Custom Questions for Volunteer Opportunities

Users of the Advanced Registration System (ARS) add-on for HandsOn Connect can skip this section.  The ARS has a more robust and powerful interface for adding additional questions to the volunteer opportunity sign-up process.  For more information on the ARS click here and/or contact your HOC sales or support rep.

If you don't have the ARS add-on - Volunteer Opportunities can ask "custom questions" as part of the sign-up process.

If you'd like to get more information from a volunteer when they sign-up or express interest in an opportunity, create 'questions' that will appear as part of the sign-up for that specific Volunteer Opportunity.

The answers to custom questions appear as a related list to the connections that are made.

Note:  Custom Questions can not be added to Individually Scheduled Opportunities of registration type "Express Interest with Schedule".

How to add a custom question

How to add a custom question

Click on the "New Volunteer Opportunity Question" button to open up the Question edit screen.

Some pages may also have an "Add Question" button at the top of the page which may also be used to open the Question edit screen.

Select or Create your question

Select or Create your question

By default, the Volunteer Opportunity you were viewing will be auto-populated.  This is the opportunity the question will be associated with.

You can then select an existing question that you have previously created using the "Select Question" lookup or you can click on the "Create" button to create a new question.   NOTE: The "Create" button will be found on the far right side of the page.

If you are creating a new question, you need to first select the TYPE you want to use:

 Question Types Defined:

 Question Types Defined:

State the Question and the options available as answers:

State the Question and the options available as answers:

 

Set the order, and whether it is required and active

Set the order, and whether it is required and active

Order:  Place a number here.  Multiple questions with the same opportunity will be placed in the order based on the contents of this field.  (We recommend making the first question 10, second 20 etc... so that if you decide to add a question later that falls between them you can make its order "15".

Required: if checked, the question is not optional, and signup can not be completed until the questions has a response to it.  It will appears with an asterick (*) next to the question number.

Active: Check this box to make the question active with the opportunity.  If unchecked, the question will no longer appear.  (This is used instead of deleted questions, because you may have answers associated with this question from earlier occurrences).

Click SAVE to save your custom question.

NOTES:

  • Once you select a question type it cannot be changed. If you need to select a different type, then make the current question inactive and create a new question with the desired type.  
  • The answers in the text field are limited to 255 characters (including spaces). If using a multi-select option such as checkboxes the response selected will truncate at 255 characters.

Saving your Volunteer Opportunity Question

Saving your Volunteer Opportunity Question

If you opt to create a new Question, once you have saved it the Question ID (QU-######) will be populated in the "Select Question" field.

Once both the Select Question and Volunteer Opportunity fields are populated, you can then click Save to add the custom Question to the Volunteer Opportunity.

Editing Questions

Editing Questions

If you need to edit an existing Question, you can go to the Volunteer Opportunity Questions list and click on the "QU-######" link.

From the Question detail page, you can see the Volunteer Opportunities that are currently using the Question.

You can click Edit to make the following changes:

  • Question Text
  • Options
  • Order
  • Required
  • Active

NOTE: Once you select a question type it cannot be changed. If you need to select a different type, then make the current question inactive and create a new question with the desired type.

Keep in mind that if the same question is being used as a Volunteer Opportunity Question for other opportunities, any change to order, required or active will also affect the other volunteer opportunities associated with the question.  So edit with care.  (You may find it easier to create a NEW question if this question is the current question is used by more than one volunteer opportunity).

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