Just a small release with some bug fixes but still a couple of new features for added value!
Bulk Actions on Sessions
Great time saver here for those that deal with many sessions on an opportunity. Similarly to when you are using the volunteer or opp search, you can check individual, or all sessions, and perform some actions on them.
Currently, you can email all the volunteers on that session, update the session’s time and duration, download the volunteer details for everyone on the selected sessions, and delete the selected sessions. There is also the potential to add further actions if anyone has any great ideas.
Admin Chat Rooms
We hope you’ll get on board and make use of this new feature where you’ll be able to ask advice and give advice to your fellow volunteer coordinators.
We’ve currently got three fixed rooms and you can add new posts and reply in much the same way as you do now for the opportunity chat rooms. You can also subscribe to each room and get email alerts when new posts are added.
You’ll find the chat rooms in the Help and Support menu. We are quite excited about this and hope you can use it to good effect.
As always, we are ready to take your feedback and questions in all the normal channels.
Pretty much on time, we are now entering the beta release phase for our next major release, bumping the version number up to 2.2.
So what’s coming in this release, read on to find out.
New Opportunity Creation System
We’ve been aware for a while of just how long and intimidating the opportunity creation forms were, especially for new users. There was also the issue of the ‘Quick’ opportunity type mixing together an opportunity that was quick to enter, with an opportunity that was only being used to advertise an opportunity for providers that have their own volunteer management systems.
So we have created a new system for creating opportunities that splits everything into smaller chunks, offers people an easier way to add new images, less complex location entry, and is a lot simpler to use.
For those providers that are managing their own volunteers, there is a very clear option selection card that explains what will happen. These types of opportunities will also have a much simplified management page that lets the provider know how many people have viewed the opp, clicked the more info buttons, and who those volunteers are if we know.
Better Sharing Options
If you share your opportunities via LinkWide or into the national Scottish system MILO, then you’ll notice some improvements.
Firstly you can now belong to multiple LinkWide groups, and have individual sharing settings for each group; so you can share into one group but only accept shares from another group for instance.
If you are sharing to MILO you can now add existing opportunities to MILO, previously you could only share at the point of opp creation. When an opp is shared you’ll also see all the details you need to find it in MILO
New Date Custom Question Type
We’ve added date as a custom question type for volunteers and providers, and updated the custom question search filters to match.
This opens the door for some very useful reporting and recording methods for volunteer or provider details that are not covered by our regular registration or profile details. By recording dates against volunteers and providers, you can use the filters to find out which people have dates that have expired or that are due soon by using the equals, before, after, and between date filters.
You can imagine the potential for recording and managing things like yearly training, qualifications, driving licenses and insurance etc.
Schedule Bulk Emails
Create an email and schedule it to be sent at specific times. This is a super useful addition and is great for running campaigns or for sending emails over the weekend when you don’t want to be working!
Reporting Improvements
We’ve added applicants for opportunities to the reporting page so you can see at a glance how many applicants are in each status.
We’ve audited all the reports and aligned provider, admin and summary reports so you see the same numbers everywhere!
We’ve added a new download report which has all volunteer opportunity data that can be aggregated by opportunity or session, including custom fields.
The day schedule report is now available for providers as well, of course, limited to just their opportunities.
The mapping features have been added for providers so they can locate all their opportunities and volunteers.
You can now filter and search providers based on their custom fields and also filter volunteers on their qualification names and lapse dates.
Any downloads from the volunteer or provider search page now include their custom field responses.
Opportunity Custom Badges in Search Page
If you’ve added custom badges to opportunities (and if not, why not!), your volunteers will now be able to see those badges in the search page and also filter on those badges.
Useful Hints and Tips
You’ll see when you log in that a small hints and tips area appears at the top of the page giving you some quick info about a feature. We’ll be adding to these tips continually as new features come online and you can choose to switch them off completely or hide them for 30 days if they are starting to bore you!
We hope this will introduce our customers to new features or techniques they might not be aware of.
Manage Your Account
We’ve added a new icon to the top right which allows you to manage your account, it also tells you who you are logged in as if you have multiple accounts.
From here you can also switch the hints and tips back on if you have changed your mind! There are a few other settings to help personalise your experience and we’ll be adding more, so suggestions are welcome.
New Automated Emails
We’ll now remind providers when their opportunities are close to finishing, along with a link to update the opportunity.
Volunteers will get a message wishing them all the best on their birthdays and thanking them for volunteering.
We have also added a reminder email for volunteers to log their hours for past opportunities and complete post-opp surveys and uploads if they are required.
Volunteer Inbox
A brand new message inbox for volunteers that shows all the emails and messages they have received and lets them reply directly to the sender. This should help volunteer questions about specific opportunities get through to the provider rather than using the general purpose contact us page.
Talking of the general purpose Get in Touch page; if the volunteer is logged in it will redirect them to the new inbox area above and they can select from the TO field either the organisation or any of the providers they are currently engaged with. This will reduce those misdirected messages even more.
Dashboard Improvements
We’ve added a panel for ‘Things happening today’ that shows sessions and meetings and things like that that are happening today.
Panels that are empty or not needed. For instance, if you auto-approve providers, are now hidden.
More and more tables throughout the app are now sortable in place using the icons at the top of the columns, with no page refresh required.
Improvements to Max Slot Numbers for Sessions
You can now alter the global maximum slot number per session from the sessions tab, rather than having to go to the restrictions tab.
For flexible opportunities it looks like this;
And for sessional opps, there is a little button to reveal the options, it could be quite a destructive process so we want to make sure, and it looks like this;
There are also over 120 smaller bug fixes and improvements in this release many as a direct result of support tickets and feature requests so keep them coming.
Steve also went through the new release in a few online sessions. If you missed them, you can catch up by clicking here.
Thanks everyone.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
Only a month since the last interim release and here we are again!
As you can tell from the version number bump this is a mostly minor release but there are a few goodies in there.
Email Failure Reports
Our Enterprise level customers can now see a report of the last month’s email failures. This includes hard bounces, where the email was returned for some reason and could not be delivered, rejects where the email address does not exist, and spam responses where the user has reported the email as spam.
In the case of rejects and hard bounces, the volunteer or provider email is marked as INVALID and in the case of spam reports they are marked as DO NOT SEND EMAILS. In both cases the email address will no longer be sent any bulk group, or weekly emails.
We are working on including the email content and subect so that you know which email raised the error and failed.
Event Area Updated
The event area has now been updated to match the look and functionality of the volunteer and opportunity search and manage pages. It looks a lot easier on the eye and for those of you that run a lot of events, you can now easily search them.
Storage Improvements
We’ve mow moved nearly all of the image and document storage to Amazon’s S3 which should improve load and caching times for images like the opportunity images, event images, downloadable documents etc.
There will not be any visible changes and it should be totally transparent to our customers.
Club Functionality Integrated
For those enterprise customers that use ClubKinetic, this has all been integrated into the main top menu bar under the, obvious heading, clubs!
The pages have also been updated to match the layout and functionality of the main areas.
New Qualifications Search Filter
For those customers that use volunteer qualifications you can now filter your volunteers on their uploaded qualifications.
Refreshed and Update News Area
For the administrators the news area has been refreshed and now looks and acts the same as the main areas of the application.
More Sortable Tables
We’ve added some simple sorting to tables that are not paged through many records, for instance the open opportunities table on the admin dashboard. Just click the column header to sort and each time you click the sort direction will be reversed.
There are also the normal smaller bug fixes and visual immprovements throughout the application. Many thanks to everyone that opens support tickets with ideas or lets us know if something isn’t working properly.
You’ll already be on the new release by the time you read this, so enjoy and get in touch if you have any comments.
Hot on the heels of 2.09 from December we have another interim release for you. This one focuses on improvements to the expenses functionality after feedback and suggestions from our fantastic users. As always though, there is plenty of stuff to talk about.
Volunteer Expenses Improvements
Volunteers now have a few more options; they can update their bank details at anytime, delete unprocessed expense claims, and quickly view any current claims. Additionally if the claim has not yet been processed the volunteer can also update any of the details. We’ve also adjusted the layout so it looks better on small and mobile screens.
Administrator Expense Improvements
Administrators can now create a new expense claim for any volunteer without impersonating them. Just tap in the name of the volunteer and complete the form, dead easy.
When exporting the expense details to a CSV, we now include a link to the uplaoded receipt file if it exists, which makes it easier to pass the details on to a different department.
The volunteer’s bank details are now also visible and editable on their management page. All processed claims when marked as paid, are stored along with the bank account details that were recorded at that time, so you will have a nice audit trail if accounts change.
New Custom Emails
We’ve added a couple of new custom email and also split the emails up into three tabs; sent to volunteers, providers and admins.
You can now edit the password reset email to add more information and instruciton if your volunteers are struggling. This email was previously sent but was not customisable.
We’ve also added a brand new process for when a volunteer removes themselves (see below) from the system and we’ve added a custom email to go along with that process.
New Restore Feature For Volunteers
Previously when a volunteer deleted their own account they were taken back to the homepage and their data and login details were immediately removed.
Now the new custom email (see above) is sent and the volunteer is given some information about what happens now; when their data is destroyed etc. Most importantly, the email contains a special link that the volunteer can use to restore their account if they change their mind, or in case of a mistake. The volunteer has 48 hours to restore the account before its removed.
More Customisable Registration Fields
We’ve added the data sharing confirmation questions to those that are customisable from the super admin pages. So you can now update the label and the tool tip for these fields.
We’ve also improved the tool tip recognition code for your customised registration fields so they show more effectively now.
Dual Language Support for Custom Questions
We did previously support dual language for custom questions but now super admins can edit and adjust all their own custom questions at anytime from the same interface as the main language questions.
Dual Language Support for Customised Registration Questions
Additionally super admins can now also adjust the text, labels and tool tips for all the required registration questions instead of relying on the fixed translations.
Provider Search Speed Improvements
You may have noticed the provider search page was slowing down and took a number of seconds to return the first set of providers. These slowdowns when using the same database query as previous are due to table size effects and data complexity. The same query works fine upto a tipping point, then its slows down precipitously. The query has been redesigned and is now nice and snappy again.
As this is an interim release, we dont have the beta test period we employ with our larger release. This means this release will be hitting your browsers this week. Get in touch if you have any questions or feedback.
Another great value interim release for you all, and only a few weeks since the last one! This one is all software based, no hardware or infrastructure updates, which is much better for my health and sanity =)
Update Feedback from Volunteer Dashboard
Providers and admins can now update a volunteers feedback from the feedback section on the volunteer dashboard page. Just hit the update link and you can save it right there – no refresh required.
New Translation Engine
For those customers (Enterprise only) that use an alternative language to English (get in touch if you are interested) we have now brought all translations in-house to our own replacement engine.
This has a number of advantages; we can update and add new replacements fast, translator marked Super Admins can provide translations right there in the Super Admin area, and they can request new replacements to be added.
Using our own replacement and translation engine has increased the page load time for translated pages by four fold, an excellent result.
Send Custom Newsletters Whenever You Want
The bulk email system has been updated to use the same HTML wrapper as the weekly newsletter, so all your bulk emails will now look better and have more branding elements for your organisation.
When creating bulk emails you can now select any number of opportunities to be included in the email. You have the option of including the events that week and if you want to show the volunteer’s statistics across the top. These are all displayed in exactly the same way as within the newsletter so its now possible to send a newsletter type email to any of your volunteers, for any of your opportunities, whenever you like!
We have also rearrange and refactored the preview and draft buttons so you can now send a preview email to your email instantly and save a draft copy without leaving the page. We also now update the saved draft each time you hit the save draft button, rather than creating a new draft.
Expenses Module – First Phase
This is another great Enterprise only option to help you manage your expenses. You’ve been able to mark an opportunity as expenses provided for quite a few versions now. This new module closes the loop for expenses.
Volunteers can select applicable opportunities from their dashboard, upload a receipt, an explanation of what the expense is for, and the amount they are claiming.
Admins get an alert when a new claim is submitted by a volunteer and can manage them all from a simple interface.
The admin can view the receipt, adjust the claim amount, and update the claim status. A full history of changes and notes is maintained and viewable underneath the main claim.
We have also added some additional profile data points for UK bank account and sort codes which are only requested and stored if a volunteer makes an expenses claim. One day we hope to create some in app payment methods but we’ve yet to find one that has been acceptable to the majority of our customers yet…but we are still looking!
The managed expenses module is an enterprise only feature. Administrators can switch this module on and off and allow trusted providers to be able to mark an opportunity with the managed expenses flag. The managed expenses runs alongside the regular expenses flag, so anyone can still mark an opportunity as paying expenses, and this will show in the search filters and opp description, but only enterprise admins and trsuted providers will be able to add this managed aspect to those expenses.
Front page customisations
Our new front end (if you are not using it we suggest switching it on as volunteers seem to prefer it!) has some extra customisations, and now they are all also available in your chosen alternative language (enterprise only).
If you can’t find a suitable image, then it will fill the background with some of your chosen colours with a subtle animation effect so it will still look great even without an image.
Accreditation Improvements
We’ve standardised all the accreditation badge prints now so there will be zero variability between badges no matter how you print them.
We’ve also added the help and support menu to the accreditation menus so you can open support tickets straight from there without having to return the main volunteer menu.
The event access screen now accommodates the full 12 possible areas for each event and correctly displays access for each selectable zone.
There have also been quite a few small improvements and enhancements to the UI/UX as we harmonise it with the main application.
You can try out these features as normal on the beta site before the interim gets pushed out on 5th December. We’ll be notifying everyone and getting together some training videos and materials to make sure you can hit the ground running.
Closing Opportunities Added to Dashboard
Opportunities that are closing within 7 days are now shown to providers in their dashboard under the tasks panel.
These have been available on the administrators dashboard for a little while now but have now been brought across to the provider dashboard as well.
Happy Birthday Message for Volunteers
Just a little message on their dashboard when it is their birthday, wishing them the best and thanking them for volunteering.
We’ll be adding more life events to these notifications over time, like anniversaries of them registering, joining their first opportunity, logging their first hours etc.
Restore Recently Deleted Volunteers
We receive quite a few support tickets where administrators have accidentally deleted a volunteer, or deleted the wrong volunteer.
So we have implemented a restore feature that will work for 48 hours after the deletion. You can use the new DELETED filter in the volunteer search page to find all the volunteers that have been deleted in the last 48 hours. To restore a volunteer just hit the checkbox next to their name and then use the CHANGE STATUS bulk action in the bottom blue bar to restore them.
Once the 48 hour period has expired you will not be able to restore that volunteer. We can restore volunteers after this period for upto 30 days from cold storage backups but there is a charge.
Administators cannot restore a volunteer that has removed themselves, for obvious reasons; however all their hours are anonymised and retained.
Anonymised Hours from Deleted Vounteers Included
You can now see your anonymised hours from deleted volunteers in the quick stats area of the reporting pages. It combines the totals and highlights the total from deleted volunteers in brackets.
The date of removal is used as the hour logged date.
We have had a busy few weeks and have rolled out another interim release packed full of useful changes and updates suggested by our users.
Additionally we have also updated our infrastructure over the last few weekends with minimal distruption. All our servers and virtual environments are now on the latest server operating system and our database has also been updated to a new version. We’ve also thrown some more hardware at the application and I hope you have noticed some snappier responses.
Custom emails for opportunities
You can now add a custom email to an opportunity that is sent when a volunteer joins INSTEAD of the universal email (the universal email remains accessible and customisable as before). So if you have a special message to give to volunteers that join certain opportunities here is your chance.
It’s super easy to use and access, quick check box to say you want to use a custom email then you will see the normal editor window where you can craft the email.
Administrators can add an attachment to these emails from the normal list of email attachments you are used to seeing in the bulk email and email customisation areas.
Remember, this email is sent INSTEAD of the universal one, so be sure to include full details.
Custom email for role applications
Just as above, now when super admins are creating or editing roles they can add a custom email that is sent when a volunteer applies for that role.
It all works identically as for custom opportunity emails, and once again is sent instead of the universal email.
Close applications for an opportunity
Admins and providers can now hit a button on the APPLICANTS tab for apply first opportunties which will close applications for the opportunity without closing the opportunity. This enables already accepted volunteers to carry on as normal, and access new sessions, without attracting any new applicants.
Opportunity image enforcement option
Super Admins can now elect to switch of the mandatory upload of images for each opportunity. This option is OFF be default.
Information about the opportunity the intial role application was for
When a volunteer first applies for a role we record which opportunity this was on. We used this to enable the auto application to the opportunity if it was required, once the role applicaiton was complete and successful.
We have now started to show this information on the role management page so you know which opportunity the volunteer was originally interested in.
The volunteer also gets this information, along with a link to the original opportunity so they don’t need to hunt around to find it.
New and fixed reports
We have added a pie chart showing the proportion if volunteers on events and opportunities that have reported as having special needs or disabilities, downloadable of course.
The pie chart showing the ethnicity of volunteers on opportunities and events was not using distinct volunteers, but all the joined sessions. This has been fixed and is now accurate and the total volunteers will match the number given in the summary for volunteers.
Improved profile editing for volunteers
The layout when editing the profile for a volunteer has been tidied up and the various layouts for external volunteers, provider editing pages have also been improved.
We have split out the location aspects of their profile from their personal details, so you can update and edit independantly. This will help where location details have not been recorded properly but you still need to update other aspects of their profile.
Feedback report is now downloadable
Added a download button to the feedback report page so you can grab a full list of all the feedback at anypoint.
New filter for searching volunteers
You can now choose in the TYPE filter, to show volunteers that will and that will not receive bulk emails. A volunteer only receives bulk emails if they have opted in, have a valid email address, and have been granted access.
Faster searching
The opportunity search page speed has been improved by excluding distance calculations where possible and also using a boundary box method of finding matching opportunities rather than calculating the distance from the volunteers location and all other opportunites.
This is not as accurate but much faster and the accuracy is perfectly acceptable for this search. This means that empty or null searches, which are by far the most performed search such as;
can return the maximum 250 opportunities in less than a second.
Providers having multiple accounts is now optional
The ability for providers to create their own sub accounts for collegues to use to login is now an option. You can find it in the super admin menu > options > everything else tab.
Better ordering of completed opportunities for volunteers
When volunteers view their opportunity tab in their dashboard, completed opportunities were ordered by their start date (age). We’ve switched this around now so that the opportunities are ordered by the date of their last session on that opportunity. So the opportunity that was mostly recently completed is at the top.
In app criminal checks
We are just finishing our initial development of in app criminal checks with KnowYourPeople in the UK. This wil mean you can fill out a simple form in the app, send it off and within 24 hours or so you will have the completed criminal check details available on the volunteers profile.
They will also send the certifcate to the volunteers address and your organisation name will appear on the certificate.
We don’t have finalised prices for the each check, but we are confident they will be less than £12 per check for the enhanced version.
If you are interested in trialing this new feature please get in touch.
We’d like to thank everyone who joined the steering group session- it’s been really helpful to us to hear your comments and feedback on the areas we discussed.
The group was able to talk through the main areas of our system answering polls we’d set up to get a basic feel of how you, as users, felt using our system and its features. We also got to listen to any ideas you had, which we could explore deeper into for the future. This process has been really insightful for us, and something we aim to complete multiple times a year: we’re here to help, so any and all feedback is welcome.
Based on some of the feedback, we’re starting the process of creating helpful ‘how to’ videos/blog posts on our features and how you can use them effectively, so keep an eye out for those, coming soon!
We’ll be recapping the poll questions and the responses from the Steering Group held on 22/06/2021 below. If you find that you’d like to make any comments regarding changes or new features to add- feel free to open up a support ticket on the system.
To start the session off we delved into the system regarding ‘Setup.’ We wanted to know if our system suited your needs for configuration and whether the training provided was everything you needed to be!
Poll 1: How did you find configuring your system to suit your needs? We wanted to understand if there were any areas in particular that you struggled with, or that the settings were clear enough for you. During the session, we found that sometimes our system updates or some things change slightly and you aren’t aware. This is something we should be letting you all know about, no matter how small it might be. We’ll be making sure everyone receives updates so you never miss a change.
Poll 2: How did you find the training? The second question focused on the training we provide, and whether or not you felt that you could move forward using the system once training was completed. A number of those on the call gave feedback about having to give extra training themselves to their providers; we pride ourselves on giving you the best quality training, so incorporating more training aimed at providers is something we’ll be having discussions about.
After setup we looked at ‘General.’ This was about the general use of the system and the type of language we use there.
Poll 3: How did you find the user interface? This poll focused on the running of the system, do you find that everything is where you thought it should be? We received feedback that some found the process hard and would like some more guidance, we have videos that can help you out with our system on our YouTube channel which you can have a look at over here. We are in the early stages of getting more of these videos out to all to explain some of the features that you may not know about so watch this space!
Poll 4: Do you understand the language used on the system? Focusing on the way aspects of the system might be labelled, do you think that we’re being clear enough, or is there anything do you think we could change to be clearer? After discussions we found that the term ‘Flexible’ was confusing for some. We were given some suggestions such as ‘Long-Term’ or ‘On-going’ opportunities which we’ve taken onboard to talk about whether a change like this is needed.
Poll 5: How did you find setting up your onboarding process? This single poll regarded whether or not you were able to understand how to use the setup settings to replicate your requirements for your onboarding process for your volunteers. Some have expressed that they have had recruitment processes with providers outside of us here at Team Kinetic: this again may link to our training sessions we currently hold, and focusing in on a more clearer way to show what providers can do is something we’re now looking to include.
Next up we spoke about communications within the system.
Poll 6: How do you find communication with volunteers and providers? We wanted to grasp how you felt using the emailing system, and how easy and effectively you could email recipients. On the session, more customisation was an idea floated through- which makes sense, allowing you access to a wider range of fonts/colours/branding. It’s something that we’ll be looking into and seeing what the best routes are for getting these types of features into the system.
Poll 7: Do you use notifications? It is interesting for us to know whether you use the notifications and the news features. We have had talks about combining together news and notifications so this Steering Group was useful to know if that was something you might want. The terms news and notifications are similar but they do have differences, we found that some might not know these differences. In response, we’re getting a blog post written to show the differences and let you know how to use these features efficiently and effectively.
Polls 8 & 9 were on the subject of ‘Users.’ We wanted to know:
Poll 8: Should we allow admins to alter privilege of what a provider can do? This could mean that you can customise the elements that providers can and can’t do on the system. There was a suggestion of a possible phasing in of providers, so that they may be restricted at the beginning and grow into the system- this is something we’ll definitely explore in the future and other customisation options on privileging providers.
Poll 9: Should we differentiate internal and external providers? Internal providers are those who work for you, so we would be differentiating between providers that work for you and providers who have come from other organisations. While on the discussion of providers, there was a suggestion of letting providers know when their opportunities are about to end, so that they can promote them if there are still available spaces for volunteers. It will be something we’ll spend time looking into if there is an effective way to do this!
We followed this up with a question surrounding searching.
Poll 10: Is there any group of volunteers which you find it hard to identify? We wanted to understand whether or not our filters work, are they in the right place for you? and whether or not we were missing any filters that you feel are important. There were some mixed reactions to moving all of the filters into one list, with some in favour and others not. Despite the mix we will still have a look around, just to see if the system will be cleaner to navigate if filters are all on one list.
We then moved onto ‘Logging Hours and Feedback.’
Poll 11: How do you find logging hours and feedback? We found that clients were struggling at times to get volunteers to log their hours; we suggest giving them an incentive to get them logging hours, this could be through our achievement badges or adding your own customisable ones! We currently have a blog post being written that goes into more detail about how you can get your volunteers logging hours.
Poll 12: Should users be able to update or add new feedback on an opportunity? It was a nice discussion to have on whether this would be a beneficial feature, it’s something we have thought of before, so it was interesting to see how you would feel about it. We did get some suggestions for bulk feedback to become a feature. This sounds like something that would be beneficial to those who have a lot of volunteers that need hours and feedback logging, so we’ll have a talk with our developers to see if this is a feature we can add in future updates!
From logging hours to Criminal Record Checks (CRC), we wanted to gather some more feedback when it comes to our system and CRCs.
Poll 13: Would it be useful to allow admins to submit a DBS/PVG directly through the system? When we were discussing this on the group we concluded that this would be a way to save time and duplication for all parties, we’ll be looking more into this over the next few updates.
Poll 14: Should we allow providers to add criminal checks to volunteers? How would this work? For this poll we wanted to understand whether or not allowing providers to do this was a feature that was wanted and if we would have to look at implementing something in order for that to work smoothly. As you can see by the poll the answers were a little mixed! If this is something that you think might be beneficial- let us know.
Carrying on with features, Polls 15&16 spoke about Creating/Managing Opportunities.
Poll 15: How do you find creating opportunities? We want to make it as clear and simple as possible for you to create an opportunity for your volunteers, so this question was to see if there was anything we could possibly add to aid that experience. Again the concept of ‘Flexible’ opportunities came up. To make sure that everyone can understand flexible and session based opportunities, and the differences between them, we’ll write up a blog post or explain on one of our YouTube videos so you can better understand them.
Poll 16 broke this down a little further by asking: How do you find managing opportunities using the controls? From the polls you can see that those on the session found that managing opportunities easy. If you do find that there is anything that could be made clearer, then you can send us a support ticket on our system or get in touch through our email!
We also wanted some feedback on Events and setting those up.
Poll 17 asked: How do you find setting up an Event? We found that when we spoke in a little more detail, some of you needed reminding on exactly how to do this, in response, we’re currently in the process of setting up some videos and blog posts on how to use our features effectively.
Poll 18 & 19 focused on CSVs (Comma-Separated Values.)
Poll 18: Does the use of CSV confuse anyone? We found during the session some weren’t aware of what CSV is or stands for, simply, CSVs are where you can download a spreadsheet text file of information from our system.
Poll 19 simply asks: Is there anything which you can’t currently download which you would like to? If you believe there’s something, please raise it on a support ticket and we’ll get onto exploring that for you.
Poll 20 focused on our courses feature. Currently the course feature is just to promote any courses you may want to introduce your volunteers to.
Poll 20: How do you find promoting courses? In the session an idea was to allow them to book onto those courses through the system and whether this was possible: It’ll be something we’ll have a look into for future updates.
Poll 21 homed in on the help here at TeamKinetic and how do you find accessing help on TeamKinetic? If you ever find yourself stuck somewhere on our system there are a number of ways to get help, you can open up a support ticket, click the help option along the top in the right corner.
Our polls then moved onto the super admin settings.
Poll 22: Do you understand the wording used in the super admin settings? The group found that it does take some time to remember where everything is, and under what heading, but it does become routine once they’ve been using the system frequently. We are on hand to support you, so if you do find you need some helping finding out where certain features are, and how to use them, have a look on our YouTube and blog pages, we should have the answers over there.
Poll 23 expanded on this, asking: Do you find the way options are grouped together to be logical? This is essentially asking if you think everything is where it’s supposed to be. We found by the poll that most people thought our system was logical, which is good! We’d like to think everyone can move around the system easily and freely.
Our final 2 polls were questions on referencing and references.
Poll 24: How do you find adding referencing? With this poll, we did get some feedback expressing the need for a preview option. This is something we will be having a look at and exploring as an option for the system. This would mean you would be able to see the referencing form beforehand to check everything is how you want it.
The final poll of the session centred around providers setting up their own reference forms. Poll 25: Should providers be able to set up reference forms for themselves? Again this poll had a range of answers, so it may be something that we try and get some more wider opinions and information on before we take a look at getting this into the system.
The Steering Group has helped us understand more about how you use our system and where we can start to build a clearer path towards the future.
We once again want to thank everyone who attended and took part in the session. We’ve received some really good feedback and ideas about our system and its features which we can explore further.
Roles are a brand new feature for version 2, they sit above opportunities and enable a prescribed on-boarding process for volunteers. Roles are a great feature for organisations that have regular opportunities that are undertaken under the same set of compliance, training, or on-boarding rules.
An opportunity can belong to one or no role and once a volunteer has successfully completed the steps for a role, they can subsequently join any opportunity that belongs to that role; the role authorisation is valid across any opportunity in that role.
Creating Roles
Creating role is only possible for super admins and is accessible via the super admin menu in the SETUP section.
Click the add button to create a new role. You’ll be presented with a split screen form with the role name and description on the left, and the default four stages on the right.
Start by filling in the role name and its description to help volunteers decide if they want to apply for the role.
When you are ready to start adding tasks to your stages click the add button. This will open up a sheet with the task name and notes for that task. Additionally you will see a checkbox labelled ‘Volunteer can complete’. If this box is checked then the applying volunteer will be able to mark this task as complete without any admin oversight. This is great if you just want to check a volunteer has read a document or get an auditable confirmation that some step has been carried out.
You do not have to add tasks to every stage, the tasks do not need to be completed in order, and a stage can have no tasks at all if you prefer to put all the tasks in one stage.
Once created you can edit, archive or restore a role and the setup page shows you a brief summary of the role and its current status. When editing a role you can add or remove tasks and update the role name and description. Be aware that adding tasks will not affect those volunteers that have already been accepted on the role.
Managing Role Applications
All admins can manage volunteer role applications and outstanding role applications will appear on the admin dashboard for attention.
Just hit the manage button and the full status and history of the application will be shown. This is a pretty comprehensive screen but super easy to use.
You can move the status of any task forwards or backwards, from pending to started and finally complete. You can add notes that other administrators can read and update the overall status of the role application to approve or deny.
We have the intermediate status of STARTED for a task so that if a task takes time to process for an admin, another admin doesn’t repeat any work whilst the first admin is completing the task.
Importantly all steps taken are logged and viewable in the application log window. You can see here when tasks were started, completed or reverted back a stage, when people left notes, or when a volunteer has completed a task.
A volunteer will see their role applications on their dashboard. By clicking the more details link they will get a full breakdown of the current role and from here will be able to complete any suitable tasks.
Adding a Role to an Opportunity
It’s a simple task to add a role to an opportunity. If any active roles exist, they will appear in a drop down when creating a new opportunity.
If you update an existing opportunity and add a role requirement it will only affect volunteers that join after that point; existing volunteers will not be affected.
The 2021 Q2 major release for TeamKinetic is now approaching our beta test phase where we invite and encourage all our users to have a poke around!
It’s a full jump to Version 2 as we have totally updated the volunteer application with the latest .NET platform (admin and provider to come), have introduced some new features and done some major work to align the design and feel across the whole application. We’ve also got some brand new native apps for android and iOS that will be out a few weeks after the desktop release.
Here are some of the highlights for this major release milestone.
Volunteer Roles
Many of our larger customers, and those with greater governance requirements will get alot from this new feature. It’s a bit like super charged APPLY FIRST feature!
A role is a set of steps that must be completed before a volunteer is approved on an opportunity. Super admins define the role, which is organised around four steps, each with as many (or no) tasks as you require. Each role has its own name, description, and a spot to add some information that is emailed to the volunteer when they first apply for a role.
Roles are applied to one or more opportunities, and once a volunteer has completed all steps on a role they can join any opportunity which requires that matching role, once they have satisfied any other pre-requisites to joining.
For example; if a volunteer joins a litter picking opportunity which has a role called ‘basic role’ then they will be required to jump through a number of onboarding steps as defined by the ROLE. But once they have done this they can go onto join any other opportunity which is also linked to the ‘basic role steps’ and it will not require them to go through the steps again (as they have already completed those role steps).
Each task can be flagged as actionable by the volunteer or administrator, they can complete that task from their dashboard when they have satisfied the requirements.
Administrators are alerted when a volunteer joins an opportunity requiring a ROLE, they are alerted via the actions tab on their main landing page.
The administrator can then monitor and record the volunteers progress through each of the steps within the ROLE, through to completion.
Each role task can be started by an admin, then completed and a full history log is maintained and visible at all times.
An application can be approved once all the tasks have been completed, but there is no enforced order to task completion.
When a volunteer is approved on the ROLE they are emailed (custom emails available of course) and shown a list of corresponding opportunities that they are now eligible to join.
Additionally, if a opportunity has its own APPLY FIRST status and a role requirement, then once the volunteer is approved for the role they are automatically placed in the applicants queue for that opportunity, they wont have to do anything else.
New Scheduling Features
We’ve added a brand new feature for adding volunteers to sessions. You can now select any number of volunteers and add or remove them from any number of sessions in one hit!
You can select from the current joined volunteer list, or search for new volunteers.
It’s super simple but much quicker than moving them individually (still available).
We’ve also re-designed our day schedule report so it’s much easier to see what is going on day by day.
You can still view any period and restrict it to certain opportunities or events, but now you’ll see every day in that period in a calendar like display.
You get the day, all the opps that have sessions on that day, how full the session is (full sessions are highlighted) and can click through to view a list of volunteers on that session.
You’ll be able to see empty days and poorly subscribed sessions really easily, then click through and start adding volunteers using the new multi-add feature we just introduced!
Re-Designed Applicants Dashboard
Applicants are now clearly divided into new, successful, and denied. You can instantly approve or deny a new applicant and then revert that decision and mark them as newly approved. This was something that proved popular in the roadmap voting.
The on-screen messaging and alerts have been improved and standardised so you’ll always know what’s happening.
Modern Front Page
Although our existing front page allows for a lot of customisation, many of our customers have been asking for a simpler cleaner look to their front page.
So we’ve have added a new modern layout that will be the default for all new customers. It’s got much simpler settings, just a single image and a message box, to worry about, looks great on all screen sizes, and gets right to the point so volunteers can login and register quickly.
Multiple Provider Accounts
This is a useful little feature for when there are multiple individuals at an organisation that all need to login as providers as manage their opportunities, but dont want to share login details.
Providers can now create and manage their own user list without any intervention required from the admins or super admins. Just add a name, email address and password and they can go ahead and login.
Multiple Meetings and New Meeting Features
Previously a volunteer could only have one active meeting at a time, now you can book and manage as many meetings as you like for volunteers.
Additionally we have added the ability to specify if the meeting is to be virtual, and if so, to add the link to the virtual meeting, or if not the location of a face to face meeting. You can also add a custom message which gets sent along with the normal custom email for new meetings, so you can let them know any extra information they need.
We’ve also tidied up the induction section of a volunteer manage dashboard and added the meeting details there. From here you get a link back to manage meetings and can also add a new meeting for the volunteer right from their dashboard.
Opportunity Badges
These are linked to opportunities showing that the opportunity is linked to a specific award scheme.
Example: If logged hours on the opportunity can go towards a volunteers Duke of Edinburgh Award, then they might attach it to the ‘DofE Opportunity Badge’.
Just add a name, description, and a badge image to create your opportunity badges. These can then be added to your opportunities, filtered on in the search and are displayed to the volunteers.
Great for quickly indicating to your volunteers what sort of opportunity its likely to be.
Gender List Editable in Alt Language
For those of you that take advantage of our alt language feature and translations (and if you don’t..why not?!) you can now view and edit your gender lists in your chosen alt language.
These are instantly reflected on the registration pages..which brings us to…
New Volunteer Registration
Volunteers begin their registration either by providing an email address, or by registering with Google or Facebook.
If they use and email address they will receive an email with a special link to confirm their email address and continue with their registration.
This will cut down drastically the number of bogus registrations and also reduces the initial inertia for registration. This first step of registration is recorded and we’ll be able to get some great insight into what is preventing volunteers from completing their registration.
We have also worked on the registration page itself; made it shorter, improved the location section, and added more on-screen help.
We think it’s a definite improvement and will hopefully lead to a higher rate of successful registrations.
New Search Page
The public search page is now more compact and the events have been moved to the right so they don’t obscure the results.
When viewed on smaller screens the layout adjusts accordingly so events are still visible.
Opportunity Images
You might have noticed in the screenshot for the search page that we now support adding images to opportunities!
We know from our experience that this has to be quick and painless or providers just don’t bother. So we’ve put in place a number of features to try to make this easy for providers.
Images are mandatory for opportunities, you cant add your first opportunity without uploading at least one image
You can select from your previous images, so once you have one you don’t have to keep uploading
When creating an opp, it will default to your last used image
ABOVE: Admin/Providers view when creating opportunityABOVE: Volunteer view of opportunity with image
It really couldn’t be easier! These images are responsive and will adjust in height and width to cope with any sized screen.
Everything Else
Multiple groups are selectable from the bulk email screens
Can add files to the private notes section
Course management improved
More admin options available
More opportunity sharing data available along with suggestions of other organisations you might want to join forces with
Volunteers can see how many slots are available in each session before they join
Induction questions are now sortable
New report showing the ethnicity breakdown of active volunteers
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.
