2.5 Release Notes

This post contains notes about the 2.5 release of HandsOn Connect as well as links to additional documentation for implementing the referenced functionality.

Click here to see the schedule of Trainings related to this release.

Generally Available Functionality

The functionality listed below is generally available to all users and deployed with little if any admin action needed.

Opportunity Detail Page Enhancements

Opportunity Detail Page Enhancements

The opportunity detail page now displays the upcoming occurrences for an opportunity with a maximum of 58 Upcoming Occurrences.  The occurrence selected either from the search or the opportunity calendar will be the one expanded by default, but volunteers can expand any of the dates available to sign up.

If the Volunteer is using an old Occurrence Link, it will take them to the Opportunity Detail Page and display the upcoming occurrences that are now available instead of the past occurrence.

Since all upcoming occurrences are now shown on the page, the "To see Other Dates and Times Click Here" link has been removed from the Sign Up/ Express Interest box.  Volunteers can still access the list of available occurrences from the Search Opportunities grid using the ## More link in the Freq column.

New Login/Register Window for Volunteers

New Login/Register Window for Volunteers

If a volunteer clicks on the Sign Up or Express Interest button and isn't logged in a new pop-up window appears giving them the option to Login or Register.

If they select Login, then they will be able to log in using the pop-up window and remain on the Opportunity Detail Page.

If they select Register, then they will be taken to the Volunteer Registration Form and have the option to return to the Opportunity Detail page once completed.

Volunteer Sign Up/ Express Interest Bypasses Question Page if there are no Questions

Volunteer Sign Up/ Express Interest Bypasses Question Page if there are no Questions

If there are no Volunteer Opportunity Questions then when the volunteer clicks on the Sign Up or Express Interest button they will be taken directly to the Success page.

New Volunteer Registration Form Control Panel

New Volunteer Registration Form Control Panel

With this release System Admins are given the ability to customize the Volunteer Registration Form and Personal Information Page.

System Admins can define which fields are visibile and required on for each page independently.  System Admins can also edit the names of the various section headers on the Registration form. The new control panel also houses the Disaster and Disability Questions previously found on the Site Configuration page and integrates the ability to create new Registration Questions directly from the Vol Registration Configuration Control Panel. With regard to the Disability and Disaster Questions, when this release is deployed your existing setting from the Site Configuration page will be brought over to the new Vol Registration Configuration page.

The new Vol Registration Config page can be found under the Control Panel tab.

The following fields are always visible and required and cannot be edited:

  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Date of Birth
  • Email
  • Password (Only on Registration Page)
  • Reset Password (Only on Personal Information Page)
  • Opt Out of Communications from HandsOn Network/ Points of Light

In addition to the fields listed above, HandsOn Network Affiliates also have these additional fields as always visible and cannot be edited:

  • Home Zip Code (Also Required)
  • Gender (Not Required)
  • Ethnicity (Not Required)

Date of Birth - The date of birth field now has different options for the information gathered.

  • MM/DD/YYYY - This asks for the full date of birth of the volunteers and has been updated to use a Month dropdown, day dropdown and Year text field to make it easier to enter.
  • YYYY - This allows for the volunteer to just enter the year in a text field.  Date of Birth default to Jan 1 of the year entered.
  • Over 18? - This provides a checkbox for volunteers to indicate if they are over 18 or not.  If they are over 18, the date of birth defaults to the Jan 1 of the year that would make them 18 (currently 1995).  If they are under 18, the date of birth defaults to Jan 1 with the previous year to make them 1 year old (currently 2012).    This option is not available to HandsOn Network Affiliates.

NOTE:  

YYYY - Selecting this option means that the system will not be able to reliably determine whether or not a volunteer is legally a minor or under age 13. Age restrictions will be limited by year, not actual age. 

Over 18 - Selecting this option means that the system will not be able to determine if a volunteer is under age 13 and thereby in violation of COPA internet laws for children. Age signup restrictions for opportunities will be limited. 

Consult your legal counsel before choosing either of these options.

For example a volunteer opportunity with a minimum age of 18 could allow a 17 year old with a birthdate of Nov 10, 1995 to register when using the YYYY option since it would calculate their date of birth as 1/1/1995 making them already 18.

 

Note:  The following fields are on the Vol Registration Configuration Control Panel, but have not yet been added to the pages on the public site.  These will be added in a future release.

  • Alternative Email - Registration Page
  • Address Type - Personal Information Page
  • Time Zone - Registration Page and Personal Information Page.  This will be added as we make improvements to HandsOn Connect for customers in multiple time zones.

Full information on how to use the Vol Registration Configuration can be found here.

Updated process for creating Custom Registration Questions.

Re-direct to Opportunity Detail Page

Re-direct to Opportunity Detail Page

System Admins now have the option to redirect volunteers to the Opportunity Detail Page after completing their registration form and bypassing the Registration Confirmation page.  When checked, if a volunteer uses the above mentioned Login/Register Window to arrive at the Registration Page, when the volunteer completes the Registration form they will immediately be taken back to the Opportunity Detail Page to complete the Sign Up or Express Interest.

This feature is deployed as inactive.

ADMIN ACTION (OPTIONAL)

To enable, System Admins should go to Control Panel - Site Configuration and scroll down to the System Defaults section and check the box for "Re-direct to Opportunity Detail Page."

Volunteer Opportunity Questions  (System Admin, Staff, and Premium Portal Customers ONLY)

Volunteer Opportunity Questions  (System Admin, Staff, and Premium Portal Customers ONLY)

In this release we've added the ability to recycle Questions.  

Using the new interface shown above System Admins, Staff, Partner Staff, and Employee Coordinators can create 1 question and associate it with multiple volunteer opportunities.   The page allows users to search through existing questions or create new questions and then select the Volunteer Opportunity to associate the question with.

Each time the volunteer answers the question, a new Answer record will be created for each response and associated to the Question, Connection AND to the Contact.  

In addition to, the ability to recycle your questions, when a volunteer is presented a question that they have been asked before their previous answer will already be displayed/ selected so the volunteer can just hit submit or edit/ update their answer before submitting.   I think you're volunteers will be happy to see that they don't have to select their t-shirt size again and again, and can easily update it when they've hit there weight loss goals!

Finally, if a user were to view an existing Question through the Questions tab or related list in the Volunteer Opportunity record, the page has a new button labeled "Add to Volunteer Opportunity" which will open the interface shown above with the Select Question field already populated so that they can easily add existing questions to new opportunities.

DEPLOYMENT NOTE:

  1. During deployment a batch update will be run to associate all existing questions with their Volunteer Opportunity using the new structure.
  2. Existing Answers will not be updated to populate the Contact field, but System Admins can do a batch update to add that relationship if desired.

Full documentation on how to create Volunteer Opportunity Questions using the new structure can be found here:

System Admins and Staff

Partner Staff

Employee Coordinators

 

ADMIN ACTIONS (STRONGLY ENCOURAGED) If you do not take these actions, questions will no longer be listed under the Questions related list since the relationship is now with the new Volunteer Opportunity Questions object.

The new Volunteer Opportunity Question enhancements have been deployed to you so that they work with the existing format and related lists.  Anytime a user clicks on New Question in a related list or in the Questions tab they will be provided the new interface so no further action is needed on your part to utilize this functionality.   However, there are two additional related items that can be added to increase access to these features.

1.     Add Question button - System Admins can add a custom button to the Volunteer Opportunity page layout called Add Question.  When a user clicks on this button it will open the new interface shown above with the Volunteer Opportunity pre-populated in the Select Volunteer Opportunity field so all the use needs to do is select or create the Question.

2.     Volunteer Opportunity Related List - Currently the Volunteer Opportunity page layouts have a related list called Questions.  We recommend that System Admin remove the Questions related list and add the Volunteer Opportunity Questions related list.  When adding the Volunteer Opportunity Related list the recommended columns to display are Volunteer Opportunity Questions, Question, Question Text, Active, Required, and Order so that you can quickly access both the Volunteer Opportunity Question relationship if you want to select a different question and also access the Question record if you need to edit the text, options, or other fields.   You can select to leave the New Button in the Volunteer Opportunity Questions related list and it too will open the new interface.

Both of these optional modifications are included by default in the Staff and Partner Staff Page Layouts v3 that are described below.

Here's a video on how to make these changes and where to check which page layouts are assigned to your users.

Workflow Rules and Email Alerts - New Control Panel for Triggers

Workflow Rules and Email Alerts - New Control Panel for Triggers

There are three email alerts that we managed as Triggers as opposed to the standard workflow rules because of their complexity.  Previously, there was no way for system admins to disable these notifications.

In this release we added to the Control Panel a new page called "Workflows & Email Alerts"

To start there are 3 existing notifications that can now be turned off using this control panel:

  • Notification of Volunteer Sign Up
  • Notification of Volunteer Removed
  • Notification of Volunteer Waitlist

In addition to these existing notifications, the Workflow & Email Alerts page also controls new notifications associated with Grouped Occurrences (detailed below).  In the future other trigger based email notifications will be managed on this page as well.

If you wish to disable a notification, simply uncheck the box and click Save.

Reassign Connections

Reassign Connections

While this is enabled primarily for the Move/Copy Connections functionality described below, the ability to move individual connections is present for any user that can Edit connections.

When a volunteer contacts you or an partner to reschedule their connection you no longer have to decline the existing connection and create a new one, you can simply edit the connection and select the new Occurrence, even the new Volunteer Opportunity if needed.

This functionality could also be helpful in reassigning Self-Reported Volunteer Hours associated with the Individual organization to the correct existing organization. Just make sure that when updating self-reported connections that you use the lookup for Existing Organization and select the correct Volunteer Opportunity and Occurrence associated with the selected organization.

Partner Staff and Staff Page Layouts v3 (System Admin, Staff, and Premium Portal Customers ONLY)

Partner Staff and Staff Page Layouts v3 (System Admin, Staff, and Premium Portal Customers ONLY)

In this release, we provided some new Page Layouts for Volunteer Opportunities, Occurrences, and Connection that can be used by your Partner Staff, Volunteer Leaders, Employee Coordinators, Staff, and System Admin.

These page layouts are not enabled by default and require System Admins to activate them for users. Click here to see how to enable these new Page Layouts for your Staff and Partner Staff.

The new page layouts organize all the required information at the top of the page followed by fields that can be optionally populated or edited.

HandsOn Connect uses standard Salesforce.com page layouts for the Volunteer Opportunity, Occurrences, and Connections objects.  If you do not wish to enable the page layouts we provided you can utilize standard Salesforce.com methods to modify your existing page layouts to suit your business needs.   For more information on how to modify standard Salesforce.com page layouts, click here.

 

Other Generally Available Improvements

  • New "Locations Detail Page" URL field added to the Occurrence object.  When added to the page layout can display the link to the Location Detail page on the public site that is emailed to volunteers and accessed via the Upcoming Opportunities.
  • New Visualforce page has been deployed called "New VO Button" that can be used to redirect the New button for Volunteer Opportunities for Staff, System Admins, and Premium Partner users to open the VO Wizard.
  • Registration Cutoff (hours) has been updated to have a default value of 1 hour.
  • Premium Partner Portal - Partner Help tab has been updated to point to new link for premium portal documentation.

Advanced Features - These Features Require Activation by System Admins and are only available for System Admin, Staff, and Premium Portal Customers

The following features and functionality that has been added to the HandsOn Connect package are optional and therefore not enabled when deployed to customers.

These release notes feature general information about the feature with links to detailed steps on how to enable the functionality for your various users.

We will be offering special webinars on these advanced features, please check the 2.5 Release Training schedule to locate the desired training or recording.

It is strongly recommended that you consider your Staff Training process before enabling the features outlined below.

New VO Button

New VO Button

System Admins can now override the "New Volunteer Opportunity Button" that appears in the Volunteer Opportunity tab as well as the Volunteer Opportunity related lists using the "New VO Button" visualforce page.  When the "New Volunteer Opportunity" button is clicked it will direct the user to use the VO Wizard instead of the standard Salesforce volunteer opportunity page.

This is a recommended enhancement for users of the Premium Partner Portal to ensure that partner staff (as well as your staff) always use the VO Wizard when creating new Volunteer Opportunities.

ADMIN ACTION

1.    To enable this System Admins would go to Setup -> Create -> Objects -> Volunteer Opportunities.   Then scroll to the Button, Links, and Action section and click Edit next to the "New" option.  On the Override options page (shown above) select Override With "Visualforce Page" and use the dropdown to select the "New VO Button" page.   Click Save.

2.     System Admins also will need to grant access to the Visualforce Pages for the respective profiles as well.   Go to Setup -> Develop ->  Pages.   Locate the New_VO_Button page and click on Security.  Then select the additional profiles to enable.  (See image below).

 

 

Advanced Options for Occurrences

Advanced Options for Occurrences

In this release we have added 4 new advanced option fields to the Occurrence object.

  • Include Pending for Max Attendance - When checked, this will include the number of connections in "Pending Approval" status when determining the maximum attendance.  Once the maximum attendance, total of confirmed and pending connections, is reached any new volunteers will be prompted to join the waitlist.   This is recommended for Date & Time Specific - Express Interest occurrences, but can be used for any occurrence.
  • Maximum Waitlist - Populate this field with a number to indicate the maximum number of connections allowed to be waitlisted for this occurrence.  Once the Maximum Waitlist has been reached, new volunteers will be told that this occurrence is full and not accepting any additional volunteers at this time.
  • Turn off Waitlist -  When checked, this will prevent any volunteers being added to the waitlist for this occurrence.  Once the Maximum Attendance has been reached, new volunteers will be told that this occurrence is full and not accepting any additional volunteers at this time.
  • Turn off Teams - When checked, this will prevent any teams being able to register for this occurrence and the "or sign up/ express interest with a team" link wil be removed from the Sign Up/ Express Interest box on the Opportunity Detail Page on the public site.

ADMIN ACTION

If System Admins want to enable any or all of these fields, they will need to:

  1. Grant access to the field to the desired profiles.  It is already granted for the recommended use by System Admins and Staff, so this is only needed if you want to grant access to Partner Staff, Employee Coordinators, or Volunteer Leaders (if they have access to modify occurrences).
  2. Add the field to the page layout(s) associated with the desired profile(s).

If desired, System Admins can also create a custom workflow rule and field update to set a default value for any of these four fields.

Full documentation on how to enable these four fields can be found here.

Advanced Data Management Options

The features in this section are pretty powerful tools.  So remember "With great powers come great responsibility" and train users how to properly use these features.

Batch Create Volunteer Teams and Connections

Batch Create Volunteer Teams and Connections

To make it easier for you to manage existing contacts we have added two wizards, one for Team Members and one for Connections.  

Batch Create Volunteer Teams

There are two ways to create a Volunteer Team introduced in this release.

1.    Import Team Members - Left Side Menu

2.    Create Team Members button - Contact List View

Both of these work by using Contact records that already exist in your instance and adding them to a Volunteer Team.    

REMINDER: If you are batch adding Team Members to an existing volunteer team, make sure your the contacts included in your report or selected in your list view don't contact any duplicates.

Getting your Contacts - Reports

There are a number of reports that you can use to create your table for importing.   If you are working on creating employee teams, the "Employers and Contacts" can be filtered for the related organization.  Reports are helpful if you are seeking contacts based on their related records, such as is a member of a Volunteer Team or has a connection to a specific volunteer opportunity.

The three most important aspects when creating a report for use in importing are:

  1. Include the Contact ID column in the report.  The Contact ID is the Salesforce ID for that record and is a 15-18 digit alphanumeric number
  2. Export as a .CSV file
  3. After exporting the report, open it and remove the footer from the report.  The footer is the last 5 lines that appear after the last row of data and begins with the report name.

Getting your Contacts - View

Getting your Contacts - View

You can use an existing or create a new view of contact records.  Remember when creating views you are limited to filter based only on the Contact fields.  This approach is helpful for locating contacts associated with a specific organization or have complete orientation, etc.

If you are using views and selecting the "Create Team Members" button, you'll be able to skip the first step of the Wizard.

Importing Team Members - Step 1

Importing Team Members - Step 1

 

 

 

Importing Team Members - Step 2

Importing Team Members - Step 2

Once you click on "Create Volunteer Team Members" then go to the Volunteer Team and confirm that all members were added.

Batch Create Connections

There are two ways to create a Connection introduced in this release.

1.    Import Connections - Left Side Menu

2.    Create Connections button - Contact List View

Both of these work by using Contact records that already exist in your instance and adding them to existing Volunteer Opportunities and Occurrences.    

REMINDER: If you are batch adding Connections, make sure your the contacts included in your report or selected in your list view don't contact any duplicates.

Getting your Contacts - Reports

There are a number of reports that you can use to create your table for importing.   If you are working on creating connections with team members, then use the "Volunteer Teams with Volunteer Team Members and Contact" report type to get both the Contact ID and Team Member ID.  Reports are helpful if you are seeking contacts based on their related records, such as is a member of a Volunteer Team or has a connection to a specific volunteer opportunity.

The three most important aspects when creating a report for use in importing are:

  1. Include the Contact ID column in the report.  The Contact ID is the Salesforce ID for that record and is a 15-18 digit alphanumeric number.  If you are also wanting to associate the Connections with a Team Member, you also need the 15-18 digit Volunteer Team Member Salesforce ID.  Note:  The Salesforce ID for Team Members is not the VTM-0000000 id.
  2. Export as a .CSV file
  3. After exporting the report, open it and remove the footer from the report.  The footer is the last 5 lines that appear after the last row of data and begins with the report name.

Getting your Contacts - View

Getting your Contacts - View

You can use an existing or create a new view of contact records.  Remember when creating views you are limited to filter based only on the Contact fields.  This approach is helpful for locating contacts associated with a specific organization or have complete orientation, etc.

If you are using views and selecting the "Create Connections" button, you'll be able to skip the first step of the Wizard.

Importing Connections - Step 1

Importing Connections - Step 1

 

 

 

Importing Connections - Step 2

Importing Connections - Step 2

3.     Use the lookup to select the Volunteer Opportunity.   Once the Volunteer Opportunity has been selected, then use the Occurrence lookup.  The Occurrence lookup will be filtered to all the Occurrences associated with the selected Volunteer Opportunity.

4.     If the Volunteer Opportunity and Occurrence are a To Be Scheduled opportunity, then the Date, Start Time and End Time fields will be presented.

5.     Designate the Status and Attendance Status for the Connections you are creating.  Remember if the Date & Time are in the future then use the Attendance Status = Please Verify

Once you click on "Create Connection" then go to the Occurrence and confirm that all connections were added.

Move/Copy Connections

This functionality allows users to move or copy a set of connections from one occurrence to another occurrence or volunteer opportunity.   Make sure you train any user that you grant this feature to so that they don't duplicate or corrupt your data.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.     Use the lookup to select the Volunteer Opportunity.   Once the Volunteer Opportunity has been selected, then use the Occurrence lookup.  The Occurrence lookup will be filtered to all the Occurrences associated with the selected Volunteer Opportunity.

4.     If the Volunteer Opportunity and Occurrence are a To Be Scheduled opportunity, then the Date, Start Time and End Time fields will be presented.

5.     Designate the Status and Attendance Status for the Connections you are creating.  Even if you are moving existing Connections you still need to select the Status and Attendance Status that they will have with the new occurrence.  Remember if the Date & Time are in the future then use the Attendance Status = Please Verify

6.     Click on the desired action to take:

  • Move Connections - The existing connection will be updated to the new Occurrence and Volunteer Opportunity, if any. The Notice of Occurrence Rescheduled will be sent to these contacts.
  • Copy Connections -  New connections will be created for these contacts for the new Occurrence and Volunteer Opportunity, if any.  The respective Opportunity Sign-up Confirmation email alert will be sent to these contacts.

Once you click on "Copy Connections" or "Move Connections" then go to the Occurrence and confirm that all connections were added.

Add to Campaign

This feature is enabled to support the use of Campaigns, which is a native functionality of Salesforce.com.  Campaigns can be used in a variety of ways and are often utilized with 3rd party Mass Email applications found on the Salesforce AppExchange.

While Campaigns is not part of the HandsOn Connect applications, we hope that customers that are leveraging this tool will be able to utilize the "Add to Campaign" functionality to make it easier to add contacts to your campaigns based on their involvement.  We think this will be helpful in managing communications and donation efforts around volunteer events and disaster response.

To learn more about campaigns and how they could be beneficial to your organization, click here to see documentation from Salesforce.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.     Use the lookup to select an existing Campaign.  

4.     If necessary, you can click the "Create New Campaign" button.  When clicked you are given a text field to name the campaign.  After you click save, the newly create campaign will be populated in the Select Campaign section.  All campaigns created using this feature will have the following default values, but can be edited from the campaign record:

  • Campaign Owner - user that created the campaign
  • Status - In Progress
  • Active - TRUE
  • Type - Email

Once you click on "Add to Campaign" then go to the Campaign and confirm that all contacts were added as campaign members

Advanced Volunteer Opportunity Management

The features in this section are pretty powerful tools and create multiple connections at once.  So remember "With great powers come great responsibility" and train users how to properly use these features.

Grouped Occurrences

Grouped Occurrences allow users to have volunteers sign up or express interest in a series of occurrences as in one step.  They can only be associated with Date & Time Specific volunteer opportunities and all the occurrences in the group must be associated with a single volunteer opportunity.

Creating a Grouped Occurrence

Creating a Grouped Occurrence

 

 

On the Grouped Occurrence page, you have the following options:

1)  Volunteer Opportunity - Will be pre-populated with the name of the opportunity you came from.  

2) Register for All Occurrences? - When checked, volunteers MUST sign up for all the occurrences in the group.  Once the first occurrence has past, then all the other occurrences will be removed from the Opportunity Detail page and no longer allow volunteers to register for the series.  (Note: the occurrences will still appear on the Opportunity Calendar, they are only removed from the opportunity detail page.)

3) Name/Description - This is an optional text field to allow you to define the grouping in case you have multiple grouped occurrences with a single volunteer opportunity.

4) Select Occurrences -  Occurrences can only be part of 1 grouped occurrence series.  The chart that is displayed shows all the occurrences associated with the selected Volunteer Opportunity.  Column headers can be clicked to resort the occurrences based on any of the columns in case you want to group them based on location or opportunity coordinator.

You must select at least 2 occurrences to create a grouped occurrence record.

 

Once you have selected the Occurrences and other fields, click Save.

Grouped Occurrence Record

Grouped Occurrence Record

Once created the Grouped Occurrence record has a related list of the occurrences in the group.  You can also Edit the grouped occurrence to remove or add occurrences, change the description, or "Register for All Occurrences?" checkbox.

Grouped Occurrences on the Public Site (Register for All Occurrences? = Unchecked)

Grouped Occurrences on the Public Site (Register for All Occurrences? = Unchecked)

Occurrences that are part of a Grouped Occurrence have a NOTE add to the Sign up/ Express Interest box as well as a pop-up message letting the volunteer know that they are registering for a series and all the dates of the series.

When Register for All Occurrences? is unchecked then the same note appears for all the occurrences in the series with the dates that are remaining.

For example in the image above, the series is September 7, 14, 21, and 28.  If a volunteer were to click on the September 21 occurrence to sign up they would be signing up for the 21 & 28, but not the 7 & 14 since those take place prior to the first occurrence of which they were registering and registering for all is not required.

Grouped Occurrences on the Public Site (Register for All Occurrences? = Checked)

Grouped Occurrences on the Public Site (Register for All Occurrences? = Checked)

When Register for All Occurrences? is checked, then volunteers are only able to sign-up for the entire series.  Occurrences that are part of the series, but not the first have a NOTE letting the volunteer that they must sign up for the first occurrence in the series and provides them the date.  A pop-up message also appears in case they don't see the Note.

Grouped Occurrence Confirmation Page Message (Public Site)

Grouped Occurrence Confirmation Page Message (Public Site)

Grouped Occurrences Email Alerts

Grouped Occurrences Email Alerts

 

 

The Grouped Occurrence notifications are now managed through the Control Panel (see how to enable Grouped Occurrences below).  

The Grouped Occurrence notification triggers were created to send 1 notice to each volunteer that signs up or express interest in a grouped occurrence series, rather than the usual email for each occurrence.

The Notification of Volunteer Signup, Removal, Waitlisted, and Interest Notification were created to send 1 notice for each volunteer to the Opportunity Coordinator and Volunteer Leader.

Removing Volunteers and Teams (Public site)

Removing Volunteers and Teams (Public site)

When a Volunteer on the public site tries to remove themselves from a grouped occurrence series they are presented with the option to remove themselves from just the selected occurrence or ALL Upcoming occurrences (essentially all the occurrences in the series that still appear in the Upcoming Opportunities grid).

Prerequisites

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