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A Guide to Setting up and Managing Groups

Groups are a powerful feature that lets you decide what volunteers and staff can see, and make reporting easier. Here's how to set up and manage them😊

Ash avatar
Written by Ash
Updated this week

If you would like to jump to the most relevant section of this article, use the links below:

Create a group

Create a group hierarchy

Edit a group

Groups to restrict access

Groups for reporting

Groups for staff access

Groups serve 3 main functions:

  1. Restrict volunteer access - Certain volunteers should only see the missions (volunteering activity/ tasks) that are relevant to them. Groups control what missions are visible to volunteers in the app.

  2. Restrict staff access - Groups control what information and functions are visible to staff users on Volunteero, so staff can only see the volunteers, clients, missions, and all other data relevant to their assigned groups.

  3. Reporting - Groups make it easy to filter reports and insights, so you can view data on specific volunteers and missions linked to those groups.

We commonly see groups being used for regions, role types, and training levels.

Note: Volunteers cannot see what groups they are part of.

Create a group

To add a group:

  1. Go to the "Groups" page on the left-hand side of the Staff Dashboard.

  2. Click the "+ Group" button

  3. Give the group a name and description. (Note that the descriptions are internal only.)

We recommend naming groups based on what they define, such as volunteer roles or regions. For example, "Volunteer Role - Befriending", "Volunteer Role - Events".

For consistency, use the same colours for groups of the same attribute type.

Create a group hierarchy

You can create group hierarchies by adding subgroups. This is really handy if you have a larger area of a category that's made up of smaller sections. For example, you might have a main group for a whole region, and then create subgroups for each of the local areas within it.

  1. Start by creating groups for both your main area and all the smaller regions you want as subgroups.

  2. Open the group you want to be the top-level group (the parent group)

  3. You'll notice a tab labelled "Subgroup"; open this tab.

  4. Next to the group name, there’s a little + (plus) icon. Click it, and you’ll be able to select which groups you want to add as subgroups.

Edit a group

To edit a group:

  1. Head to the “Groups” page in the left-hand menu of the Staff Dashboard.

  2. Open the group you want to update.

  3. From here, you can change the name, description, and colour.

Keep in mind, any changes you make will update the group wherever it’s being used. If you're changing how a group is used, you may need to check the volunteers and missions linked to it. For example, renaming “Volunteer Role – Befriending” won’t affect who’s in the group or what missions they see; it’s just a name change.

Deleting a group is not advised. If a group is linked to any roles, volunteer profiles, or missions, you won’t be able to delete it anyway. Plus, deleting a group means you’ll lose access to its historical reporting data.

If you need to stop using a group, a good workaround is to rename it with “Not Live” or “Live” at the end. This makes it clear to all staff whether a group is still active or not.

Groups to restrict access

You can use groups to control which missions volunteers can see. When creating a mission, you can assign it to one or more groups. Any volunteer in any of those groups will be able to see and claim that mission in the app.

It’s important to note: if you add multiple groups to a mission, it works as an “OR” rule, meaning volunteers in Group 1 or Group 2 will see it (not just those in both).

Groups for reporting

You can use groups to filter your reports and insights. If you want a group to be used just for reporting, it’s important to apply that group to either missions or volunteers - not both.

For example:

  • You wish to use Volunteer Role Groups to manage what missions volunteers can see

  • But, at the same time, you might want to report on volunteering activity by region

In this case, you must choose if you wish to see regional reporting to reflect the location of the volunteer or the location of the mission.

We recommend adding missions to the regional groups. For example, if you create a “London Marathon Support” mission, volunteers could come from anywhere in the country, but the hours will still be counted under the “London” group for reporting. However, most organisations would want to see the total volunteering time collected under a regional group for London.

If you use the regional groups for volunteers, the recorded volunteering time would be across the various regional groups the volunteers are in.

If you assign both volunteers and missions to the same regional group, you might accidentally show missions to volunteers who shouldn’t see them. For instance, if you assign a mission with the “Region - London” group, and a volunteer is also in that group but not trained for that role, they could see missions they aren’t qualified for. That’s why it’s best to keep group tags for reporting separate - either on missions or volunteers, depending on what data you want to track.

Groups for staff access

Groups can also be used to control what staff can see and manage in the Staff Dashboard. To do this, go to “System Settings” and open the “Users” section. From there, you can assign groups to a staff member’s profile to limit their access to specific volunteers, missions, or areas.

Please view our article on staff user roles for more info here.

We realise that correctly setting up your groups may require some thought, so the Volunteero team are on hand to help!

As always, if you require any further assistance with this, please use the support button in your Staff Dashboard or email us at support@volunteero.org. Our team will be happy to help! 😊

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