You've made the awesome decision to sign up for Virtuous CRM+ and Virtuous Volunteer. Now what? In this article we'll dive into how these to platforms are integrated in order to sync your volunteers and their serving history from Virtuous Volunteer over to Virtuous CRM+.
What Volunteer Information is Synced?
The Basics
Before diving into the details of this integration between Virtuous Volunteer and Virtuous CRM+, let's begin with the basics discussing two essential points:
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It's a ONE-WAY integration. Meaning, volunteers are synced FROM your Virtuous Volunteer app TO Virtuous CRM+. Contacts (and Individuals) are not synced from Virtuous CRM+ to Virtuous Volunteer. This ensures that Virtuous CRM+ remains THE source of truth for all contact records in your organization.
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When are Volunteers synced?
- When you invite them to join your organization and they accept
- When they join your organization
- When they complete volunteer hours for the first time after the integration is connected
- They give a financial Gift through a Virtuous Volunteer Giving Form
When a bundle of volunteers is synced through the integration to be imported in Virtuous, you can use the Gift and Contact Import Tool to match this person with a current Contact in your Virtuous database or create a new one. After you match a volunteer to a Contact record in Virtuous (or create a new Contact record), each time they serve, the volunteer hours they serve will sync to their record in CRM+.
You may have noticed that Virtuous Volunteer requires an email to create a user account whether you are an Admin, Organizer, or Volunteer. That’s because each user’s email is used as the unique identifier in Virtuous Volunteer. When the connection between Virtuous Volunteer and a CRM+ individual is made, that connection stays with that individual even if they are archived. If a user is archived with a record that was made through the Virtuous Volunteer connection then volunteer hours will not sync to the newly created individual record and will continue to sync to the archived record. This may result in your record showing 0 hours for that volunteer.
We highly recommend that Admins do not merge/archive any records that have synced from Virtuous Volunteer to Virtuous CRM+.
What Volunteer Information is Synced?
Virtuous Volunteer sends to Virtuous CRM+ two types of data for each volunteer that is serving. The information that can is synced is the volunteer's:
Basic Contact Information
A volunteer is synced to Virtuous CRM+ as a Household (Contact with an Individual). Each volunteer has specific contact information associated with their profile. Only basic biographical information will be sent:
- First and Last Name
- Email Address (the unique identifier in Virtuous Volunteer)
- Address (including Apartment and Suite numbers)
- Phone Number
- Birth Month and Birth Year
- Gender (this Field is optional in Virtuous Volunteer)
Lastly, even if the volunteer already exists in Virtuous CRM+ as a Contact/Individual, you will be able to match them using the Gift and Contact Import tool without having to create a duplicate record in Virtuous CRM+.
Hours Served on Opportunities
An hour served by a Volunteer in a Virtuous Volunteer Opportunity is synced to a Volunteer Opportunity in Virtuous CRM+. Each time a volunteer joins a Virtuous Volunteer Opportunity, their participation is recorded on their Volunteer Resume along with the serving date, time and number of hours. Once added to their Virtuous Volunteer Resume, the integration will sync that new serving history over to their Contact record in Virtuous CRM+.
*Note that only NEW volunteer data (AFTER the integration is set up) will be synced from Virtuous Volunteer to Virtuous CRM+.
How do Opportunities Sync?
Along with a Volunteer's basic profile, their new serving history will sync over to Virtuous CRM+ as well. In order for their volunteer hours to sync properly, the integration will create a new Volunteer Opportunity in Virtuous CRM+ that is linked to the Opportunity in Virtuous Volunteer, where it came from.
When the volunteer serves in a Date and Time Opportunity in Virtuous Volunteer (or logs past hours served in an Anytime Opportunity) the integration will create a Volunteer Opportunity in Virtuous and update the Date and Hours fields for that Volunteer Opportunity in Virtuous. Then, the number of times they served and the hours they served are stored in that Volunteer Opportunity in Virtuous.
A few key points to note:
- Only Approved volunteer hours served in Virtuous Volunteer will be sent to Virtuous CRM+. Volunteers who are Pending Approval will remain in Virtuous Volunteer until approved.
- If the Require Hours Verification advanced option is activated for the Virtuous Volunteer Opportunity, only Verified hours will be sent to Virtuous CRM+. Volunteer hours that are Pending Verification for a Volunteer will remain in Virtuous Volunteer until officially marked as Verified by the Virtuous Volunteer Opportunity Owner (or a Virtuous Volunteer Admin).