Wouldn’t it be great if you could track volunteer hours without setting a specific start and end time for a signup slot? Now there is an easy way to let participants self-report their hours worked.
Tracking volunteer hours is usually automatic in ivolunteer.com. Date and time fields let you set a block of time for a signup slot. If your slot begins at 2pm and ends at 4pm, the system tracks that slot as 2 hours long. So when a participant confirms their slot or signs in (depending on your Track Attendance settings), they get credited with 2 hours of volunteer time.
But what if you need for volunteers to report a flexible number of hours? From community gardens to school and church volunteering, many of our customers have a need for participants to self-report their hours worked.
In the past, administrators would create a “Report Your Hours” event. They would add a number prompt under the Prompts tab to collect the hours on signup. Then they would manually adjust the participant’s “official” hours on the Sign-In tab.
By popular request, we have made this process easier. A custom number or dropdown prompt now can overwrite the calculated hours or points. Here is an example of the setup for a self-reporting hours prompt.
How to Let Volunteers Self-Report Hours
With the New Event Wizard
- Select Event the template of your choice. For example, you could use the Collect Volunteer Information template, which prompts you for a future cutoff date. (It can be far into the future.)
- On the Prompts step of your setup, click Add Prompt. In the pop-up box select the prompt type Self-Report Hours.
- Give your hours prompt a label and select whether it is required or not.
- Click Add Prompt and proceed through your Event setup normally.
The Classic/Manual Way
- Create a Dropdown or Number custom prompt under Event Details & Actions > Prompts.
- In your prompt’s settings, check the box to overwrite hours or points, according to your preference. Click OK.
- A confirmed participant’s self-reported hours (or points) now will override the preset amount in the signup slot. If you have Track Attendance turned on, you can adjust this amount administratively and “sign in” the volunteer to approve their hours.
My Participation Report
Along with self-reporting hours, we’ve made some improvements to your participants’ My Commitments portal. Using their email address, a participant signs into My Commitments to see their past and future signups. Now participants can also run a Participation Report.
The Participation Report has always been available to ivolunteer administrators. Our developers have now made the report available to your volunteers so that they can see their own cumulative hours for a time range.
In My Commitments, the footer bar now includes a Reports link. Click the link, set a From and To date, and then click Download PDF. That’s it!
Have a feature request? Please let us know!