With our chat feature, you can message volunteers one-to-one or create group chats. Read our full collection on chat here for all of the capabilities, hints and tips!
Individual chats with volunteers
Press in the bar labelled "Search for people and chats"
Here you can find the volunteer you wish to message. When you press on the volunteer, one of 2 things will happen.
"Create volunteer chat" - This means that no one in the organisation has directly messaged that volunteer before. Select this option to start the chat with that volunteer. You can then send them a message.
"Join" - This means someone from the organisation has directly messaged this volunteer before. If you join, then you will be able to contribute to that chat and send messages to that volunteer.
Access further information in our message a volunteer guide
Group chats
Volunteero's chat feature can facilitate group chats with a smaller number of volunteers. Follow these steps to set up your own group chats.
Press in the bar labelled "Search for people and chats"
You'll then be presented with a number of options to configure your group chat.
Chat history is shown to new chat members.
Whether the Chat is available to all volunteers - toggle this OFF for smaller group chats.
Which volunteer groups can join this chat? Here is where you select the groups that should be part of this group chat. When new volunteers are added to Volunteero and to certain groups, they will automatically be added to the chats that group is part of. You can also select no group in cases where you want to just add individuals.
Default volunteer role -Every member of a chat group has a role; this option dictates what role volunteers will have as a standard. For more information on chat roles and permissions, see our full article here.
Once you have selected all the relevant options and added the relevant groups, you can press "Create chat" You can now begin sending messages on the chat.
All volunteer chats
Use the chat feature to send messages to all volunteers with app access on your account in one go!
Press in the bar labelled "Search for people and chats"
You'll then be presented with a number of options to configure your group chat.
Chat history is shown to new chat members.
Whether the Chat is available to all volunteers - toggle this ON to create a chat that is open to all of your volunteers.
Default volunteer role -Every member of a chat group has a role; this option dictates what role volunteers will have as a standard. For more information on chat roles and permissions, see our full article here. For a chat with all volunteers, you may wish to customise a 'read-only' role for your volunteers if you are using this chat as a newsfeed.
Once you have selected all the relevant options and added the relevant groups, you can press "Create chat" You can now begin sending messages on the chat.
Pinning messages in group chats
Staff users can 'pin' important messages in group chats by following these steps:
Open up the relevant chat
Click the small arrow in the top right-hand corner of the message you want to pin
Select 'pin'
Your message is now pinned!
Managing chats
As a staff user, you can manage chats within Volunteero, including:
Adding extra users to chats
Removing users from chats
Deleting messages
To do any of the above, follow these steps:
Head to the relevant chat you want to manage.
Click on the chat image, 3 dots on the right-hand side or a small arrow to open up the manage chat panel on the left-hand side
For adding and removing members in a chat, click into the 'members' section.
Here you can invite or remove members.
To delete a message in the chat, click the small arrow on the relevant message and select 'delete' from the drop-down options. (Please note, your user role will need to have sufficient permissions to do this action)
You can also choose to archive or delete any chats within your account in this section.
Video Tutorial
This video gives you the essentials, and if you’d like to dive deeper, we’ve got plenty of articles that cover specific features in more detail.
If you require any further assistance, please use the support chat to ask a question to our friendly support team. We will be happy to help! 😊