We have started using individual hours along with user groups. For instance, we have a user group for our Youth Volunteer Council and have charged them with tracking their hours and engagement on our website. Sometimes that engagement is through needs and agencies listed, but sometimes it is not and we would like to be able to attached those hours to their user group affiliation. At this time, they are not able to do that when entering individual hours.
I would also think it would be helpful, if an individual enters hours for a need that is affiliated with an agency, but that need is not posted as a recruitment listing, for the individual to be able to associate it with the agency and the agency manager to receive notification of that entry.
Our agencies do not necessarily post all of their needs on the site, just the ones that they are currently recruiting for. But individuals are using the site for all of their activity tracking - not just new opportunities or events that they have responded to.
Giving individuals and agencies a way to interact through these individual hours tracking fields would be helpful.
Hi Nancy,
Thanks for the feedback!
I've analyzed Nina's three points that she identified as suggestions from our clients, especially since you said that, "the three points that Nina made in bold at the top of this thread nicely sum up what we are looking for the system to be able to do."
Since that is the case, I'm going to go ahead and create two separate product suggestions for you on your behalf, and here's why. I reached out to my team and they indicated that Nina's first point should be its own product suggestion, and points two and three should be grouped together into a second product suggestion!
So here's the two product suggestions that I will submit for you once I get the go-ahead from you:
Product Suggestion #1
Ability to associate individual hours with an agency that is registered on the Connect site.
Product Suggestion #2
A way for the designated contact person to approve individual hours AND an automated notification for the contact person, letting them know that individual hours have been submitted.
Thanks Nancy, look forward to your feedback!
We like the idea of volunteers being able to add individual hours and attach them to an agency when there is not a direct need advertised. The ideal would be for the agency to receive notice for approval and be able to approve them.
It would also be helpful for the site manager to receive an email when individual hours are added but not for a registered agency.
Hi Nancy and Jacob,
Nancy, I wanted to follow up to you and Steve’s conversation in regards to Individual Hours. Thanks so much for outlining what you are looking for! By definition, Individual Hours are not associated with volunteer needs or opportunities listed on a site. However, I can see the benefit to being able to associate the hours towards an agency or program. I’ll make sure your thoughts on this are added to our current notes about this request.
Just as a note, all hours including Individual Hours can be associated with a User Group. You can require User Group selection when users submit their hours in your Settings > Hours area.
For the second part of this suggestion Steve outlined, I will also adjust this to state: “Include individual hours associated with the selected agency/program managers in the automatic notification they receive in regards to pending hours, letting them know that individual hours have been submitted.” Mainly because we cannot send notifications to users that are not in the system, and Designated Site Supervisors do not require a user account.
Jacob, thanks so much for adding your voice to our forum! I will add your vote to the three items in regards to improving Individual Hours outlined in the original forum post.
Best,
Shonie
CX Specialist
she / her
Hi Steve,
Realized that I owed you a response on this. For us as a state parks system, it would be great if our volunteers had the ability to add individual hours for work they do at our sites without it being tied to an opportunity, for it to credit to a specific park and for the agency/park managers to get a notification that there has been an individual hour entry they need to approve. The three points that Nina made in bold at the top of this thread nicely sum up what we are looking for the system to be able to do.
We have tried to cover the areas that people may show up to volunteer by creating a private opportunity that is ongoing. We can send them the link on the front end to sign up or we can log time for them on the back end if they are not registered. It does put the responsibility on the park to create all these scenarios in order to capture how someone might be contributing their time. Individual hours also allow us to expand the list of options on how someone volunteers. At this time, we are restricted by the designated interests. For instance, we have some folks that do administrative work for the park's non-profit. It is not necessarily something the public will select as an interest area, but it would be nice to include it as an option for the individual hours for those who volunteer in this way.
If individual volunteer hours could also be tied to a user group, that would be great. It may already do that and I'm just unaware.
Thanks and any help I can provide to make this suggestion a reality, please do let me know.
Nancy Schelin
TN State Parks
We have allowed volunteers to add their individual hours to their dashboard. We think it is a great feature, however there are some modifications that would greatly benefit our organization for reporting purposes.
1. if there was a way for the volunteer (user) to self select which Agency they are submitting hours for
2. the ability for an agency manager to select which of our agencies those hours are for.
Currently the individual hours just collect in a "blank" field and can't be assigned to one of our agencies.We lose data for our agencies not being able to select which of our agencies the hours should be assigned.
Hi Nancy, thank you for taking the time to post to this thread!
Since there has been some interest and traction on this particular post, I wanted to reach out to collaborate with you about it. Just to communicate, my goal in reaching out is to be able to make sure I fully understand your suggestion, so that I can post an official product suggestion to our internal team and our internal product suggestion board.
I would love to work with you on this if this is something that you would like to collaborate on so that we can add an official product suggestion on your behalf.
Thanks, Nancy, I look forward to hearing your thoughts and to working with you on this!
I agree with these possible product updates. This is critical for Get Connected to stay relevant in the volunteer management software world and to push agencies to use the Get Connected site instead of their own volunteer software/system. There are so many agencies with their own volunteer page on their website, form, etc. that it is becoming cumbersome to manage them all. I hope Get Connected becomes the one stop shop for agencies to post opportunities and track all of their hours.
Just bringing Nina's suggestions about individual hours back up again as it is something we would like to see done especially so they can be associated with a specific agency/park. Thanks!
Hi Lucy -
Thank you for your suggestions! These are documented from your original post in June. So far, you are the only person we have documented as requesting these features. If we get more interest we will revisit to possibly move forward. So far, these have not made the priority list to enhancements due to the scope of changes to the architecture and time required for these changes.
Kelly
Hi Ruth -
Thank you for your feedback! We will add your name to our list of people who are interested in this as an enhancement.
Kelly
I like this idea as well. Having contacts noted in an individual hour entry be notified is also a great way for local agencies that are not on the platform to be invited to register. Good idea! I'm behind that one too!
Hi Lynn -
Thanks for your comment! I will note your interest in this feature!
Best,
Kelly
I agree that the system should allow users to add time spent volunteering with agencies not yet in the system. Great incentive to get more agencies involved. We have attempted working with student groups who want to keep track of service, but couldn't because this option is not currently available.
Nina Rogers
Over the past years, we've received a number of requests regarding Individual Hours. While this feature was originally developed to allow volunteers to log personal hours not associated with need responses on a Connect platform, we realize that different clients wish to use individual hours in more structured and systematic ways. Below are a few suggestions we've gotten in the forums:
Ability to associate individual hours with an agency that is registered on the Connect site. This might happen if someone volunteers with a Connect site agency but the volunteer work isn't associated with a need that has been posted on the site.
A way for the designated contact person to approve individual hours. At this time, it is up to the site manager to reach out to the contact person (specified by the volunteer) to see if hours can be approved, and then to approve them from the site manager panel.
An automated notification for the the contact person, letting them know that individual hours have been submitted. This could be for informational purposes only, or it could be a kind of reminder to the contact person to approve the hours (or to reach out to the site manager so that the site manager can mark them as approved).
The purpose of this thread is to ask you--our clients--how you are using individual hours on your site, and what additional features or capabilities you'd like to have with individual hours. Please be specific; when we discuss enhancement requests, it's important that we can point to concrete examples, or use cases, showing how the added or revised feature would be helpful for clients. In addition, if you would like to chime in and expand on the items above, we encourage you to do that as well. Thanks!
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