General FAQ

Subscription Questions

Administration Questions

Q: What is iVolunteerOnline? How does it work?

A: iVolunteerOnline helps organizations with the process of signing up volunteers for events. An Administrator first designs a sign-up sheet for an event with slots typically defined by stations and blocks of time, and then shares this sign-up sheet with potential volunteers by distributing a public link to the event. Volunteers use that public link to view the sign-up sheet and key at least their name and e-mail in one or more slots to volunteer. The volunteer then receives an e-mail from which he or she must click a link to confirm that he or she has in fact signed up to volunteer.

Q: How reliable is iVolunteerOnline?

A: iVolunteerOnline is hosted on dedicated servers in Amazon's high-end Elastic Compute Cloud. For our customers this means that iVolunteerOnline is fast, reliable, and secure. We do not share our servers or databases with any other organizations or other hosted services. Furthermore because e-mail is an important part of the volunteer confirmation process, we have partnered with another company that does nothing but relay outgoing e-mail. For our customers this means that volunteers receive e-mail as fast and reliable as possible.

Q: How much does iVolunteerOnline cost?

A: Click here to review all our promotions.

Q: What web browsers are supported?

A: Volunteers can use just about any browser commercially available that supports javascript (including browsers on many mobile devices like the iPhone, Android and recent versions of Blackberry).

For administration of iVolunteerOnline we recommend using current versions of Chrome, Firefox or IE9.  Google Chrome however is our browser of choice and can be downloaded here.

Q: How does the number of slots in a subscription work?

A: Each subscription includes a maximum number of filled slots.  Each time a slot is filled by a volunteer that counts as one slot taken.  Slots that are canceled or slots that remain unfilled do not count towards the maximum in your subscription.

Q: How do I subscribe to iVolunteerOnline?

A: Click here to go to our secure checkout here.

Q: How do I subscribe after my free trial is over?

A: Log in to your free trial account. Under the Organization menu click on the Subscription tab. Select a promotion and click the "Proceed to Checkout" button.

Q: If I subscribe for a term shorter than 1 year, will you keep my information around for next year?

A: Yes, we have several customers who run seasonal events.  We will keep your data in the system available for the next year unless you specifically ask us to remove it.  When you are ready to re-subscribe, log in to Administration as you did the previous year, go to the Organization menu, click on the Subscription Tab and select the desired subscription level. 

Q: Is there online help?

A: Yes.  You can view it by clicking here.  

Q: Do you provide any training?

A: There is a growing list of training videos that you can view here.

Q: Can I change my organization unique ID?

A: We intentionally didn't make this easy so that you don't run the risk of confusing your volunteers. However please contact us and we can change this for you if you really feel that you need to change it. Click here.

Q: Will you ever display 3rd party advertisements in my account or on my events?

A: No.

Q: Is there a way to collect additional information from Volunteers (e.g. a Phone Number)?

A: Yes.  Under the "Settings" tab for the event click on the "Prompts" tab.  Click on the "Add Prompt" button to add additional prompts.  You can learn more about custom prompts here.  

Q: How can I disable slots that I don't need?

A: Edit the slot that you don't need and set the number of volunteers to zero (0).

Q: Can one event span multiple days?

A: Yes. Specify different start and end dates for your event. Each task can then be assigned to a different date within the start and end dates.

Q: Why does my event say that it already occurred when volunteers try to sign up?

A: The date that you put in the end date field must be in the future or the current day.

Q: Is it possible to report or export all events together?

A: Yes.  From the "Organization" menu select the "Reports" tab.  From here you can run reports on multiple events.

Q: How do I send out reminder and thank you emails?

A: Log in as the Administrator, select an event, go to the Reminders tab.  You can add scheduled reminders to happen before the task dates and thank you messages after the task is over.  Optionally you can create a reminder to send now by choosing 'Create to Send Now'.

Q: Is there a way to add additional information to reminders, such as "bring gloves?"

A: Yes, you can add additional information or instructions per event that will appear in Confirmation and/or Reminder e-mails. Select the event, go to the Settings tab and select the Emails tab under that. Modify the email messages you wish to change and save your changes.

Q: Do you have to give my participants the ability to opt-out of receiving reminders?

A: Yes.  The FCC CAN-SPAM ACT says that we have to provide a way for recipients to opt-out from receiving unwanted email messages.  Additionally this policy helps to keep iVolunteerOnline mail from being blocked by email providers.    

Q: How can volunteers track hours volunteered?

A: Each slot position has an hours field associated with it. Volunteers can access this on their participant page (same as the confirmation link). Additionally administrators can run a report on this information.

Q: What is the fastest way to send an e-mail (besides the standard reminder) to one event's group of volunteers?

A: Administer the event. Click on the Reports tab and click on the One Slot per Row button to send the report into Excel. Highlight all of the cells in the e-mail column. Select Copy. Open Outlook (or whatever e-mail program you use). Paste the addresses into the To field (or into Bcc if you prefer to keep the recipients from seeing each others’ email addresses). Beware that if volunteers signed up for more than one shift then you may want to eliminate duplicate e-mail addresses; you can do this manually in Outlook or you can use Excel’s sort and Filter functions before you copy the addresses into Outlook.

Q: Can I see what date/time volunteers signed up (in addition to what date/time they signed up for)?

A: The Administrator can view this information in the Activity Log tab of the event.  Additionally, the administrator can view the Activity Log report available in Reports.

Q: How do I remove a volunteer?

A: A volunteer can cancel themselves if the Administrator has elected to allow Self Cancelations (Event | Details tab). The administrator can cancel any volunteer from the Manage Volunteer's tab in a selected event by clicking on the volunteers's name and clicking the Cancel button.

Q: Can I define one slot position that signs up multiple volunteers?

A: Yes. In the Signup Sheet Design tab of the selected event, select the slot position. Modify the number of volunteers for that slot position.

Q: What if two volunteers sign up for the same slot position at the same time?

A: The first volunteer to submit their information will get it and a lock will be placed for the slot for 10 minutes. The other volunteer will receive a message that the slot was just taken.

Q: What is the difference between the Report and the Log?

A: Use the Report to display a concise view of an event's volunteer schedule. This should also be your final view of an event's volunteer plan. The Report displays an event in two formats: (1) The traditional row-column model just like the sign-up sheet and (2) a detailed one-slot-per-row model. If you press the button to open the report in Excel, the report is downloaded into Excel. ... View the Log to see exactly when volunteers signed up, confirmed, canceled, or received system warnings. Use the log to research any difficulties that could arise in the process of signing up volunteers, such as where a volunteer, who failed to confirm, attempted to volunteer.

Q: Why is a volunteer not receiving confirmation e-mail?

A: The three most common reasons for e-mail failure are: (1) the volunteer provided a bad or misspelled address or (2) the e-mail was delivered to a spam or junk mail folder. Or (3) the volunteer's receiving e-mail system is using an anti-spam product based on a challenge/response mechanism that iVolunteerOnline's automated e-mail system cannot respond to. If #1 is the case please have your volunteer retry with the correct e-mail address. If #2 or #3 are the case please try to configure your spam filter to not flag e-mail from ivolunteer.com as spam. One way to do this is by adding ivolunteer.com to your e-mail system's white list. Finally, you can also try using a different e-mail address. The iVolunteerOnline staff is constantly working to ensure the highest possible reliability of e-mail delivery. 

Q: Can we enter or confirm volunteers on their behalf and bypass e-mail confirmations?

A: Yes. The Manage tab for the selected event allows the administrator to add volunteers without needing the volunteer to confirm. The administrator can also cancel volunteers on this tab.

Q: Is there a way to eliminate requiring e-mail confirmations?

A: No. However, we have tried to make it easy for your volunteers who do a lot of work with you. Auto-complete and Auto-confirm make it really simple for volunteers to signup.

Auto-complete which is on by default, allows a volunteer to just enter their email address when signing up for a slot. The rest of their information, including any custom fields is automatically filled.

Another option is auto-confirm. The volunteer has the option to turn this on. When a volunteer has turned on auto-confirm, he or she will can be confirmed immediately without getting an email.

Auto-complete and Auto-confirm are only available to the volunteer who visited their participant page on the same machine that they are volunteering on. If they want to use this feature on a different machine they will have to visit the original link that was emailed to them.

Q: Is there a way to disable online cancellations?

A: Yes, if Allow Self Cancelations is not checkedOR if Allow Self Cancelations is checked the Self Cancelation End date will not allow any cancelations after that date.

Q: Is there a way to disable volunteers' access to an event while I am still designing it?

A: Yes. If the Administrator does not mark the event as active, then volunteers will not be able to sign up for that event until the event is enabled again.

Q: Can an administrator make changes to an event after volunteers have started signing up?

A: Yes. If you add or move rows or columns then volunteers will shift appropriately to remain under the headings they signed up for. Be careful changing headers of rows or columns because volunteers will expect to have signed up under those headings. You cannot remove a row or column if there are volunteers signed up in any of the slots in the row or column you wish to remove.

Q: Are volunteers' e-mail addresses safe and private?

A: Volunteers' e-mail addresses are only transmitted and visible to the user signed on as an Administrator, and are only used by the iVolunteerOnline system to send system-generated confirmation e-mails. iVolunteerOnline will never send unsolicited e-mail or use or share your e-mail addresses in any way. iVolunteerOnline will never share, copy, or review customers' databases other than to support technical problems or to backup the system.

In addition, we expect our customers to extend this level of privacy to their volunteers by only using the information for the volunteering purposes for which it was intended. We strongly encourage all of our customers to review and modify their Organization Privacy Statement (under Settings | General | Legal Statements) so that it's clear to volunteers what the Organizations intention is with keeping volunteer's information safe and private.

Q: Can we display our logo on the sign-up sheet?

A: Yes, many of the fields in Settings for the event allow you to insert an image. Use the button item4 to add an image. Enter the url of the internet location of the image you wish to use.   Use the Select button to select a previously uploaded image or to upload a new image. 

Q: Can we customize the Organization Home Page?

A: Yes. Under the Organization menu select the Home Page tab. You can control how events are displayed and how they sort in addition to providing a welcome message for volunteers.

If you find that the Organization Home Page does not provide enough flexibility, you can always create a page on your own web site that links to your event signup sheets directly.

Q: Can we have multiple Administrators?

A: Yes.  You can create as many administrators as you need.  Each administrator can be assigned to various events.  Additionally you can control what each adminstrator can do with permissions.  A DESIGN administrator can design, manage, run reports for assigned events and create new events.  A REPORTING administrator can manage events and run reports for assigned events.  A MANAGE administrator can only manage assinged events (signup and cancel volunteers).

Q: Can we have a different contact e-mail for each event?

A: Yes, the Administrator can change this on the Details tab of the selected event.

Q: Is my data backed up?

A: The system is backed up to avoid a loss in the event of a system failure, however we will not be able to restore individual events or volunteer information that you overwrite or delete on your own. Upon request we might be able to restore your database to the state that it was one or two days ago. You can backup your own individual event information by running a Report or Exporting events to Excel. Be sure to review this topic in the license agreement (available for review in the online checkout process) when you purchase iVolunteerOnline.

Q: How do I get additional help?

A: Please e-mail questions to support [at] ivolunteer [dot] com.  You may also call our support 800 number at 866.826.7926 (dial 2 for support).

Q: What is your privacy policy?

A: We take privacy seriously. Here is a link to our policy.

Q: Are you working on any upgrades? Will I receive the upgrades?

A: Yes, we expect to be working on upgrades as long as there are ways to make things easier for our customers. Customers are upgraded automatically as new features become available.

Q: How do Settings work?

A: The Organization has Settings and each Event has it's own copy of Settings. When you add a new Event, the new Event's Settings are inherited from the Organization's Settings, but can be tailored as needed for the Event. When you copy an Event the Settings for that event are also copied. This means that Settings for any Event can be modified without affecting any other Event's Settings or the Organization's Settings. Likewise modifying the Organization Settings will not affect any existing Event.

A good practice is to modify the Organization's Settings as needed early on, so that any new Events will have Settings tailored for the Organization. This can reduce the amount of work required to setup a new event.

Any Event's Settings can be replaced with the Organization's Setting by using the Revert button. Additionally, the Organization's Settings can be replaced with the default iVolunteerOnline settings by using the Revert button on Organization Settings.

Here is a short video that explains how Settings work.

Q:  How can I block off slots for a group or groups of volunteers?

A: One way to do this is to go into the Manage tab and add volunteers using an email address designated for that group.  Then when you receive the list of volunteers for that group, you can go back into Manage and make the changes.

A second option is to stagger signups over time.  For example suppose you have 3 groups A, B, C with C being your general pool of volunteers.  You can open up the event early for group A first with a password that only group A knows about.  When it's group B's turn you can change the password to one that only group B knows about.  Then when it's time for Group C (the general pool) you can remove the password requirement.  Additionally you can change the number of available slots each time to keep one group from grabbing too many slots.

A third option is to create different events for each group of volunteers that you can either password protect or simply make hidden.  Then send each group the link to their signup sheet.  Additionally you can designate someone in each of the groups to be an Event Administrator.  This way the group can be responsible for signing up everyone in their group.     

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