When a volunteer goes to a volunteer opportunity and clicks on the "Signup" or "Express Interest" button and they've not yet logged in, or don't have a volunteer account, a familiar pop-up comes up instructing them to Login or Register:

If they then log in, they are returned to the opportunity detail page, and may be confused about whether or not they have signed up for the project (they haven't :-(    and some forget to click the 'sign up' or 'express interest' button.

The confusion is even greater if they click on "Register".   They are then taken to the registration page, complete the registration process, and remained on the Registration success page.   Many people mistakenly feel that they've signed up for the opportunity (they haven't :-(   Because they 'registered'   (which actually is creating a member account for them, but NOT signing them up for the opportunity).  To sign up, they have to go back to the opportunity page, and then sign-up again for that opportunity.

The distinction between 'registering' and 'signing up for an opportunity' can be confusing to volunteers - and sometimes led to people registering but not signing up :-(

One Step Signup / Registration fixes all this!

Here's how it works:

1) If they are not logged in, and click on Sign-Up or Express Interest -- they get the same pop-up as before.

2) If they log in,  the act of logging in from this popup will then automatically sign them up for the opportunity they had tried to sign up for.   Depending on the opportunity configuration, they will either then go to the success page right after logging in), or, if its a team signup, or there are custom opportunity questions, they'll be presented with the next step of the sign-up process.  No more confusiion about whether or not to click the 'sign-up' button again.

3) If they Register, they will be guided through the registration process, and upon completing it, they will be signed up for the opportunity they were trying to sign up (or express in) for when they were asked to register.  As in the login scenario, they will either reach the success page, or be taken to the next step in the signup process.   No more will they complete registration and have to navigate back to the opportunity, click on the sign-up button, or have any confusioin about whether or not they have been signed up!

This will make the process of signing up for an opportunity, and logging in or registering one seamless process, making things clearer and easier for your volunteers!

.

When volunteers arrive at the "Success Page" after signing up, they'll now see more info than before.

You've been able to customize the messaging on the Success Pages in the CMS -- but in addition to the messaging you supply, indicating that they've successfully signed up -- the Success Page will now include:

• The Name of the Opportuniity they just signed up for (very helpful if you've had to register and then are signed up for the opportunity -- you may have forgotten just what you'd signed up for :-)
• An "Add To Calendar" Link   (for confirmed connections only, NOT for express interest opportunities).

The Add to Calendar link is still available on the "My Account" page under upcoming opportunities - but we've now added the link to the Success Page as well, so that people can add it to their calendar as soon as they've completed sign-up!

In the last release we made it possible for partners to see the 'self-reported' connections that volunteers submitted and verify their attendance. Unfortunately, all those connections appeared under the volunteer opportunity name "Self-Reported Volunteer Opportunity" - and though you could see the date and time they said they'd volunteer, you couldn't see exactly what the volunteer said they did!

This has been improved, and now, self-reported connections display the 'user defined' name of the self-reported opportunity as well.

This will make it easier for partners to see what self-reported connectioins their volunteers have reported!

The Connections listed under the "Self-Reported Volunteer Opportunity" will show the name the user gave the opportunity in the last column of the connection grid:

On the "Report Attendance Page" - the name of the opportunity will include both "Self-Reported Volunteer Hours" AND the name of the opportunity as defined by the user.

HOC3 - 2676  - Notify when a search is filtered

The message "You are seeing a filtered number of volunteer opportunities...." that was added to the search, list view page in the last release, has now been added when displaying a filtered list of opportunities in either Calendar View or Grid View  (Grid view is available on corporate page search results).

Grid view is planned to become available for public searches in addition to corporate search results, in a future release.

HOC3-2678 -- Clear Filters Functionality

Clicking on "Clear Filters" on a search page will automatically clear the filters and return ALL opportunities to search. This will make it possible to select new filters for a new filtered search, based on all available opportunities.  It also clears up confusion where people didn't realize that after clicking clear filters they had to hit the submit button to see all opportunities again.  

A bug wherein the volunteer history report available to volunteers with extensive volunteer history has been fixed.  Their entire history will now be displayed in the report.

A number of improvements have been applied to the error messages that may occur when logging in incorrectly, resetting your password, or when registering an email address that is already registered in the system.

If a user attempts to register with an email address already in the system, the message will now explain ""This email address is already registered. Please login using your existing account. If you do not recall the password, click on the 'forgot password' link in the login widget to reset your password."

When updating your personal information, if a field that was present on the registration formand  was not present on the personal information form, when the personal information was saved, the hidden fields deleted the data from the contact record.  This has been fixed.

Note: Unless you don't want the volunteer to be able to update information they entered when they first registered, you should make sure that the personal information page has all the fields from the registration page.   However - if you choose not to do so - the original data not shown on the personal information page will no longer be affected.

• When 'turn off waitlist' is enabled for an occurrence and the project is full, the message displayed will now read "This occurrence is full. There are no spots remaining"

Addressed bug where volunteer hours was not including self-reported hours on the 'my account page".  Hours will now include self-reported.

The text on the /volunteer-skills page was a bit confusing and not general enough to cover the variety of practices different HOC 3 sites had around how they used volunteer skill information and what an 'invitation' was.  
The text on this page is now:

*Accept Invitations *- Are you open to receiving email invitations to volunteer for opportunities that are good matches for your skill profile?

Yes / No

This neither promises that invitations will be sent, but just let's the user notify you if they are open to receiving requests to sign up for volunteer opportunities that match their skills.

Password links that are sent out when administratively granting someone a volunteer login, partner staff login, or when a volunteer requests a reset on their password are only good for 24 hours.

The automated emails above that send out a password link will now include this information:

They will say:  "Note: This password link is valid for 24 hours. If more than 24 hours have passed, you can request a new password link by going to the "Forgot Your Password" page here: [[Affiliate URL]/forgot-password] and entering your email address:[Contact UserName (email address)]."

Darn those Microsoft Browsers -- they always encounter problems on the web.  We've implemented a number of fixes to address issues encountered by IE 11 users:

• Team Sign-up stalled for IE 11 users  (HOC3-2623)
• A number of other display issues have been addressed

In some instances, the hard-coded email sent by Volunteer Leaders through the sharing portal had the wrong start time  (due to time zone issues).  This has been fixed.