CERVIS v5.4.0 - October 8, 2016

New Features:

Please note, not all new features are available to Basic and Standard Edition customers.

Enhanced Volunteer Experience

- Allow Volunteers to set initial password - CERVIS was designed to make it as easy as possible for volunteers to quickly create a profile and register for events with your organization.  Part of this design intentionally made it so that volunteers were not prompted to specify a password when initially creating their profile. This process cuts down on the amount of information needed from the volunteer and makes the registration process quicker.  Over the years, we have identified some organizations who prefer to have their volunteers specify a password when initially creating their volunteer profile, so we have now included that functionality into the system.  The option to enable this functionality can be found in the system configuration under the "Security & Privacy Settings" section.  When you enable this functionality, the system will automatically send out a verification E-mail to each new volunteer, upon profile creation, to confirm their E-mail address. A volunteer must verify their email address prior to registering for the second time.

- Volunteers remain signed-in - One of our goals has always been to make it as easy as possible for volunteers to get into CERVIS and register for events as quickly as possible.  In the past, we implemented the "Remember Me" functionality to allow volunteers to only have to re-enter their password to access the system.  With this software update, the system will now remember both the volunteer's E-mail address and password, for up to 90 days, to allow them to access the system with as little effort as possible.

Extended Event Management

- Prevent overlapping event registration - To accommodate the varying workflows and different methodologies used by our customers, CERVIS has always allowed volunteers to register for overlapping events and slots within the system.  Over time, we've received feedback that this did not suit the needs of every organization and sometimes made it more difficult for organizations to manage their events.  To remedy this, we have now included the option to be able to prevent overlapping event registration in the system.  The option to enable this functionality can be found in the system configuration under the "System Settings" section.

- Simplified "No Show" Management - When dealing with a large number of events, or shifts, that occur daily, it can become cumbersome to manually mark "No Shows" for those volunteers who did not show up for their registered shifts.  CERVIS now makes this process much easier by allowing you to identify, and mark, "No Show" volunteers across all your events at the same time, with just a few clicks of the mouse.

- Multi-Location Event Sign-in Kiosk - Electronically signing in volunteers (via the CERVIS sign-in console/kiosk) is great, but when you allow walk-in registration and have multiple sites, volunteers could have pages and pages of events to scroll through before finding the event they are looking for.  In this newest version of CERVIS, we have added the ability to open up the sign-in console/kiosk for only a specific category of events.  Now, instead of seeing every event across the entire organization, when looking for a walk-in opportunity, the volunteer will only see opportunities available for interest categories that you specify.

Improved Volunteer Management

- View E-mail History - To make it easier to track communication with volunteers, you can now view a volunteer's complete E-mail history from directly within their profile.

- Maintaining Note Information - In the past, note information provided with Service Project applications, or as part of volunteer follow-up, only survived for the life of that activity.  For example, you could add notes as part of volunteer follow-up, but as soon as that follow-up was completed, the notes were removed from the system.  With this software update, the notes included with follow-up activity and service project application activity are permanently recorded in the volunteer's profile notes even after those activities are closed out.

Upgraded System-wide Functionality

- Various minor bug fixes.

- Assorted minor functionality enhancements.

- Numerous performance optimizations.