Version 2.2 Release Date: July 13, 2015

We added several features to Get Connected's automated notifications. To learn more about automated notifications, and to learn more about the enhancements listed below, click here.

None this time.

This round of enhancements did not include new items, updates, or fixes to the Disaster Response and Service Learning Modules (DRM and SLM).

Version 2.3 Release Date: September 16, 2015

This round of enhancements features updates to the volunteer résumé and the utility bar.

The volunteer résumé has been redesigned to feature more useful information via charts, as shown below. The new format preserves the amount of data shown in the old format.

The utility bar, which appears at the top of the Get Connected screen, has been streamlined to allow for dropdown boxes and to include new features. Below is the utility bar from a sample account:

In addition to the Return To Our Website, calendar, and help buttons, it includes a button for on-site donations (if this is activated on your site), a link to your site's impact page (if activated), and a notification of in-app messages.

Sites can now accept donations through Stripe. If you set up your system to accept donations, users can be prompted to donate after performing certain actions. In addition, system managers can report on donations, and users can see their donation history.

Site managers can now add impact areas such as Education, Income, and Health to their sites in order to group needs based on the impact volunteers will make in their community. Impact areas are a way of categorizing needs in addition to Interests. They are different in that interests focus on an individual's volunteer interests while impact areas focus on the volunteer's greater impact to the community.

Site managers can now create "impact pages" that tell the community about how volunteers and nonprofits on their site are making a difference. Volunteer Impact Pages (VIPs) have highly customizable content, and graphs can be exported for easy sharing. You can design two types of VIPs: internal (visible only to logged-in users) and public (visible to anyone).

Relationships can now be set up between Get Connected sites so that the needs, agencies, events, and advanced events of one site (called a "hub") can flow to a Campus Connect or Corporate Connect site. Managers of either the hub or the "connect site" can decide which content is passed along. Users on a Campus Connect or Corporate Connect site are only visible to the hub if they have interacted with hub content.

Get Connected has a new suite of reports for site managers of hub or connection platforms. These reports feature information about hub-connection relationships, donations, and community impact.

Get Connected is offering a new way to communicate with your system's users. "In-app messaging" allows you to send messages to users within your Get Connected system, without using email. When a user logs in and has an in-app message waiting, he or she will be notified by an icon at the top of their screen.

Note: System emails sent to users through Get Connected will be copied and sent as in-app messages.

System managers can now limit user registrations so that users with emails from a certain domain are not granted access.

Sites can now collect age range, household income, department, and role data from users when they open a Get Connected account. For the Department and Role fields, system managers can create a list of options that best reflects the departments and job roles within their organizations.

Galaxy Digital staff can now edit a setting on behalf of system managers so that users are required to sign in before they can see needs, events, agencies, advanced events, or pages from the Service Learning or Disaster Response modules. To set up required logins on your platform, contact our customer care team with your request.

If a user does not upload a profile picture, their first and last initials will be used to create a default display for them.

None this time.

See above sections on sharing content.

This round of enhancements did not include any changes to the Disaster Response and Service Learning Modules (DRM and SLM).

Version 2.4 Release Date: November 23, 2015

Company managers working in an advanced event can now easily access their company information from their user profile. The My Companies table is displayed on the My Profile page, just below the Favorite Agencies area.

Note: The table is only displayed if the logged-in user's email is added to a company (as the company manager) and if the company is assigned to an active advanced event.

Using this table, a company manager can view his or her companies, their advanced-event dashboards, and their associated needs.

Users who are team leaders or team members now have a special My Teams tab in their user profiles.

As shown above, the My Teams tab features a table listing the user's team name, the applicable need title and agency, the date the team was created, and a link to manage the team.

Note: The table is a management tool and will only be displayed if the logged-in user is a team creator or a team leader.

Agency managers and admins can now specify a "registration closed" date for "runs until" and "happens on" needs. For example, if a need will occur on November 7 but you want to close registration several days prior, you can now select a date after which no one can respond.

Users can still access the need information, but they will not be able to respond once the "registration closed" date occurs. The need itself will be displayed as "Closed."

This new feature is available for both standard and advanced-event needs.

Note: When the "closed" date arrives, an email will be sent to the agency manager informing that registration for their need has closed. Registration closes at 12:00 a.m. on the date entered by the agency manager.

Agency managers can now add .doc, .docx, .pdf, or .xls waivers to their standard needs in Get Connected. This new feature is located at the bottom of the need-posting form, just above the Update Need button.

This feature does not apply for advanced events, where system managers can upload a waiver for the entire advanced event.

When a user agrees to a waiver as part of a standard or advanced-event need response, their user ID will be documented so that system managers will know if the person who acknowledged the waiver was someone other than the volunteer (such as a team manager, agency manager, site manager, or company manager). If you want to ensure that every volunteer who has responded to a need has seen and acknowledged a waiver, you now follow up with those users who have not.

In this example, we can see that Andy Hub (user #612814, purple highlight) acknowledged the waiver twice: once for himself, and once on behalf of Ella Monk. Nina Rogers (user #615763; yellow highlight) acknowledged it for herself and for four others. Another user (ID 845737) acknowledged the waiver on behalf of Chris Kisling and Kim Powell (green highlight).

Notes: The highlighting shown above is not part of the export; it was added to the image above to show which user IDs were responsible for which users.

This data is available in two exports:

Note: To find the identify of an unnamed user, you can go to Manage Users and run a filter on the ID number.

Get Connected now tracks the number of times the "share" button (shown below) is clicked.

In other words, you can now see how often each agency page, need page, event page, advanced-event need page is shared to social media using this button.

Note: This feature does not track the social media outlet to which the information was shared; it only tracks the initial clicking of the "share" button.

Volunteers can now sort needs by the date of the need, which will allow them to see which opportunities occur nearest in the future.

When sorted this way, only "happens on" and "runs until" needs will be displayed. "Ongoing" needs will not be shown.

When users are imported into Get Connected, they are now given a status of "Imported." (Previously, they automatically had a status of "Active.") You can activate users from the Manage Users area. When a user is activated, an automated notification with a password reset link is sent to them.

Note: The notification template that is sent out is titled "User Imported Message." You can edit this message as needed, as explained in our article, Automated Notification Messages.

When an admin clicks to send an email blast, an alert now appears that indicates the number of email recipients for the message. To complete sending the message, the admin must click OK.

This message was added to help prevent admins from accidentally sending messages to too many people.

In the past, if a user responded to a need, that user was not prompted to return to to the system and enter volunteer hours. We have added two new automated notifications to remind volunteers to log their hours.

Note: These messages are not sent for "Happens On" needs that have not occurred yet. Also, we will not send these messages for responses that are more than 90 days old.

Like all automated notification templates, these new templates can be edited or deactivated as desired.

If a time is specified for a standard need, it will now be shown on the need card, as shown below.

When registering for Get Connected or updating a user profile, you now have the option of entering a phone extension. A phone extension field has also been added for agency profiles. Phone extensions can also be imported with other user or agency contact information.

User profiles in the admin panel now include an External ID field. This field can be used to keep track of student IDs or any other ID a user might have, in addition to their Get Connected user ID. Administrators can use this field for greater control over and access to user data.

This field is located near the top of the user profile in the admin panel. It is only available to site administrators; users cannot see this ID in their user profiles. External ID is included in user exports.

Note: External IDs can be imported into your Get Connected system.

Users who wish to volunteer for a posted need must click the Respond button for that need.

Previously, this button would become a Confirmed button when clicked. To unregister from the need, a user would then have to click the Confirmed button. Some users found this confusing, so we have changed the button name from Confirmed to Unregister.

We hope that this more instructive, action-oriented button name will communicate this button's function more clearly.

Admins can now allow agency managers to log volunteer hours on behalf of volunteers who do not have Get Connected user accounts. Volunteer details can be added in the Description field. Those details can be accessed later by exporting the "Volunteer Hours Logged" report (from the Reports area of the admin panel) or by exporting the "Active Need Hours" report from the Stats tab of the agency manager area.

Note: "Anonymous hours" are logged volunteer hours that are not associated with a particular user account.

Anonymous Hours were permitted in 1.0 but not in 2.0. A setting has been added to all sites so that site managers can decide if they want to allow their agencies to have the ability to log hours anonymously, or if they would rather require an email address when agencies add hours on behalf of a user.

To allow posting of anonymous hours, go to your Site Settings and select Yes under Allow Anonymous Hours.

The following email was not being sent as scheduled on 2.0 sites:

This notification has been added back to the system and will now be triggered as expected.

We have added two new features to the Advanced Events Module (AEM).

For a while now, system managers have been able to see tables of need response and hours when they edit a need in the back end. Those same tables now appear when editing needs in the AEM. You can find them by clicking on a need (under the All Needs tab) and scrolling to the bottom of the page.

Agency managers and admins can now specify a "registration closed" date for certain types of AEM needs.

Admins can now add AEM needs from the All Needs tab; it is no longer necessary to use the Live Preview to add needs on behalf of an agency.

Advanced-event waivers required by the hubs were not being presented to users when responding to a need through a Corporate Connect site. This problem has been fixed.

Previously, if an admin exported AEM needs under the All Needs tab, responses made through Campus Connect and Corporate Connect sites were not included in the export. Connect-site data will now be displayed in the export tables.

No changes this time.

Agency managers working in SLM can simultaneously create a need and add copies of that need to multiple courses, including multiple sections of the same course.

Site managers can now clone the content of SLM blocks. Cloned courses will have a status of "Pending" by default so they can be edited before going public. To clone a block, go to Plugins > Service Learning, click to Edit the desired block, and then click Clone Block.

Note: All information in the block will be cloned except for the students enrolled in the course.

Site managers can now clone courses within the same block. Cloned courses will have a status of "Pending" by default so they can be edited before going public. To clone a block, go to Plugins > Service Learning, click View Courses for the applicable block, and then click Clone Block.

Professors can now add or remove other professors and course assistants for their courses, and they can even hand the course to another professor altogether.

Agency managers can now check off multiple hours and assign a status to all submitted volunteer hours at once, rather than treating each separately.

No updates or fixes this time.