Checkbox User Groups can allow an organization to better organize their volunteers by allowing the volunteers themselves to choose which groups they should be in. Checkbox refers to the Membership Control option chosen as the last step in the creation of a User Group.
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Introduction to Checkbox Groups
User Groups are essentially 'tags' assigned to groups of people to better organize them. In some situations, the best way to 'tag' a volunteer is to let them pick which options apply to them. These checkbox options appear on the volunteer's Affiliations page. This page is displayed during the account creation process directly before they fill out their profile, and can be accessed by existing volunteers by clicking the dropdown by their name on the Volunteer View and choosing "Manage Affiliations."
Use-cases for Checkbox Groups
Onboarding Requirements
Some organizations have differing paths volunteers may take during their onboarding depending on who they are and/or what volunteer opportunities they may be interested in.
Court-Ordered Volunteers:
For this example, volunteers requesting to complete court-ordered hours would choose this checkbox option to alert administrators. Information has been provided in the option to alert volunteers of their next step and that their account will be locked out of the system pending review. This can be accomplished with Advanced Permissions. After the applicant is processed, they can be removed from the group to allow them the ability to log in.
Additional Steps or Screening:
Perhaps a standard onboarding process only includes an orientation. However, if a volunteer wishes to work with children, then they'd be required to pass a background check. The administrator in charge of processing background checks would need a list of who needs one completed. This checkbox group would provide them that list. After the volunteer has been processed, they could then be moved to an approved group, allowing them to sign up for volunteer events involving working with children.
Special Skills
An organization may have a need for volunteers with a particular skill. Providing a list of these skills as checkbox groups allows for easy identification, communication, and even reserving spots at events.
Creating and Organizing Checkbox Groups
Information about creating User Groups can be found in Creating and Managing User Groups guide.
Organizing Checkbox Groups is completely dependent on how they're arranged in Admin View. The two images below show how the groups are displayed to the volunteer and how it was accomplished by the admin.
Because the Volunteer View of the groups will display in the order they're listed in the Admin View, utilize 'Header Groups'--user groups with the membership control 'None', to nest groups into the desired order for display. In the above example, dashes were added to the names of several groups to give the look of an indented list. The line separating the sections exists as underscores ( _ ) within the Public Description of the "I'm the leader of..." group.
The Admin View image also contains an extra group that is not displayed in the Volunteer View: "I'm interested in being a mobile pantry driver." This is because that group's membership control has been changed to Admins Only. This may be because the organization already has enough drivers and does not need anyone else to apply. The group can be re-added to the list by changing the membership control back to Checkbox.
Creating a good list of checkbox groups allows new users to join groups as they create their account, but existing users can access this list as well by clicking their name and choosing 'Manage Affiliations' from the Volunteer View. Because the URL of this page is static, you could send an email to your existing volunteers encouraging them to make a selection.
Example of URL: https://abc.volunteerhub.com/account/groups