Learn how to view and manage the volunteer hours logged to your site. Let's start by exploring the Hours tab in your Manager panel.
Using the Hours Table
When a volunteer logs their hours into your system, information associated with these hours will appear in a table that looks like this:
This table is located in the Volunteerism tab in your site’s Manager Panel. Site managers should visit this table often, so let’s look at some of the most common ways to use this table:
Search hours by need. Using the search field at the top of the “Need” column, type the name of the need you want to find. This is useful when you want to see who may still need to log their hours.
Search hours by user. While you won’t get a total number of hours logged by each user, you can see the hours a volunteer has contributed to different needs.
Using the Table Filter
The Table Filter allows you to view and hide information related to each hours entry:
When you select a display category, the column is added to the table. You’ll notice that many of the columns have a search bar located beneath the display category:
Let’s say you wanted to search for hour submissions related to a specific Initiative. To do so, you’ll take the following steps:
Make sure the “Initiative” option is selected in the Table Filter.
Use the search bar located in the “Initiative” column to type the name of the Initiative you want to filter.
Press Enter and your table will show you only users who have submitted hours associated with the Initiative.
Adding Hours on Behalf of the Volunteer
Within the same Hours tab, you can log hours on behalf of a volunteer. While you’ll want to encourage volunteers to log their hours themselves, there may be times where you need to do so for them (especially for volunteers with limited internet access). All you have to do is click the “Add An Hour Entry” button:
Fill out the hours form using the volunteer’s information and select the need you would like to associate the hours with. Note that the volunteer must have a user account with your site, and must have responded to a need before you can take this action.
Approve and Decline Hours in Bulk
When a volunteer submits their hours, these hours are given a status. Hours will generally be given the “Pending” status until you change it to “Approve” or “Decline” (we suspect that you’re likely to approve most hours). You can either approve hours individually or in bulk (which will save you time).
To “Approve” or “Decline” hours in bulk:
Head over to the “Hours” tab, located under the “Volunteerism” category of your Manager menu. Here you will find the Hours table, populated every time a user logs their hours into your system.
Use “Status” search field located in the right-hand column to view only entries where hours that are “Pending.”
In the left-hand column of the same table you’ll notice a checkbox. When you select this checkbox, all entries in this list will automatically be selected (you can always un-select individual entries if you need to):
Once you have selected the entries you would like to approve or decline, simply choose the “Approve Hours” or “Decline Hours” option as pictured below:
Remember how we filtered for an Initiative before? You can approve or decline all hours for a specific volunteer, need, or initiative!