Volunteer Module Overview

Overview

Volunteers often make up a fundamental part of a school’s community. Some schools have parents, grandparents or other adults who volunteer their time to help in different areas at the school. For example, a parent may volunteer to help in the school library or cafeteria. Schools may also have volunteers who help with an event at the school such as a field trip or school dance.

Additionally, some schools require students to complete a service project in which the student must complete a certain amount of volunteer hours in order to graduate.

To help keep track of volunteers, jobs and volunteer hours schools can use the Volunteer Coordinator Module.

Configuration

Each Volunteer Job at your school will be organized by a Volunteer Job Category that you configure. For example, a Volunteer Category might be Library and the Volunteer Jobs within that category might be Reader, Book Fair Helper, Re-Shelving Books or Front Desk Receptionist. Another example of this might be if you have an event, such as Spring Fling, as the Volunteer Category and within that event you have Volunteer Jobs such as Chaperone, Setup Crew, Cleanup Crew, Ticket Coordinator and Concession Stand Helper.

Links to facilitate high level configuration for the Volunteer Coordinator module can be found in the bottom left corner of the Volunteer Coordinator homepage in the ‘Volunteer Configuration’ section.

Adding a Volunteer Job Category

The Volunteer Categories query, located in the Volunteer Configuration section, will display a list of all the current volunteer job categories. Schools have the ability to add their own volunteer categories by clicking on the ‘+Add a Volunteer Job Category’ link in that same section of the homepage, or by using the ‘+Add’ dropdown menu at the top right.

1. Add a Description of the Category.
2. Indicate the Sort Key this controls the order of the Volunteer Categories within the Volunteer Categories query.
3. Eligibility: If Volunteer service hours are required for students at your school, you can indicate the percentage of hours, for that category, that are eligible to count toward a person’s community service requirement. For example, there may only be 3 out of 10 jobs within a category that would be eligible to meet the service hour requirement. The eligibility would therefore be 30%.
4. Eligibility Cap: You can also indicate if there is an eligibility cap for this category. For example, a student completes 10 hours of service for a job within the category. If the eligibility cap is set to 10, any hours over 10 will not be counted toward the students required community service hours.
5. Click Add Volunteer Job Category.

Adding a Volunteer Job

Schools have the ability to add their own volunteer jobs by clicking on the ‘+Add a Volunteer Job’ link in the Volunteer Configuration section, or by using the ‘+Add’ dropdown menu at the top right.

1. Select the Job Category that this job should fall under.
2. Enter a Job Description. For example, set up crew, clean up crew, ticket coordinator, lunch helper, concession stand host/hostess, etc.
3. Include any specific notes about this job.
4. Click Add Volunteer Job.

Adding a Volunteer to a Job

Volunteers are defined as anyone with the person role of ‘Volunteer.’

In order to add a Volunteer to a Job:

1. Open the person’s record within the system
2. On the Volunteer Jobs tab, indicate the Job the person will be assigned to by expanding the Category folders on the left and clicking on the appropriate Job within the Category.
3. Once the job is selected, click Update.

Note: If the Volunteer Jobs tab is not available, submit a ticket to our support portal to turn this tab on for you.

This person is then added to the list of Volunteers within the Volunteer Job.

Adding Volunteer Hours

There are two ways to add Volunteer Hours.

The first option is to go to the Person’s Record:

1. On the person’s record there is a tab called Volunteer Hours. On this tab, you can use the drop down to indicate the date the person volunteered, the Job Category and the hours that were completed.
2. Schools can add the Approved checkbox to their workflow as a way to indicate that the person has been approved to volunteer for those hours.
3. Once this information is entered the fields PTD Volunteer Hours, Total Volunteer Hours and Volunteer Tenure will populate.

• PTD Volunteer Hours: Period to date volunteer hours (Defined by Volunteer Hours Reference Date)
• Total Vol. Hours: Total volunteer hours for all time
• Volunteer Tenure: The number of years that this person has been a volunteer

The second option is to click on the ‘+Add Volunteer Hours’ link on the Volunteer Coordinator homepage, or use the ‘+Add’ dropdown menu at the top right:

1. Indicate who the volunteer person is. Click on the magnifying glass to search for a person.
2. Enter the Volunteer Date.
3. Enter the Volunteer Job Category.
4. Enter the Volunteer Hours.
5. Indicate if there are Volunteer hours required for this person.
6. Indicate the School Year.
7. Enter the Grading period if this applies to a certain grading period within the year.
8. Indicate if the Volunteer Hours are for an Organization or Business outside of your school. Click on the blue dots to search for an organization.
9. Indicate if these hours are for an event.
10. Include any notes about the service hours.
11. Click ‘Add Volunteer Hours.’

This information will then appear on the Volunteer Hours Tab of the person’s record.

Note: If the Volunteer Hours tab is not available, submit a ticket to our support portal to turn this tab on for you.

Volunteer Hours Reference Date

Schools will need to indicate the date they would like for the calculation of Volunteer Hours. Calculated volunteer hours are totaled from this date to the present. This can be configured on the Volunteer Coordinator homepage by clicking on the Volunteer Hours Reference Date link.

Volunteer Checklist

A volunteer checklist can be added to each volunteer’s record in order to keep track of forms or other items that are needed in order for this person to be able to volunteer. For example, some schools require a background check, a CORI report, a Volunteer Form, permission slip from a parent or a Volunteer Survey.

Adding a Checklist Item

In order to add to the Volunteer Checklist, you can click Add a Checklist Item on the Volunteer Coordinator homepage. Indicate the Description of the item and click Add Checklist item.

You can click on the Volunteer Checklist query to view the full list of configured Checklist items.

Managing Checklist Items

The Volunteer Checklist Items will populate on the Volunteer Checklist tab of a person’s record if they have the Role of Volunteer. Schools can indicate a Due Date for each of the checklist items and keep track of when this item has been completed. Forms and other documents can be added to the person’s record on the Files tab.

Reporting

There are several reports on the Volunteer Homepage that help to keep track of volunteers and hours.

• Find Volunteers: Because volunteer hours are tracked per category, the “Find Volunteers” query will show a list of volunteer categories and jobs.  Click into the Job, then click on the Volunteers tab to view the list of volunteers for that job.
• Roles of Volunteers: this gives you a breakdown of volunteers by their role at your school. This helps schools to find out how many former students or alumni volunteer at your school or how many staff or faculty members volunteer at your school.
• Past Due Checklist Items: This report will provide you with a list of all of the Checklist items that have not been completed by the due date you have indicated.
• Student Vol. Hours Document- Advisor: This link will bring you to a web browser where you can click on the name of a student and view their Volunteer Hours record. This document will give you the name of the student and their total overall volunteer hours. The document will also give a breakdown of the school year they have volunteer hours for, the date they volunteered, the Job Category and the Job within the Category that they were a part of and the number of hours for each job. This document is available to be Printed as a PDF document. 
• All Volunteers: This report will provide you with a list of all of the people in the system who are labeled with the role of Volunteer. This report shows the volunteer’s total distance from the school based on their home address, their home phone number, Period to Date Volunteer Hours, Total Volunteer Hours, Volunteer Tenure (amount of years they have been a volunteer), when their Volunteer Survey has been updated (the date of their initial inquiry), the Volunteer Categories they have worked in, a link to their Volunteer Hours Record and their Role at the School. The report also provides the total number of Period to Date Hours and the Total Volunteer Hours along with the Average of Period to Date Hours, the Total Volunteer Hours and Volunteer Tenure. The maximum volunteer hours for all of the volunteers are also listed.
• Active Volunteers: In order to view this list you must first click on Refresh Page in the top right hand corner of the homepage. This report provides a list of all volunteers who volunteered time during this active school year.
• Inactive Volunteers: In order to view this list you must first click on Refresh Page in the top right hand corner of the homepage. This report provides a list of all people who have signed up to volunteer but who have no Volunteer Hours. (Person’s role is Volunteer, but they have no Volunteer hours in the system.)
• Parents who Haven’t Volunteered: This report will provide you with a list of all of the Parents who have not signed up to volunteer and have no volunteer hours listed. (Person’s role is Parent, but not Volunteer. In the overnight process, Parents are given the role of Volunteer in addition to Parent when they have Volunteer Hours in the system.)
• Volunteer Hours by Category: This report will provide you with a breakdown of Volunteer Hours per Job Category along with the sum of all Volunteer Hours for all Job Categories. If you click on the Total Volunteer Hours or the Record Count you can view a full list of the Hours served within that category: Volunteer Date, who the Volunteer was, the Category, the amount of Hours for that Date along with any notes that were entered.
• Top Volunteers: This report will provide a list of the Top 25 Volunteers at your school based on the Total Volunteer Hours and Period to Date Hours.