Service Measure Set Up¶
Track the total number of shifts or visits volunteers serve
Service measures are used to track other service-related information in addition to, or instead of, the hours your volunteers serve. Use the Service Measure setup page to create a new service measure, or to change the way an existing service measure is set up. To access the service measure setup page:
- Select Setup from the menu.
- Expand Service Tracking.
- Click on Service Measures.
- From this screen, click on the first available measure to create a new service measure, or click on an existing measure to edit it.
Depending on when you started your trial account, you may see a service measure named Shifts that has already been created. This service measure is designed to help organizations track the number of times volunteers serve and is set up to automatically give a default of one with each service entry added to your account. You can rename, modify, or delete this service measure depending on your organization's needs.
Service Notes
In addition to the number of hours a volunteer served and any other service measures they performed, it is also possible to include a brief note with a service entry. Service notes often appear alongside service measures throughout the Volgistics system, but you will not manage settings for service notes in the Service Measure settings. If you'd like to enable or disable service notes, this must be done in your account's Service Tracking Ground Rules instead.
Name¶
Enter a name for the service measure in the Name field. Some examples include Tours Given, Calls Answered, Meals Delivered, Absences, and Mileage.
Format¶
Service measure fields can track numerical information as whole numbers (0); currency ($0.00); hours and minutes (0:00); numbers with one decimal (0.0), or numbers with two decimals (0.00). Use the drop down Format field to choose the way information for the measure will be entered and tracked. For example, a Mileage measure might use the two decimals format, while a Meals Delivered measure would use the whole number format.
Default value¶
If volunteers almost always complete a specific number of the activity being measured, you can enter that number here. The number entered in the Default value field will automatically show up for that service measure each time a service entry is added. Leave this field blank if you do not want a number to appear for this measure by default.
For example, if every time volunteers serve in an animal shelter, they must feed 5 animals in addition to whatever else they are doing, an Animals Fed service measure might contain a default value of 5. Each time a System Operator enters service for volunteers manually, "5 Animals Fed" will be posted as part of the service entry, unless the number in the Animals Fed field is manually changed.
If your volunteers record their service information at VicTouch or through the Service page in VicNet, the default value will show initially. Volunteers can change the default if it should be different.
Require an entry¶
If you want to make an entry for this measure compulsory when System Operators make an entry, select Yes from the Require an entry dropdown list. When this option is checked, a service entry cannot be saved unless a value is entered in the field for this measure. Please note that this will not make an entry required when a volunteer records service at VicTouch or on the Service page in the VicNet portal.
Include as a grid item¶
Checking the box next to Include as a grid item will produce a column to track this measure on the volunteer record's Service tab. In the Service box, the measure will be included along with Date, Assignment, Hours and any other fields set up as grid columns. If this box is not checked, the measure can still be included on reports such as the Service Summary and Service Details reports, but will not show up on a volunteer's Service tab except when you're adding or editing service entries.
Save Your Work
Remember to click the Save button to save your service measure set up! Or if you do not want to keep the changes, click the Cancel button to close the page without saving your changes.
Delete this measure¶
If you no longer want to track a service measure, you can click the Delete this measure button. Clicking this button removes the service measure field from all of your service records, and it also erases any values previously recorded for this service measure from throughout your database.
You should only click the Delete this measure button if you are certain that you no longer need any of the data previously entered for the selected service measure. You cannot undo this action.
Make the default value retroactive¶
If you add a new service measure to your account after you already have some service records entered, you may want to make the default value for the new service measure retroactive to all of your existing service records. You can use the Make the default value retroactive button to do this.
For example, suppose you are creating a new service measure to track the number of visits volunteers make to your organization on each service record. If volunteers usually make one visit for each service record you post, you could set the default value for that service measure to 1. Then each time you make a new service record entry, the value of 1 would appear in the Visits field by default. If you happened to be making a service record entry that represented multiple visits, then you would simply change the 1 to appropriate number of visits.
In this example, you might also want to populate the new Visits field with the default value of 1 in all of your existing service records. A reason that you may want to do this is if you need to find out how many visits volunteers made to your facility in the previous year, and you are just creating a service measure for Visits now.
To do this, you would simply click the Make the default value retroactive button. When you click this button, Volgistics will insert the default value for the service measure into every service record that's already in your database (if the service measure is currently 0 in a given service record).
Making a new service measure's default value retroactive is useful in situations such as the one described in the example above, where you want the default value to apply to service records that were saved before you created a service measure.
There is not a way to undo making a service measure's default value retroactive unless you edit each and every service entry the value was added to. So please make sure you wish to add the default value to every existing service entry before clicking the button.
The Make the default value retroactive button will be disabled if the service measure does not have a Default value.