Version 2.3 Release Date: September 16, 2015

All enhancements apply to the Get Connected 2.0 platform. If you are on Get Connected 1.0 and wish to upgrade to Get Connected 2.0, please contact us for information and to schedule your free upgrade.

Volunteer (Standard) Module: Updates

This round of enhancements features updates to the volunteer résumé and the utility bar.

Volunteer Résumé

The volunteer résumé has been redesigned to feature more useful information via charts, as shown below. The new format preserves the amount of data shown in the old format.

Utility Bar

The utility bar, which appears at the top of the Get Connected screen, has been streamlined to allow for dropdown boxes and to include new features. Below is the utility bar from a sample account:

In addition to the Return To Our Website, calendar, and help buttons, it includes a button for on-site donations (if this is activated on your site), a link to your site's impact page (if activated), and a notification of in-app messages.

Volunteer (Standard) Module: New Features

Donations

Sites can now accept donations through Stripe. If you set up your system to accept donations, users can be prompted to donate after performing certain actions. In addition, system managers can report on donations, and users can see their donation history. Click here to learn more.

Community Impact Areas

Site managers can now add impact areas such as Education, Income, and Health to their sites in order to group needs based on the impact volunteers will make in their community. Impact areas are a way of categorizing needs in addition to Interests. They are different in that interests focus on an individual's volunteer interests while impact areas focus on the volunteer's greater impact to the community. Click here to learn how to specify impact areas and how those areas are used in Get Connected.

Impact Pages

Site managers can now create "impact pages" that tell the community about how volunteers and nonprofits on their site are making a difference. Volunteer Impact Pages (VIPs) have highly customizable content, and graphs can be exported for easy sharing. You can design two types of VIPs: internal (visible only to logged-in users) and public (visible to anyone). Click here to learn more about how you can add VIPs to your community's Get Connected experience.

Sharing of Agencies, Needs, Events, and Advanced Events

Relationships can now be set up between Get Connected sites so that the needs, agencies, events, and advanced events of one site (called a "hub") can flow to a Campus Connect or Corporate Connect site. Managers of either the hub or the "connect site" can decide which content is passed along. Users on a Campus Connect or Corporate Connect site are only visible to the hub if they have interacted with hub content. Click here to learn more.

Reports

Get Connected has a new suite of reports for site managers of hub or connection platforms. These reports feature information about hub-connection relationships, donations, and community impact.

In-app Messaging

 Get Connected is offering a new way to communicate with your system's users. "In-app messaging" allows you to send messages to users within your Get Connected system, without using email. When a user logs in and has an in-app message waiting, he or she will be notified by an icon at the top of their screen.

Click here to learn more.

Note: System emails sent to users through Get Connected will be copied and sent as in-app messages.

Email Domain Restrictions.

System managers can now limit user registrations so that users with emails from a certain domain are not granted access. Click here to learn more.

New User Registration Fields.

Sites can now collect age range, household income, department, and role data from users when they open a Get Connected account. For the Department and Role fields, system managers can create a list of options that best reflects the departments and job roles within their organizations. Click here to learn more.

Required Login

Galaxy Digital staff can now edit a setting on behalf of system managers so that users are required to sign in before they can see needs, events, agencies, advanced events, or pages from the Service Learning or Disaster Response modules. To set up required logins on your platform, contact our customer care team with your request.

Default Profile Images.

If a user does not upload a profile picture, their first and last initials will be used to create a default display for them.

Standard (Volunteer) Module: Fixes

None this time.

Advanced Events Module

See above sections on sharing content.

Other Modules

This round of enhancements did not include any changes to the Disaster Response and Service Learning Modules (DRM and SLM).