Create your automated reference form

Volunteero's automated reference feature enables the system to reach out and collect references for volunteer applicants automatically. You can also choose to manually trigger reference collection at a later date if you'd prefer to gather these after other onboarding stages have been completed.

Use the links below to jump to the section you wish to learn about:

Volunteero's reference feature works by automatically emailing the referee with a link to a reference form. It can be sent automatically at the point of submission or manually at a later date when triggered by a staff user.

Volunteero can also send a 7-day reminder to the referee is a response has not been submitted.

The reference feature is added to an application, it is linked to the reference form you will have built and when a new volunteer application is received, this will kick off the whole process. The references will be tracked and approved on the platform.

Head to the 'Recruitment' section and into the forms to get started with creating a reference form.

Click + form

You need to make sure that the form type is 'Referee form'

You then give it a relevant name and then create stages. In most instances we have come across, this is likely just to be one stage called "Approve" or something similar.

This process needs to match the form type 'referee form'

This is the form that referees will fill in about an applicant, so consider the types of information you need and the questions you want to ask.

As with any form on Volunteero, drag and drop the fields on the left-hand side to customise your form contents. You can edit this at a future date.

Rich text

We always recommend adding your logo, which is a rich text and media field. You can then use the options to add an image.

We would also recommend adding some text to provide more detail on how to answer the form.

Add a logo by dragging a "Rich text and media" field. On the left-hand side, you will see various icons, which are the formatting and styling elements. One of these is an image icon; select this. You then need to add the image address. In order to find this, find your logo either by Google image search or on your website, right-click on the image and select "Copy image address". It is this that you paste into the Insert Image field in the Staff Dashboard.

Guide here for adding Image URLs into rich text and media fields on Volunteero.

Short answer field

Add a short answer question and link with the Volunteero field, Referee Given Name. Repeat this process and link with the Referee Family Name. These two stages ensure that the reference will link to the volunteer application.

A few things to note:

See example below of a reference form built using rich text and media, long answer, short answer, and drop-down fields.

Once your reference form is all completed, you are ready to link this to a relevant application form.

Click back into the form's section and find the relevant form(s) you want to link to this referee form.

If you haven't created your application form yet, head over to our step-by-step guide for full instructions.

Open up your relevant form so that you're in editor mode and locate the 'email reference field'

Drag and drop this 'email reference field' as shown below. Make sure to link the appropriate referee form here. Without this link Volunteero cannot send off your referee form.

Remember that this form is viewed by the volunteer applicant so the label and description need to make sense for that person.

You can also choose to add multiple reference fields to a form, which can link to various reference forms, for example, if you collect a personal and a professional reference per applicant.

Within your main form settings, you can configure whether the reference collection tool is triggered automatically or manually.

Click into the form settings and then into the references section to toggle your preference.

The default setup is that emails will be automatically sent to reference providers once a volunteer applies; however, here is how to switch to the manual option.

The manual trigger means that the applicant will still provide the referee details at the point of submission, but the collection of them is triggered at a later point by a staff user.

Your forms are now ready to go. From this point onwards, any reference form that is embedded into an application form can be sent off.

Once your submissions are in the account, you can view the status of each reference and whether they have been sent for, returned or declined by the referee.

Each reference will be returned on the application submission and can be viewed

If you would like to learn more about managing references, check out our article.

If you would like any help setting up the email reference feature or have any questions, please reach out to our support team. We would be very happy to help 😊