Most connections are created by volunteers when they sign up or express interest via the public site.  However, sometimes an opportunity coordinator using the sharing portal may wish to administratively create one or more connections on behalf of a volunteer.

It's now possible to create a new connection for a volunteer administratively in the sharing portal

If after a connection has been created, confirmed, or attendance reported you wish to change or update the connection, you can do so by clicking on the 'edit' button to the left of the connection.  This makes it possible to correct errors in attendance reporting (for example).

Some fields within the connection record can be edited by moving the cursor to the right of the field, and revealing the edit icon.  After editing a field or a connection record, always click the Save Button to record the changes.

While we usually want each volunteer that's attending to sign up and create their own connection, sometimes volunteers will contact you and say they are bringing a friend or family member.

The field "Guest Volunteers" can be used in HandsOn Connect so that an Opportunity Coordinator can administratively note that a volunteer is bringing one or more unregistered 'guests' to a volunteer opportunity.  Guest volunteers can be added administratively when creating connections, editing connections, or as part of Attendance Reporting.

To update Guest volunteers:

• Go to the connections grid on any volunteer opportunity detail page or on the Report Attendance Page.
• Place your cursor to the right of the Guest Volunteers field for an individual connection, and the 'edit icon' will be visible.
• Click on the edit icon and you'll be able to enter the number of guest volunteers.

• After making changes to one or more connections on the page, move your cursor out of the field you've edited.
• Your edits will appear in red indicating that you have proposed changes to the values of one or more fields in one or more connections.
• Click on the Save Changes button to record the changes you've made.

When reporting attendance,  hours for 'guest volunteers' will be counted so that you have an accurate number of hours served for each occurrence of an opportunity.

When you mark someone as attended on the "Report Attendance" page - by default, the connection is updated to attendance status = attended, and the 'hours' field is automatically populated with the hours served based on the start time and end time of the occurrence.

However, in some cases, a volunteer may have stayed longer (or left early), and you want to accurately reflect their hours.  This can now be done on the "Report Attendance" page before marking the volunteer as attended.

To do so:

• Move your cursor to the right of the column "Hours" on the Report attendance page.
• Click on the 'edit' icon and put in the number of hours you actually want to report  (note: this isn't necessary if they stayed for the scheduled number of hours)
• After editing the hours, move the cursor out of the field, and then click on the SAVE button to save any changes to connections you've made, BEFORE you report attendance.  
• Once the changes are saved, then report attendance as usual.  The hours recorded will be the values you added.
• Note: If a value already exists in this field, its because the volunteer 'self-reported' their hours. You can edit this if you don't agree with their self-reported hours.

If you wish to continue to list an ISO opportunity past its current end date, its now possible to edit the occurrence end date so that the opportunity will continue to be listed. Just click on the Edit button next to the occurrence.

For migrating 2.x customers, it will not be possible to extend the end date of legacy To Be Scheduled occurrences in the partner portal as TBS is no longer a supported opportunity type in HOC 3.0.   If they try to edit the occurrence end date, they will receive the message "This 'To Be Scheduled' volunteer opportunity will expire on (date)and cannot be extended. The 'To Be Scheduled' registration type has been retired. Please create a new Volunteer Opportunity to replace this one using one of the current Volunteer Opportunity Registration types."

Administrator Note:  The best replacement for TBS opportunities is to use Individually Scheduled Opportunities. We also will be introducing an 'express interest only' volunteer opportunity type in First Quarter 2017.  These two opportunity types will serve as improved replacements for TBS opportunities.

In some emails occurrence times appeared in GMT time zone rather than local time zone.  This has been fixed.

When using filters to select an occurrence by start or end date, the dates were appearing alphabetically rather than chronologically.  This has been corrected.

In addition to the major items above, this release includes a number of refinements and improvements to the user-interface in the sharing portal, improvements in layouts and list views, corrections to minor typos on pages, improvements in error messages (when they are displayed), and additional validation rules to prevent entering illegal values in fields.

A pilot program has begun for the HOC 3.0 public site, which allows a user to associate their facebook account with their HOC user account, and log into the public site via facebook.  Also, new users may register with Facebook - which will speed up their registration process by bringing over known information from their facebook account.

The pilot will be taking place during the next month, and this feature will be generally available to HOC 3.0 customers in January, 2017.