VolManager Help
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VolManager Help |
The VolManager utilities will allow you to build a volunteer signup form for your institution's event. The dates, times and job descriptions for your institution's event are entered on the signup form by using the VolManager utilities found in your password-protected administration area.
The VolManager administrator for your team (you), can always view the signup form or make changes to the form's content by using the VolManager admin utilities.
The signup form you build is hosted on VolManager's server but the link to that signup form will reside on your institution's website.
The link to the signup form is simply the address that appears in your web browser's address field when you view the signup form from your browser.
Your institution's webmaster (not VolManager tech support) has control over when your volunteers see that link and when the signup form becomes viewable for your volunteers.
When the signup form for your event is completed to your satisfaction, notify support@Volmanager.com. Tech support will check the form's action, activate the form and when your institution's webmaster (again, not VolManager tech support) puts the link to the form on your institution's website, your signup can begin.
Here is a breakdown of VolManager's screens and utilities
The Administrative Homepage acts as a start point for you, the Event Administrator. From here, you can access your Administrator's Menu Bar to access VolManager's utilities and reports or pay for your VolManager service using the PayPal button.
The lower panel on the Administrator's Homepage provides instructions and a PayPal button.
The button will be replaced by a processing message when it has been clicked once.
At that time, you will be taken to PayPal where you can complete your payment.
Note that you do not need a PayPal account in order to make a PayPal payment as PayPal provides several different payment options.
When your PayPal payment has been processed by VolManager, the processing message on your Admin Homepage will be replaced by a Thank You message.
The button will be reset and available for each new VolManager use.
We are requesting that payment either by PayPal or check be completed before your signup form is activated.
PayPal will email an invoice but if you require an additional VolManager email invoice or payment assistance simply contact support@Volmanager.com
The Administrator's Menu Bar is a navigational aid designed to help you easily access VolManager's administrative utilities and reports.
Note that the Menu Bar is not included on the publicly visible parts of VolManager such as the Signup form or public reports.
Below is a representation of the Administrator's Menu Bar.
You can mouseover the tabs for a brief description of their actions or click the tabs to go to more in-depth definitions in this Help document.
| Administrator's Home | Help | Create Event | Manage Jobs | Signup Form | Worker Sign In |
Help refers to this help document.
You will save time and help keep VolManager costs at current levels by consuting the Help and Frequently Asked Questions documents before emailing VolManager Tech Support.
The Event Creation Utility consists of three panels. Each panel has its own update button.Data is moved to the Signup Form when a panel's update button is clicked.
The first (top) panel allows entry of your event's name, start/end dates and form color.
The second (middle) panel allows you to define headings for up to four custom data input fields. The headings you designate in these fields will appear as field headings on your SignUp Form in the volunteer info collection area and as sortable column headings at the top of VolManager's Administrator's spreadsheet report.
Typical custom-data report column headings might be:
These and other standard HTML widgets can be made available for custom-data collection on your signup form. This is just to give an idea of the possibilities.
You will need to contact support@Volmanager.com to have the HTML widgets added to the Custom Data Collection Area of your Signup Form or have items added to dropdown select boxes. There is no extra charge for this service.
The third (bottom) panel allows the entry of notes or special instructions to your volunteers.
The Notes can contain the following:some text
<font size="14">larger text</font>(Play with the number for the desired effect.)
<font color="red">red text</font>(Play with the color for the desired effect but many colors may make your form 'busy' and non-contrasting colors may be hard to read.)
<i>italicized text</i>
<a href="http://www.volmanager.com">Volmanager Home</a>
<a href="mailto:support@Volmanager.com">support@Volmanager.com</a>
<br>
This utility supports the VolManager job and timeslot structure. This means that each job can have many date/time instances during which the job is worked. A date/time instance during which a job is worked is here referred to as a timeslot.
The Job and Timeslot Utility is in five sections:
The first (top) panel contains information or advisorys from the VolManager system, the contents of this box may change as you work in order to provide status information.
The second panel allows the editing of existing job descriptions or the addition of new job descriptions.
It's unecessary and probably undesirable to include carriage returns (the Enter key on your keyboard) in your job descriptions. If you need a newline just include <br> and continue typing the description on one line in the description editor.
If you would like your job descriptions to sort in a particular order be sure to read here about sorting.
The 'Check for Time Conflicts' option designates whether or not the VolManager system will include that job assignment when checking a workers schedule for time conflicts.
In deciding whether or not a job gets a 'yes' or a 'no' for the 'Check for Time Conflicts' option, the issue is, Does perfoming the job require your worker to be physically present at a given time and place?
In some cases the answer may be 'no'. For example: A swim meet might require volunteers to supply food. A volunteer can walk into the meet, drop off the food and then be available to time a race, therefore supplying the food in this way is not a time dependant job and the 'Check for Time Conflicts' option should be set to 'no'.
If the 'Check for Time Conflicts' option is set to 'no' for certain jobs, this also means that a worker can apply for each of these jobs multiple times (if the jobs are available.)
If the 'Check for Time Conflicts' option is set to 'yes' for a particular job, workers are only allowed to sign up for a single instance of that job.
This may seem a little tricky and it's one of the reasons we at VolManager like to check your form over before putting it online.
The third panel on the page shows the Job Select Box containing all your event's existing job descriptions. Depending on your browser type and version, the scroll bar on the right of the box may or may not be present or functional. If it is not, click the job within the box and drag the highlight bar to highlight the job you wish to target. When you release the drag, mouseclick the highlighted job description and it should appear in the edit box above. Slots for that job will be available for editing in the slot manager panel below.
The fourth panel of the utility contains the Slot Manager. The Slot Manager allows you to define the timeslot info for the job highlighted above in the Job Select Box. The timeslot info includes a date, a start and end time, and the number of workers needed.
Note that a job must have at least one timeslot with a Workers Needed value greater than zero in order to appear on the signup form.
The fifth panel on the page is a select box which shows a listing of all of a particular job's timeslots.
This select box allows you to delete multiple timeslots by simply ctrl-left-mouseclicking the timeslots in the box and then clicking the delete button. This may, at times, be easier than using the Slot Manager in the panel above, particularly if you have to make many deletions.
You can also simply select a slot for viewing by mouseclicking any slot listed.
About job and timeslot changes while your signup is in progress:
Some changes are OK:
In order to help you avoid workers being signed up for non-existent jobs or slots VolManager has protections built-in to prevent errors from the following conditions:
The Signup Form is the page that your volunteers use to assign themselves jobs.
The information on this form is entered by you, the Event Administrator, by using the above described VolManager utilities.
The Signup Form works in three parts:
Used poolside, during a meet, the sheet is designed to sign in workers for their job assignments.
We recommend that use of the signin sheet should be a supervised operation, otherwise there is opportunity for volunteers to sign in incorrectly.
When your database is populated with worker info, the following instructions will apply:
Note the checkboxes to the left of the rows and the arrow boxes to the right of each row on the Sign In Sheet:
Checking a checkbox on a row and then clicking any arrow box will toggle the signed-in-status of that worker's slot.
If they are not signed in, it will sign them in.
If they are signed in, it will 'un-sign them in'.
This gives control to sign in and unsign in any worker.
Signed in workers are presented as greyed out.
The reason you can click any arrow box is that they are all the same submit button.
This keeps you from having to scroll all the way to the bottom of the list to find a single submit button each time.
The page has been scaled down a bit to fit onto the screen of a typical laptop.
Generate a sign-in report by printing the page with your browser's print option.
Be sure to have your browser set to print colors and background images (Windows InternetExporer: Tools/Internet Options/Advanced/Printing).
Printing in draft mode will save ink.
The Admin:Spreadsheet report presents all info pertaining to your event in spread sheet format.
The Release button in the leftmost column allow you to release your worker from that particular job assignment. The released job assignment will be automatically returned to the Signup Form. When all of a worker's assignments have been released, that worker's info is deleted from your Admin: Workers report.
Sorting the spredsheet can be accomplished by clicking the Date, Job Description or LastName column headers. The default sort is by Date.
The AID or Assignment ID represents the order in which the job assignments made. Note that the highest number AID is the same as the total number of assignments unless you have released jobs.
Depending on the width of the longest data item, the sheet may scroll beyond the edge of your screen and although a print button is included on the report, very large spreadsheets may fail to print properly from your web browser. For this reason, the printer-friendly report Admin: Printable has been provided.
Consult the FAQ for more info.
Publish the link to this report to allow your workers to view their job assignments.
Worker phone numbers have been removed and email addresses have been truncated to include only the first five letters of the address out of consideration of worker privacy.
Sorting the spredsheet can be accomplished by clicking the Date, Job Description or LastName column headers. The default sort is by Date.
The printable report produces a text-only accounting of the data for your event.
Sorting the spredsheet can be accomplished by clicking the Date, Job Description or LastName options at the top of the page. The default sort is by Date.
The Admin: Workers (Comma Delim) report produces a text-only list of all your event workers who have assigned jobs.
The list is always alphabetical by last name