How to create an announcements chat
We understand that there are lots of occasions where you need to communicate messages or updates to your volunteers, whether it be an announcement feed or a newsletter our chat feature allows you to communicate these messages seamlessly in the platform.
In this article, we'll guide you on how to create a chat with more than one volunteer to share messages only.
Jump to the relevant section
Firstly, open the Volunteero chat window. The Volunteero chat window is opened by pressing the icon on the top right of the management dashboard (as shown below)
"Create a group chat"
Click 'Create a group chat' and give your chat a name and a picture.
Decide on your usual settings for the group chat following the guidance on each option below
Options
"Chat history shown to new chat members"
This is pretty much as stated, would you like new members of this chat to be able to see all previous messages or just the messages since they were added? Be cautious when selecting yes to this option, ensure you know what the chat history contains.
"Chat available to all volunteers"
This means that all volunteers can see the group chat in their app and can choose to join the chat if they would like. This is a useful option to have switched on if you're creating a newsfeed or announcements chat for the whole volunteer workforce.
Which volunteer groups can join this chat?
However, you may wish to create smaller announcement chats based on your groups.
When new volunteers are added to Volunteero and to certain groups, they will automatically be added to the chats that group is part of.
Select chat role
Every member of a chat group has a role, this option dictates what role volunteers will have as a standard.
Volunteero comes with two default chat roles; Admin (usually staff) and Default (send and receive messages)
Click 'View Role permissions' to customise additional roles for your organisation.
Add a new role and customised the options.
For an announcements chat you can customise a new role which is 'view messages' only.
Apply that role to the chat role.
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 your announcements page and keep your volunteers up to date with relevant information instantly!
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! 😊