Sorry that you did not find the program as user friendly as you had thought. Schools all do things differently and our system works well for a large number of them. There might be better ways to do things - so feel free to call us to find out. I have answered some of your questions below.
- Mike
rlegris13;137588 wrote: Well, if I setup a "Classroom Volunteer" as an event so that I can track volunteer hours. What do I put for a date? This is ongoing for dozens of teachers.
Having a date required is making the software much too time consuming to use for our purposes.
Sometimes our school as 4 sports events in one night, so I would have to setup tons of events per week rather than just have 1 event called: Football concessions and multiple dates underneath that category.
Actually you can set up 1 event called Football concessions. Then when assigning people to that event you can put the appropriate date as the task date so that 1 event can cover an entire year b/c the task date is completely flexible. The same is true for classroom help or any other event. The event description can make it clear that the event is for the whole year. People can then add themselves or you can add them to the event and very easily assign the appropriate date.
rlegris13;137588 wrote: Another suggestion, have a place for a spouses name when signing up volunteers, thereby creating 2 volunteers. Having to enter them seperately is another time waster.
We treat each volunteer independently because we want to track their individual interests and hours and not just lump them together.
Well, if I setup a "Classroom Volunteer" as an event so that I can track volunteer hours. What do I put for a date? This is ongoing for dozens of teachers.
Having a date required is making the software much too time consuming to use for our purposes.
Sometimes our school as 4 sports events in one night, so I would have to setup tons of events per week rather than just have 1 event called: Football concessions and multiple dates underneath that category.
Our trial run of the software was going great until we put it into actual use. Now we are finding it too cumbersome for tracking Pledge hours and it is too time consuming. We could track hours easier using an alternative method.
Another suggestion, have a place for a spouses name when signing up volunteers, thereby creating 2 volunteers. Having to enter them seperately is another time waster. and lastly.... having to enter the entire Month name rather than an abbreviation... time waster.
Mike - we have another situation: committees. We want to assign people to committees like Staff Appreciation and Garden Club, but we don't have set times/shifts or specific date or time-dependent activities for these committees. We just want to attach volunteer names to the committees and let the committee chairs pull up their list of volunteers and maybe send mass email when they want to get the committee together. Is that done with interests or events?
A common question from PTO Manager users is "what is the difference between interests and events"?
Interests are used to determine where volunteers want to help out. If you currently have a beginning of the year survey that you hand out, most likely you already are asking about people's interests. Those interest are what you load in the interest section of Volunteer Builder(which is under Administration). Examples of interests could be "Sports", "After school activities", "Baking". Usually interests are more general than events - but if you want you can have interests that are the same name as your events.
You can also use the interests section to ask people what resources they possess that can help your group. For example - you can ask "Do you own landscaping equipment?" or "Do you own a video camera?" (to tape the variety show). It is also possible
Events are used to actually track hours within PTO Manager for volunteers as well as provide your group with a place to create a historical record of your activities. Examples of events would be "Auction", "Carnival", "Family Science Night". Since you use events for tracking volunteer hours, you can also have events like "Classroom volunteer" or "Admin Support". You create events and then you assign volunteers to the events. You can use interests to find the right volunteers for your events - but the two are separate!
