Higher Logic's Volunteer Manager allows your organization to build and manage a comprehensive volunteer program so that your members can be more engaged in your community. The Volunteer Program makes it easy to:

• create volunteer Opportunities,
• match volunteers to Opportunities, and
• track data about those who participate.

Below are some scenarios that you might encounter while working in the volunteer program, as well as information to guide you through unique situations that some customers have encountered.

Why didn’t the primary contact receive the New Volunteer Signup email?

There are two reasons that the primary contact might not receive the notification email message when a new volunteer signs up for an Opportunity.

The template for New Volunteer Signup emails in the Opportunity Type settings was set to Do not send.

To correct this, you can either:

• Change the template default setting to always send that email (New Volunteer Signup (Default)), or
• Change the setting to allow overrides at the Opportunity level so you can decide and set per Opportunity.

The member listed as the primary contact isn't authorized to manage volunteers.

The primary contact must be a Super Admin, Volunteer Admin, or Community Admin (of the community that the Opportunity is associated with) in order to have access to the Manage Applicants page. Otherwise, that member will receive the email notification of the new signup but will not be able to manage applicants.

Can the New Volunteer Signup email notification be sent to multiple people?

No. The New Volunteer Signup email can be sent to only one person: the primary contact; and there can be only one primary contact.

NOTE: You could create an automation rule that will send an email to a security group when a member applies for any Opportunity.

Note however, you'd have to have a separate automation rule for each opportunity because the template wouldn't be able to indicate which opportunity the applicant applied to.

Can we configure an Opportunity so members can apply more than once?

No, it isn't possible for a member to apply more than once for a single Opportunity.

You can, however, create multiple, similar Opportunities for a repeating event (e.g., monthly and quarterly), such as January blog submissions, February blog submissions, and Q1 submissions.

Then, allow multiple uploads or descriptions in the applications where applicants can submit more entries in one application.

This workaround is effective because applicants can "withdraw" their application and then "re-apply" and keep adding to it later on; also, admins can adjust points and give applicants more points for multiple submissions.

NOTE: If a volunteer was marked as "complete" at any point, they won't be able to withdraw or edit their application.

Can we hide options from the Volunteer Leaderboard dropdown?

Yes. However, this is not recommended because it requires customizations to your Thrive Community site's theme.

• To request assistance, create a case with Higher Logic Support.

NOTE: These customizations will not work in the Internet Explorer browser.

Can we hide the points system?

No, the points system is built into the Volunteer Program, so it cannot be "hidden," but you have two alternatives.

Assign zero points

You can assign a value of zero (0) points to all Opportunities, thus rendering them...well, pointless.

To make all Opportunities worth 0 points:

1. In the Admin Toolbar, click Admin.

2. Navigate to Programs > Volunteer > Qualifications.
3. Create a Qualification category (on the Experience Levels tab) and set the value of the Skills Multiplier field to 0 and toggle Is this the default? to Yes.
4. Save the new category.

TIP: Instead of creating a category, you could edit an existing one and configure it as described above.

Toggle Show points option to No

Another option is to prevent points values from displaying.

The Volunteer Opportunities List widget has a Show Points setting that defaults to Yes (display points next to the Opportunity) and which, if toggled to No, hides the points.

There are other volunteer-based widgets (e.g., Volunteer Opportunity Details) from which you can hide points. However, any such measure is considered a work-around and is not recommended because it requires custom CSS/JavaScript code that Higher Logic does not provide.

• To discuss this request with Higher Logic Support, create a case.

Can volunteers' histories be imported?

Individuals can use the self-reporting widget on their volunteer profile to add their history.

To bulk-import histories for multiple volunteers in your account:

1. Create a task order for our data-migration team. (There is a fee for this service.)
2. Fill out the required fields in the template.
3. Create the external Opportunity Types in the Self-Reporting types in the admin interface.