste of playing on the beach and then in the evening bringing the Brazil in spirit to life.
As the event is running for 25 days, it required lots of motivated volunteers. Join In approached Manchester City Council who already have a very successful Volunteer program – the Manchester VSB – which is powered by TeamKinetic.
TeamKinetic worked with Join In to build an area of the VSB that allowed them to recruit and manage their Volunteers, using social media and an SMS campaign to recruit over 250 individuals in less than one month.
Dom Streeter Head of Campaigns at Join In said:
“We’d like to extend a huge thanks to TeamKinetic. Chris and his team have been superb to work with on this project – reliable, helpful and on hand with valuable local insight. Most importantly, they have delivered, in what was a very short turnaround time.
The 250 volunteers recruited have helped us power ITV Fever Pitch and the many thousands who’ve attended this event have had a wonderful experience because of their enthusiasm, dedication and sense of fun.”
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
