Starting from scratch.

Christopher Moss · 01/25/24

Hello community!

I am new to Smartsheet and I am trying to work on a my Hospitals volunteer databases to bringing the 3~4 different programs that we have running into Smartsheet. We have one for each of the following; volunteer onboarding/application tracking, annual learning, volunteer time and location tracking, and tracking of In-kind donations.

I have tried to look through the templates that are available, and I have found a few that might work, but being new I wanted to check here before I went down a rabbit hole that will not end up working. I understand that I will need at least two different dashboards to keep the donations apart from the people.

Any insights on a template that would pull: onboarding tracking, ability to have each volunteer to be able to have their own profile that they would be able to log hours, update their demographics, and then also enter their time that they volunteered and location?

I FULLY understand it is going to be a complex template to build/alter. Or would it be easier and faster to build them all individually and then link between them?

Thank you,

Chris

Sheryl P · 01/26/24

If I'm understanding, you are considering managing the access by having different sheets for each volunteer. How many volunteers do you have? I presume volunteers come & go, and perhaps return. What is the retention requirement for each volunteer's individual sheet? Sounds like there would be many source sheets to connect for rollup reporting for those looking at all volunteers.

The good news is there are probably several way to approach the design - depending on the Smartsheet plan Pricing | Smartsheet Update Requests are a great way to gather details from volunteers without an editors license, and Forms also help to collect data. Volunteers can submit details (date, time, location) - and a report may be able to provide the individual volunteer recap - while all time tracking data is in one sheet. You could schedule reports to be automatically delivered, or provide a link for volunteers to look at a filtered view.

Some fairly each setup to experiment with prior to committing to a solution. Create a bare bones option and see what you like, and what is missing.

Sheryl

Sheryl P · 01/25/24

Hello Chris - You know what they say about eating an elephant ... small bites. I like to look at the high level requirements and break them down into now, in 6 months, 12 months, 18 months. Then just focus on the first group. Expect to be iterative. You will need to go back, refine, redesign - so plan on it. Document along the way - as people transition this helps keep the plan moving forward, or at least what was developed working.

I work in an organization with a large number of users - lots of ideas, and ways of working - things change - and the best solution is not going to be what is first created, and it may not be what is ultimately adopted by your users.

Keep posting questions with the key deliverables - and get feedback .

Question for you - each volunteer having their "own profile". Do you mean user license? Or information about them? Or is the first order of business to track volunteer time and location?

Good luck,

Sheryl

Christopher Moss · 01/25/24

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/415741#Comment_415741

Thank you for your response Sheryl! I know that it will be a long process to get his all integrated and working the way we want it.

First steps would be for the volunteers to track time and location, bonus would be able to view their history of time served (it is important for some) with out having to come and ask me to run a query. Their profile I would not buy them each a license, so that would mean that they are all editors to one sheet that would be all about them.

Sheryl P · 01/26/24

If I'm understanding, you are considering managing the access by having different sheets for each volunteer. How many volunteers do you have? I presume volunteers come & go, and perhaps return. What is the retention requirement for each volunteer's individual sheet? Sounds like there would be many source sheets to connect for rollup reporting for those looking at all volunteers.

The good news is there are probably several way to approach the design - depending on the Smartsheet plan Pricing | Smartsheet Update Requests are a great way to gather details from volunteers without an editors license, and Forms also help to collect data. Volunteers can submit details (date, time, location) - and a report may be able to provide the individual volunteer recap - while all time tracking data is in one sheet. You could schedule reports to be automatically delivered, or provide a link for volunteers to look at a filtered view.

Some fairly each setup to experiment with prior to committing to a solution. Create a bare bones option and see what you like, and what is missing.

Sheryl

Christopher Moss · 01/26/24

My institution has an Enterprise account so that is the good part.

I will start building the reporting portion and then see about adding in the auto reporting aspect.

Sheryl P · 01/26/24

@Christopher Moss SmartSheet Community is awesome place to ask general questions, and/or very specific ones when you just can't get something working. Your Account Manager can let you know what resources are available to you so you can get other opinions/options (ProDesk ??). Just tag me if I can offer any other help.

Sheryl

Tim C · 04/20/24

@Christopher Moss here is a webinar that was just done recently for volunteer onboarding in Smartsheet. (It might spark some ideas). Should link directly to that portion of the webinar, but you can click on the timestamp in the description if it doesnt.

Starting from scratch.

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