Note: These release notes follow our normal format of presenting new features first, followed by updates, and concluding with changes to modules. Normally, this format is the best way to put the most important things up front. This build is a little different from our previous builds because it features significant changes to the Service Learning Module (SLM). If your site uses SLM, you may want to skip down to the Service Learning Module section of these notes. Updates outside of the SLM are covered in Updates for All Sites.

Version 2.12 Advance Release Date: December 4, 2017

Public Release: February 5, 2018

Note: These updates do not apply to the Legacy (1.0) version of Get Connected.

The following features have been added to all Connect platform sites.

New updates allow site managers to coordinate volunteers more easily and efficiently.The schedule that appears in Volunteerism > Responses now allows for a shift-based view. From this view, you can see how many volunteer slots are still open, and you can see which of your volunteers are available for open slots. In addition, you can message volunteers about available shifts or schedule volunteers as needed. You can go to Site Settings to turn this same feature on or off for agency managers.

Volunteers can now validate their phone number, and you can text validated numbers. This is yet another way that you can reach out to and engage your volunteers. The feature requires that you purchase credits, but it otherwise works the same way as the email blast.

Volunteers will receive an email the morning of their shifts, and it will allow them to check in when they begin working. This increases access to the check in feature, but agency managers and site managers can still retain control over the status of hours.

One of the most important pieces of information a site can capture about a student volunteer is when that student expects to graduate. Students can now mark the season and year of their expected graduation in their profiles, and they can update that information as needed. As a site manager, you can use the User Filter and Email Blast to search and email students by their expected graduation date.

Volunteers can now filter needs by user group.
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This new feature is especially handy now that needs are can be assigned directly to user groups. If a user group does not have any needs assigned to it, it will not appear in the Search by drop down shown above.

If you want to create a large amount of user groups at once, you no longer have to create them one at a time. You can now create an import file using our template for user group templates. If you need to create user groups quickly for a Day of Caring or the start of a new semester, this method may be for you.

The following features have been updated for all Connect sites.

After a great deal of feedback about how user groups and initiatives could be improved, we have added the ability to assign a need directly to a user group. Previously, a user group and a need had to share an initiative. That is no longer the case. Needs can still be assigned to initiatives, but the privacy rules no longer flow through initiatives.

This feature is available on both the back-end and front-end need-posting forms; this means that both site managers and agency managers can assign needs to user groups.

The front-end need-posting form, used by the agency manager (and, on SLM sites, some course instructors), now includes the option to mark a need public or private. (All needs are public by default.) Because they can both mark a need private and assign needs to user groups, agency managers can easily assign private needs to groups.

User imports can now include a comma-separated list of user group IDs so that users can be imported into existing user groups. This feature will be most useful to colleges and universities who create semesters full of courses all at once.

User groups are increasingly useful with this build, so user group information has been added to a number of tables including the site manager's tables of responses and hours tables and the agency manager's time-tracking table. User groups are also included as columns in the accompanying exports.

A fourth option has been added to the user Gender field in the user profile to allow volunteers more flexibility in their answers.

Clients with the Service Learning Module now have new suite of tools to help coordinate students' service. The existing SLM module, which will now be called Legacy SLM, will continue to be accessible for site managers who wish to use it.

In the new SLM, processes are no longer isolated in a separate area of the site, with its own needs, agencies, and ways of doing things. Instead, the new SLM uses standard needs that can be assigned to specialized user groups called SLM user groups. An SLM user group is essentially a course, and each SLM user group can have one or more leaders (the professor or instructor), who can manage the volunteer activity and data for the course.

Also in the new SLM, features such as shifts, cross-platform sharing, and more are now available.

The SLM still has four primary roles: site manager, agency manager, instructor, and student. As you will see below, each role has more capabilities and better-streamlined processes than before.

You'll find links to other articles in the descriptions below. For more details on how these can be set up, continue reading and refer to specific articles as necessary.

The SLM now uses standard needs that are posted in the standard need-posting areas for agency managers and site managers. This means:

Many SLM clients are associated with a local "hub" site used by the agencies in their community. The new features are designed to take advantage of standard needs, which move between domains with ease. Connected sites no longer have to ask their agencies to register on each site, since "hub" agencies can now have their service-learning needs appear on the university site. Agency managers can even control privacy options to make sure that only students see them.

An SLM user group is a special type of user group that has features unavailable to standard user groups. For example, SLM user groups have leaders who can manage the user group, approve or deny submitted student hours, add needs, view group statistics, and more. In addition, SLM user groups can be assigned to blocks, can have specific end dates, can have volunteer-hour goals for each student, and can have reflection questions for students to answer when submitting hours.

Like Legacy SLM, the new SLM uses blocks to separate academic periods. Once you've created a block, you can begin adding SLM user groups (courses) to the block. When viewing service activity, both instructors and students can select a block and then view data for the user groups they are associated with from that block.

Professors, instructors, and course assistants can be designated as user group leaders. User group leaders can access an environment where they can see details of their user groups, including the user group members, responses, hours, and assigned needs. Leaders can view data by "drilling down" or by seeing information for whole blocks at a glance. They can also create needs for agencies that have been assigned to them, create responses and hours for their students, and approve or decline hours.

Students can quickly access basic information about their hours for service-learning needs. Their SLM User Groups area, designed to be read easily on a mobile phone or tablet, displays charts showing progress and includes the ability to view, add, and edit volunteer hours.

Because students need to submit reflections much of the time they are working with service-learning needs, the Agency Check-in area has been updated to show reflection questions as students check out.

No changes have been made to the Advanced Event Module (AEM) or the Disaster Response Module (DRM) with this release.

Version 2.13, Released March 20, 2018

Note: These updates apply to all Connect sites using version 2.0 and later. They do not apply to the legacy (1.0) version of Get Connected.

The following features have been added to all Connect platform sites.

Site managers can now select multiple needs and take the following actions on those needs:

You can now opt to hide certain fields from the volunteer profile. For example, if you don't want your users to have the Expected Graduation Date field in their profiles, you can turn that field off. You will still be able to see the hidden fields in the user's profile when viewed from your site manager panel. These controls are stored with the user-registration controls, so you can learn how to hide or show profile fields in the article Your Connect Site's User-Registration Form.

Users can now add themselves to a waitlist for full needs and shifts. They will be notified when space opens, volunteers can respond on a first come, first served basis when space is available, and site managers and agencies can manage the waitlist to make sure that sign ups run smoothly.

Previously, if a volunteer responded to multiple shifts of a need, they would receive a separate confirmation email for each shift. With version 2.13, they will receive a single email listing all of the shifts they registered for. This enhancement will reduce the number of emails the volunteers receives and make it easier for them to look up the information they need.

Note: We strongly recommend that you update your Need Response Thank You message to make sure that your wording is in line with these updates.

The automated-notifications table (located in Communication > Notifications) is one of most asked-about areas of the site manager panel. A few updates make this table easier to use and navigate:

In addition, a number of the template descriptions have been updated for clarity.

With the new "Need Responses by Initiative" report, you can view all of the responses to the needs within a selected initiative. This new report will help managers who want to get an idea of the impact made by participants in a given initiative on their site. In structure, it is very similar to the response export available in the Advanced Events Module (AEM).

To date, site managers or agency managers had to contact volunteers when important need or shift information changed. Now, site managers and agency managers can trigger a notification telling respondents that the description, address, date, or time of the need or shift has changed.

The user filter has the following new options for filtering/exporting agency-manager data and emailing agency managers:

These new options will help you better engage your agency managers when you need them most.

When responding to shift needs, volunteers can now filter the shifts they see by the day of the week. For example, a volunteer who only wants to see the Monday shifts can narrow the list to show only the Monday dates. This new feature will make it easier for volunteers to find and respond to the shifts that best fit their schedules.

A team leader can now unregister their whole team at once. When they do this, the agency manager will be notified, and the team and all responses will be marked as inactive. This feature allows the whole team to change plans quickly if necessary.

While every Connect site includes a link to Galaxy Digital's Help Center, site managers wanted volunteers and agency managers to have easy way to contact the site's local management as needed. Your Main Settings area now includes a place to specify an email address for users who have questions, and the footer of the user view now includes a Contact for Support button.

Clients have been asking for a special automated notification to wish site users a happy birthday on their birthdays. Your Connect site now includes a "Birthday Notification" template for that purpose. If a user has provided their birthday in their user profile, the birthday message will be sent to them automatically on the morning of their birthday!

The following features have been updated for all Connect sites.

An Initiative column has been added to several tables in the site manager panel, making it even easier to see the impact made on a day of service or similar event.

When a team leader since the "join link" to prospective team members, the link takes the individual to a page with information about the team. With this update, the team information page now includes more details about what a team member is signing up for, providing them with the information they need to make a difference.

To sign up their agency for a Connect site, agencies previously needed to click a link that read "Do you represent an agency? Learn what Get Connected can do for you." Because that message did not reflect the desired message of many of our clients, we have changed the default text to "Click here to sign up your organization." Unlike the previous default text, the new wording can be completely overridden at your request. Contact our Customer Care team if you would like to request an override.

Sites that want to allow their agencies to integrate with Verified Volunteers will now see background check information when posting a need from the site manager panel. This feature was previously reserved only for agency managers. These changes allows site managers to work on needs that require a background check and see volunteers who have been screened.

For each need posted, an agency manager can specify one or more "additional notification recipients" to be notified when someone responds to a need. Previously, additional notification recipients were not notified when someone unregistered. With version 2.13, those individuals will be notified both when someone registers for a need, and when they remove their need response.

Several site managers have been frustrated by the fact that ZIP codes were required when adding or editing users. The ZIP code field and all fields on the Edit User form of the site manager panel (except first name, last, name, and email) will no longer be required. This is the case even if you require the field on the front end.

As of now, there are two exports on Connect sites that are too large to run on demand: the user export (from Volunteerism > Users) and the hours export (from Volunteerism > Hours). Those two emails will be emailed to you (rather than generated immediately). With version 2.13, you will now have the opportunity to specify the email where you would like the export to be delivered.

When a volunteer clicks to respond to a need, they are shown a need-response form where they can provide further notes and details. Previously, that form included optional Company and Address fields. Because those fields are available in the user profile, they have been removed from the need-response form, simplifying the need-response process for volunteers.

Independent Sector has released an updated vale for volunteers' time by state, and these updates have been set as the default values for all Connect sites. If your site has a value in the Value of a Volunteer Hour field in site settings, that value will be used instead of the default. Clearing the value and submitting the page will cause your site to begin using the default rate. You can specify the rate in the Main Settings area of your site's settings.

The following bug fixes have been applied to all sites.

If a site has a required email suffix for all users, the requirement will now be enforced for SSO users, and for users who edit their profile. The requirement will not affect site managers; they can still add or edit agency managers whose emails do not conform to the rule.

You can now filter teams by team name in the team-management area of your site manager panel (Volunteerism > Teams). In addition, a new Team Size column shows the total slots that have been reserved for each team on your site.

If a need has a waiver, it is presented to volunteers as part of their need-response form. Previously, there was no way to required a volunteer to agree to the waiver if they wanted to check in to the need without having a previous response to it. With version 2.13, if a volunteer checks in and there is no need response recorded, they will be required to agree to the waiver before they can complete check-in. (This enhancement does not affect needs that don't have a waiver attached.)

Notification template keys have been updated for consistency across templates. For example, all templates now include the to_firstname, to_lastname, site_link, site_name, and signature template keys. In addition, we have improved the consistency in template key names; for example, while both the site_name and site_title template keys used to pull the same information, site_name is now the only template key used for a site's name.

These are small changes that many site managers may not notice, but they were necessary for consistency and clarity.

When a site manager removes team members from a team, the slots for that team are still held. Previously, this didn't happen if a team leader removed team members; the team would lose their slots, which would go back to the general pool of volunteers. With version 2.13, both site mangers and team leaders can unregister team members without fear of losing the team's reserved slots.

The Coming Soon site setting has been removed. When activated (usually by accident), this setting prevented everyone, including the site manager who activated the feature, from using the site. If you wish to put your site into Coming Soon mode temporarily, contact our Customer Care team with your request.

Although there were no changes to the Advanced Events Module (AEM), Legacy Service Learning Module (Legacy SLM), or Disaster Response Module in this release, several of these changes are relevant to managers who rely heavily on the AEM but would like to consider initiatives as an alternative. For example, it's now very easy to email all agency managers who are participating in a selected initiative, and the "Need Responses by Initiative" is similar to the AEM's response export.

Additionally, the SLM was recently updated extensively, and SLM managers who have not seen our previous release notes should check them out. Many of the enhancements listed above apply to the new SLM.

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Version 2.14, Advance-Release Date: July 16, 2018

Public Release: August 15, 2018

Check-in is one of the most popular features offered as part of the Connect software, but a mix of client feedback and our own research made it clear that check-in needed some improvements. With this build, a new check-in "kiosk" makes it even easier for users to add their own hours, work with teams, and more. When you activate the kiosk, you must first log out of the system. This prevents volunteers from being able to access your "logged-in view," and it will prevent the system timing out during check-in.

Note: The list check-in (where the agency manager checks off the names of volunteers as they arrive and check in) works the same way that it did before.

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We have replaced the phrase search for finding needs with a smarter, more innovative search. Users will not see any changes, but they will notice that searches find better results and have greater functionality.

You may not notice any changes with this update, but the move to PHP 7 will make your site faster and more secure. You can expect to see a small improvement in performance, and you can know that we are using the most up-to-date programming language possible.

During a recent release, we changed the software to send only one confirmation email to a volunteer if they responded to multiple shifts at once. That same change has been applied to the "Notice of Need Response" notification for agency managers.

In the needs, table of the agency management area, expired needs are now hidden by default. An agency manager can select to show or hide expired needs as desired. Previously, expired needs could not be hidden, causing frustration for agency managers who just wanted to view their current and ongoing needs.

Previously, a "thank you for volunteering" email would be sent to volunteers seven days after the date of the need or shift they responded to. In response to both industry research and client feedback, we have changed the interval to one day. Volunteers will now get the "thank you" message the day after they volunteer.

Note: The name of the notification template is still "Notify Users Week After Need Happens On." Due to how the coding of this template is embedded in the system, the title cannot currently be changed to reflect the new one-day interval.

Site managers who have to approve individual hours can now see the individual-hours details (location, contact name, and contact details) in the hours-management area (Volunteerism > Hours). Use the Table Filter to add the columns with this information to your hours table.

Agency managers have let us know that it can be a challenge to approve hours quickly without a description of the volunteer work performed. In response, we have added a Description column to the agency managers' Time Tracking area.

Agency managers can now see the total spots and total responses a need has when they are managing needs. These new columns will show, at a glance, which needs are filling up, and will allow agency managers to decide how to manage those needs more easily.

Volunteers and service-learning students now have a User Group column in their table of need response. This column makes it easy for them to see, at a glance, the user groups with which their past responses are associated.

Ongoing needs can now be assigned a set number of hours. As a result, it will be easier to manage volunteer check-in for ongoing needs. Previously, you could assign hours to an ongoing need during check-in, but it was difficult to change the hours later.

The alerts the we send to system managers now include dates. You'll now be able to see which alerts are recent, as well as whether they are current or expired.

There is now a separate column for "Privacy" on the manager's need table (Volunteerism > Needs). This columns allows site managers to sort needs by private/public. It also replaces the "lock" icon, which previously appeared as part of the need title in the table. The "privacy" columns is also now included in the export.

Note: A few features were added quietly to the system without a formal release procedure that comes with a new version. Although we sent alerts and retroactively added these features to older release notes, we want to highlight them again to be sure that they are not missed.

Your volunteers can now put their name on a list when needs or shifts are full. They will be contacted when space opens and can sign up on a first-come, first-served basis. This is a feature you can turn on in your site settings, and it's just another way your users can make sure they are a part of your most important efforts.

The "search" graphic on the logged out dashboard was dropped for a button leading straight to the needs page, because the implication of a search misled users and caused confusion. Also, the height of the "map" image on the logged out dashboard is smaller now, so that spotlights appear above the fold on most screens.

User testing revealed that when someone tried to respond to a need and was logged out, most people did not intuit that they needed to log in. An overlay explaining that they have to log in now makes that process more straightforward and friendly.

User testing also showed that people expected the My Responses table to be the best place to unregister from a need. We added the ability to unregister to that page, and we consolidated all of the options on the table into a dropdown, making it a little easier to navigate.

Public Release Date: Oct 29, 2018

Galaxy eSign allows site managers to create digital waivers that users can sign electronically. Volunteers don't just check a box, they actually enter an electronic signature. eSign is built into your Connect platform's Qualifications feature, so it has all of the power you're already used to. It also allows site managers to create a unique version of the waiver for minors to sign and send to their parent or guardian for signature. Managers can also upload a scanned version of physical signatures as a fail-safe.

Until now, the system failed to check whether volunteers were qualified for a need when a team leader added responses on their behalf. The system now requires that all team members have necessary qualifications. If the user is unqualified, the team leader will be able to invite them to complete their qualifications and join the team themselves.

Your Connect platform has featured a file-stor

age system for site managers to use since its inception. This system has been extended to user profiles. Managers can now upload files into a user's profile. These files are not related to qualifications and do not affect a volunteer's ability to respond to a need. This updated feature is primarily useful for keeping uploaded data in a volunteer's records. Examples might be survey responses, important pictures, or work the volunteer produced. Users and managers can both upload files to this area, but only managers can remove the files.