Add, Update, View, or Remove Interest Categories

Follow these steps to add, update, or view an Interest Category:

To ADD a new Interest Category, follow the steps below:

1. Login to your CERVIS Account.
2. Click on “Interest Category Inventory Management” under the “Attribute Management” section of the Main Dashboard.
3. Fill in the “Interest Category Name” field.
4. Fill in the “Interest Category Contact” field.
• This can be any user with “Leadership Team” or “Administrator” access and they can receive notifications when volunteers select they are interested in this particular category. Volunteers do not see who is listed here.
5. Select the “Parent Category”.
• You can create nested listings by making parent/child relationships.
• Start with the main “public” category for your organization.
6. Choose the “Interest Category Selectability”.
• Choose either “Enabled” or “Disabled”. Volunteers can see the Interest Category regardless of this setting, but only "Enabled" allows them to be selected volunteers and admins.
7. Select the “Add Interest Category” button.
• Once the Interest Category has been successfully added, a message in green reading “Success! Your Category has been added!” will appear above the list of existing interest categories, and the new item will appear on the list where is belongs alphabetically under the selected Parent Category.

To VIEW the list of existing Interest Category, scroll to the bottom portion of the Interest Category Management page under the “Interest Category Inventory” heading.

To UPDATE an existing Interest Category, choose the Interest Category you want to modify from the list by clicking on the radio button to the left of the Interest Category, then select “Update Selected Category”.

• You can then make any needed changes to any of the Interest Category fields, then select “Update Interest Category”. Once the item has been successfully modified, a message in green reading “Interest Category Updated Successfully” will appear above the list of existing interest categories.
• If you decide not to make any changes, select “Cancel Update”, and you will be taken back to the Interest Category Management screen, and the item will not be modified.

To REMOVE an existing Interest Category, choose the Interest Category you want to delete from the list by clicking on the radio button to the left of the Interest Category, then select “Remove Selected Category”.

• Note: Interest Categories can only be removed if there is no data attached to the Interest Category, such as subcategories or events associated with that Interest Category.

To LINK to a particular Interest Category on your website, use one of the three link icons () next to each category.

• To create a web page link on your organization’s website so people can state that they are interested in a certain interest category select the first link icon, “Category Assignment”, for the specific web page link for automatic assignment of the selected interest category.
• For example, if you have a web page on your organization’s website that explains about your Reading Mentor program, you can place this link on the web page so a volunteer can click on the link and after they log in to their volunteer profile, it will automatically add the Reading Mentor Interest Category to their profile. Additionally, the Reading Mentor contact will automatically receive an E-mail stating that Bob Smith is interested in becoming a Reading Mentor along with Bob’s contact information.
• After selecting the first link icon, a pop-up window will appear with the new link.
• Copy and paste the new link into your existing website.
• To provide a filtered event registration page for events matching a specific interest category, select the second link icon, “Category Registration”, next to the Interest Category. The second link icon is to be used if CERVIS is integrated into your existing website.
  • For example, if you want to have a web page where only Reading Mentor events are displayed for volunteers to register and sign up for, then this is the link you will use.
    • After selecting the second link icon, a pop-up window will appear with the new link.
    • Copy and paste the new link into your existing website.
• If CERVIS is not integrated into your website and you are using the CERVIS Console Mode, then select the third link icon, “Category Registration (Console Mode)”, to provide a filtered event registration page similar to the point above.
  • After selecting the third link icon, a pop-up window will appear with the new link.
  • Copy and paste the new link into your existing website.

You can also SEARCH for volunteers based on Interest Category through this menu using the buttons located next to each item. More robust searches can be performed through the Advanced Volunteer Search, if needed. Please see below for a description of each of the search icons in this menu:

•  Full Search: this search will show you any volunteer who has this inventory item in his/her profile.
•  ONLY Search: this search will show you volunteers who only have this particular item in his/her profile.
•  NULL Search: this search will show you volunteers who do NOT have this particular item in his/her profile.