❖ Heads up! This article is only intended for Site Managers. Some sites have language overrides in place, so you may see Needs instead of Opportunities or Agencies instead of Programs.
By the end of this article, you will be able to:
Understand what Custom Response Questions are and how they work
Create and manage Response Questions
Review volunteer responses and export data
Custom Response Questions are a great way to collect important information from volunteers as they respond to your site's volunteer Needs or Opportunities. For example, you could ask:
How did you hear about this opportunity?
Is there anything you want us to know before joining us for this opportunity?
Do you have any preferences for snacks or lunch?
Have you had a fever or flu symptoms in the past 48 hours?
These questions cannot be applied to specific Needs or Opportunities; they appear on all Need or Opportunity response forms.
Response Questions settings
There are two settings you can manage under Settings > Response Questions:
Require Emails for Team Registrations: Toggling this On removes the Reserved Slots feature for volunteers responding to a volunteer Need or Opportunity as a team. Site Managers can always see and manage Reserved Slots even if this is toggled On.
Show Pop-up After Action: Toggle this On to have a pop-up appear when a user responds to a Need or Opportunity, prompting them to create a calendar event.
This pop-up also includes the chance to share the Need or Opportunity on social media, or make a donation if you have donations set up on your site.
Response Questions
Go to Settings > Response Questions:
Click Add Custom Question.
Fill in the required fields with an asterisk (*). There are five question types to choose from:
Small or Large Text Field: This question type provides a blank field for volunteers to type out their answers. You can use the small text field for smaller answers or the large text field to allow for more in-depth responses.
Dropdown: This provides a dropdown menu for the volunteers to choose from. Volunteers can only select one answer with this one.
Checkbox: This provides several answers that volunteers can check off. This is great if your question has more than one possible answer.
Radio Button: Like the dropdown option, this provides several answers with buttons for the volunteers to select. They can only select one answer with this option.
For dropdown, checkbox, and radio button, enter the answer options on separate lines in the Options field:
If you want to require this question on the Opportunity response form, toggle the button to On beside Required:
Click Save Custom Question.
Here's what the questions look like on the Need/Opportunity response form from the volunteer perspective:
Reviewing Response Question Answers
Want to see how volunteers are answering these response questions? You can export that data for review!
Go to Volunteerism > Responses.
Click Export Responses. This exports your Response data to a CSV, including volunteer answers to the response questions!
