Tip of the Week June 27, 2022
The volunteer-facing parts of Volgistics have been going through some big changes recently. These projects have resulted in a few new Volgistics features in a beta period, and we wanted to give you an overview of the updates and the status of each one. During these beta periods you can use either the legacy version or the beta version, although we’re confident that the large majority of users will have a better experience on the beta version. Once the beta period ends for any feature, we’ll announce the retirement date for its legacy version. After that time, we’ll try to automatically forward users to the equivalent beta version.
A beta is essentially a public testing and feedback period. The features that we’re releasing in beta are mostly complete, but they may not have everything that the legacy version has yet. In addition, they’re still under active development and could change significantly before they’re finalized. Although we do test these ourselves prior to release, there’s also a higher likelihood that you’ll find bugs or flaws in the software. Leaving the beta period doesn’t mean we stop development, but that those features are deemed an adequate replacement, they’re stable, and they’ll stay in that general form for the foreseeable future.
Opportunity Directory
This provides a great way to share information about your assignments with current and prospective volunteers. This project is complete, and the legacy version has been retired. All links to the legacy version automatically forward to the new version. You can learn more in help topic 4100 Introducing the New Opportunity Directory.
Application Forms
These forms allow you to collect information from prospective volunteers. They are still in a beta period, and the setup is now quite a bit different from the legacy application forms. We still have a few updates planned for these, but they are mostly complete. We’re also planning a webinar to dive deep into these so we hope to see you there! Help topic 4200 Introducing New Application Forms has more details on these changes.
VicNet
This online volunteer portal allows your volunteers to login from anywhere to manage their profile and schedule information. This is our longest-running beta, and the biggest of these projects we’ve taken on so far. We’ve got some significant back-end changes coming up, followed by a big update to improve the schedule views. After that, there’s still a long list of relatively minor tweaks before we can take it out of beta. If you haven’t tried the new version of VicNet yet, see help topic 4001 “Introducing New VicNet” to learn more about this exciting update.
VicTouch
The volunteer time clock got a new interface but, although it was re-built from the ground up, the functionality mostly matches that of the legacy version. We do have a few performance enhancements and user interface tweaks planned, as well as an Android mobile app, but the interface and functionality won’t change much before the beta ends. Watch last month’s webinar covering VicTouch or read help topic 4300 “Introducing New VicTouch” for more information.
If you have any questions about these features, please reach out to the support team. We’ll be happy to help you get started or solve any problems you’re facing.
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