Major update means better volunteer management features

Announcing the biggest software update in Tandempark history.

If you’ve spent any time around the Tandempark HQ, you’ve probably heard the three magical words we’ve been so excited about.

Two. Point. Oh.

That’s right. The biggest release in Tandempark history will be in you hands Tuesday night - that’s August 20, 2019 for those of you playing along. Over the last several years, the Tandempark community has continued to grow. We’ve crossed provincial borders and are excited to work with big events and awesome initiatives but we’ve always known we had room to improve. And thanks to the amazing feedback, direction, and suggestions from you, our incredible community of volunteers and administrators, we’ve put together an update that is truly worthy of being called 2.0. It transforms our volunteer management platform and means scheduling, organizing, and communicating with your volunteer team is easier than ever! While I’m not going to go through all of the changes in detail, here are a few big reasons why this is a big deal.

The New Project Panel. Volunteer management just got a whole lot easier.

Our primary focus with this update was focused key pieces of volunteer management. Specifically, we turned our attention to the scheduling and communication tasks that go into coordinating volunteers for events and other projects. Since these are arguably two of the most challenging parts of the job, the Project Panel has been completely transformed.

As soon as you open the Project Panel, some subtle differences are immediately obvious. We’ve tidied up, creating a cleaner layout, removing some empty space, and added three little tabs at the top. You might also notice that the “Passions” section has been relabeled as “Impact Areas”. While these are nice changes, the real magic - the 2.0 level stuff - comes to life when you switch over to the Assignments Tab. I mean, just look at it!

Unlike the vertical stacking you may be used to, now all of your volunteer roles are side by side by side, easily collapsible to give you an overall picture, or fully expanded for full details. This new layout provides a much better view of who you have scheduled when and where.

Build your project - visually.

The “nested” layout not only helps to visualize the structure of projects built in Tandempark, but it also makes it even easier to complete individual and bulk actions. This is possible with the Action Menu we put at each level. Message, update, or remove volunteers one-by-one, or by shift, role, or project. This change makes a huge difference in how you communicate with your teams.

Fluid volunteer scheduling.

For our long time users, the biggest change is probably in how you access the scheduling function. Where previous versions required you to select a Role and navigate to a separate screen to assign people, everything is done right here on the same page. Simply clicking on the Shift Pocket you want to fill and select the volunteer you want to assign. Then when you want to see your coverage at an even higher level, switch over to the Timeline tab to see the visual layout of the volunteers you’ve assigned.

Project Shift Export. Did somebody say data?

This is one of those little gems that you might have completely missed, but is definitely worth knowing about. It’s our first data export for Organizers that we think you’ll find pretty handy. With just a click, you can download an editable report that provides a list of all the shifts for the project you’re working on. It has all the dates, times, volunteers, confirmation status, and email addresses, making it a handy tool for pre-event meetings, a check-in sheet for volunteers, and a wrap-up document that can be referenced in future years.

And then there’s the other stuff.

In addition to these changes, we’ve made some exciting changes to how some functions work, automatic communication logic, and some general aesthetics that we are really eager to share. We hope you’re as excited as we are. If you’d like to see the full list of updates you can read the change log at tandempark.org/technical.

What next?

So what do we do now that Tandempark 2.0 is out? That’s where you come in. Let us know what you think of these changes and also if anything isn’t behaving the way you expect it. Trust me when I say we’d rather hear about the same problem twenty times than never be told at all. Also, let us know what you’d like to see in future releases. It’s your comments and suggestions that help us continue to build this amazing community and we are incredibly grateful that you’re part of it.

Live generously,

Liam

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