Migration to Volunteero Inter-Organisational Connectivity

So you already have a national organisation set up in Volunteero and a number of local organisations already using Volunteero?

And are you looking to implement our Inter Organisational Connectivity?

If the answer to both of the above questions is yes, you are in the right, please. If you would like to recap your understanding of the feature, please read this article.

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When using the inter-organisational connectivity feature, you are able to create groups from the “hub” which are provisioned to your local organisations to use. It is important that local organisations use those groups as much as possible because this will be important when it comes to reporting and insights.

When migrating to inter-organisational connectivity, it is important to create a series of hub provisioned groups. Try to have these reflect as much of the potential structures of the local organisations, including subgroups.

Your local organisations that have already been using Volunteero will have volunteers and missions in groups they have already created. This first step involves having them switch over to your hub provisioned groups. You will want to communicate this to your local organisations who are already using Volunteero.

They will be able to see the hub groups as they are clearly identified in their list of groups (see below)

Your local organisations can filter their list of volunteers and missions for the group they are currently using e.g. “Volunteering - Advisors”. With each volunteer or mission that shows in the list, they need to go into that mission or volunteer profile, remove the old group and then add the new one.

Once complete, we advise that the local organisation then deletes the old non hub group to avoid it causing confusion in future and being incorrectly used.

If the local organisation says they do not have a relevant hub provisioned group, there are two options you can follow below with #1 being preferable.

Important: The more your hub groups can cater to all local organisations, the better. Your insights and reporting at the hub level will be improved. You can create insights and filter charts based on groups, the more the groups are being used correctly by local organisations, the better your reporting will be.

As a hub organisation, you can create all types of forms that you can create within Volunteero. These forms become “templates” for your local organisations. This has two key benefits, firstly they do not need to spend as much time creating their forms, secondly it improves standardisation meaning the data you are collecting for volunteer applications is as consistent as possible.

Note that local organisations can add to or make changes to your template provided to give them flexibility to cater to any nuances they have.

In terms of migrating to the new forms, local organisations will simply need to:

Avoid using the old form going forward - They should simply relabel their old form with (DO NOT USE) or something similar.

As a hub organisation, you can create all types of mission templates to be made available to your local organisations. The key benefit to doing so is standardisation and reporting. For example if you wish to create insights relating to a particular activity like befriending, you can do so in two ways, firstly by using groups, secondly by mission templates.

You can achieve accurate reporting by just using groups so mission templates aren't essential. For example if a local organisation is not using your mission template but still use the correct hub provisioned group, you will still be able to report on befriending across the local organisations using the groups as filters in insights instead of mission template.

But we believe it would be good practice to have local organisations using your mission templates as far as possible. Particularly for types of activities that are common across your local organisations. They can still create their own mission templates for types of activities which may be more unique to them.

When it comes to migrating over, this becomes more challenging as it means archiving old missions and creating new ones. This would mean data and reports are spread across two missions. Therefore we actually advise that you do not get existing local organisations to transition to your mission templates if they have already been using Volunteero for some time.

As a hub organisation, you can create all types of report templates to be made available to your local organisations. Important to note when it comes to report templates, the individual questions created and used in your hub report templates are also made available for local organisations to use.

When it comes to migrating, the main reason you will want local organisations to transition to using your report templates is because insights allow you to report on data collected in reports. So you can see averages and totals of data collected in the report responses from volunteers. If your local organisations are using the report templates or the template questions, it will ensure you report consistently and capture data across all local organisations.

Note that unlike form templates, report templates are fixed. They do not (or should not) clone your report template and make changes but rather they use the hub report exactly as it has been created. Alternatively, they should create or use their own report templates but use your template questions.

There are two ways they can make this transition:

When using the inter-organisational connectivity feature, you are able to create qualifications and tags from the “hub” which are provisioned to your local organisations to use. It is important that local organisations use those qualifications and tags as much as possible because this will be important when it comes to reporting and insights.

When migrating to inter-organisational connectivity, it is important to create a series of hub provisioned qualifications and tags. Try to have these reflect as many of the requirements of the local organisations.

Your local organisations that have already been using Volunteero will have qualifications and tags created and being used on volunteer and client profiles. This first step involves having them switch over to your hub-provisioned qualifications and tags. You will want to communicate this to your local organisations who are already using Volunteero.

They will be able to see the hub qualifications and tags as they are clearly identified in their list of qualifications and tags (see below tags example)

Your local organisations can filter their list of volunteers and clients for the qualifications and tags they are currently using e.g. qualification = “DBS”. With each volunteer or client that shows in the list, they need to go into that profile, remove the old qualification or tag and then add the new one.

Once complete, we advise that the local organisation then deletes the old non hub qualifications and tags to avoid it causing confusion in future and being incorrectly used.

As part of the inter organisational connectivity feature, local organisations can post their opportunities to your hub search board to facilitate national recruitment. Your hub search board should be linked to your national website and your local organisations can publish opportunities to it from their own organisation.

For local organisations already using Volunteero who need to migrate over, this step is super simple. They just need to open all opportunities which they would like to publish to the hub search board and tick the option labelled “Publish to hub organisation search board”, see below.

As you may already know, organisations can customise the list of options available for DEI information like Religion, Ethnicity, Gender and Orientation. In the inter organisational connectivity model, the hub can customise the list of options available for all local organisations. Please note that local organisations can then add their own if necessary but it is worth making clear that they should use the hub provisioned options as far as possible.

When it comes to migrating local organisations over, you will need to identify with them where they are using alternative options. Where you would like to switch them over the local organisation will need to find all volunteers with an option selected for a given EDI field and change it to the new hub provisioned option.

As always, If you have any issues or questions, please use the support button in your Staff Dashboard to speak to one of the Volunteero team.

We will be happy to help.