Certifiably Awesome
While it’s certainly amazing when your supporters want to lend their time and talent by serving with your organization, sometimes it may take more than a willing heart to be able to make a difference. Camp counselors may need to have CPR training, or volunteers packing meals or working shifts in a food pantry may need to have food safety training. Keeping track of which volunteers have completed training like this, and which Opportunities require specialized training, can be challenging.
Well…it WAS challenging.
This is where the new Certifications feature comes in!
Now, VOMO Platform users can create Certifications, note the requirements, and track which Volunteers have completed certifications training.
Certifications can be found on the People tab. When creating a new Certification, you can give it a name, enter detailed requirements, select a default expiration period, and even upload attachments for your new certification.
When viewing people, you’ll see a new column displaying badges for all Certifications earned (if any).
Click to add a new Certification for any volunteer. Use the default expiration for the selected certification, or select a custom expiration period.
A Certification may be in “Pending” status while you wait to receive documentation or some other confirmation from a volunteer, and then you can edit the Certification to move it to Completed.
The, you’ll see the new badge appear on the People page.
Now, these new Certification badges are great and all, but did we stop there?
We did not!
You can also set Certification requirements on Opportunities, so that only volunteers with the necessary Certifications can sign up to serve. When creating or editing an Opportunity, scroll down to the Advanced Options, and there you’ll be able to search for and add any necessary Certifications.
When a Certification is added, the Participant Approval option will automatically be selected as well.
Want to learn more about what you can do with Certifications? Well, you’re in luck! Just take a gander at this handy support article.
…And The Rest
As with every release, this latest update also includes a number of other fixes, tweaks, minor modifications, and assorted nudges. Among this month's assorted fixes:
- When viewing an Opportunity on the Hub, some Opportunities were displaying non-clickable links under the Requirements section. This seemed like teasing, so we’ve removed the offending links.
- Some organizations were experiencing errors when updating branding for the Hub. Look, branding is hard enough, no need to make things more difficult! So we’ve made sure that branding is easier now. At least, in VOMO…
- Expired Sterling background checks were not updating when volunteers updated their background checks. We’ve made a few changes to ensure that Sterling background checks will display and update properly from now on.
- Some volunteers who signed up to join private organizations reported receiving a welcome email from incorrect organization names. We’ve uncrossed some wires and addressed this so volunteers should be less confused while they wait in the lobby.
- When adding a Group field to a form and making it required, apparently it was possible to submit the form without actually selecting a Group. We’ve made sure that required fields will actually be required now, since that seems like the easiest way to do it.
And that's the list! Phew! As always, if you have any questions about these or other features, feel free to contact our support team.