Configuring Your Terms & Conditions - An Electronic Waiver

You can configure your CERVIS console to display and even require acceptance of your “Terms & Conditions” on your volunteer application. This functionality allows you to post legal terms on your application for your volunteers to accept when they are creating a profile, and later when updating their profile. This field can be used for specifying terms like a volunteer code of conduct, photo releases, full liability waivers, or anything in-between. You can have your volunteers mark their acceptance simply via a checkbox or by additionally requiring their typed signature. We recommend consulting your organization's legal council to verify if a checkbox or typed signature can be considered a valid electronic signature. 

When volunteers accept your terms, the system will store the date they did so and give you the ability to download a PDF verification which includes the full terms they accepted, the date and time of the signature, the signature itself, and a document verification for each instance. The system will not present your terms to the volunteer again unless it has been more than one year since they accepted them or if you change the terms. In this case volunteers will automatically be prompted to re-accept terms if they choose to update their profile or if your Terms & Conditions are enabled in the Sign-in Console. You can also force volunteers to be prompted to re-accept your terms at any time by performing a bulk update to Require Verification of Volunteer Profile Information for that to happen. (See the Knowledge Base Article linked HERE for more information and instruction on this process.) 

You can also search for volunteers who have never accepted your terms or those that have done so over a certain number of months ago in the Advanced Volunteer Search. Refer to the Knowledge Base article HERE for steps on how to use that functionality. 

Below are instructions for establishing and managing the settings associated with the Terms & Conditions.

Navigate to the Terms & Conditions settings by following the steps below:

1. Login to your CERVIS Account.
2. Click on the Edit System Configuration link under the "System Management" section of the Main Dashboard*.
3. Click on the Information Collection heading to expand the section.

Set up the Terms & Conditions for your console by following the steps below:

Step 1: “Terms & Conditions Intro Text”

The “Terms & Conditions Intro Text” is the first information volunteers will see related to your Terms & Conditions. If you are requiring them to accept your terms, they will see this phrase listed by the checkbox. The default text reads, “I have read, understand, and accept the following terms & conditions:” but this content can be changed as needed. 

Step 2: “Terms & Conditions” Full Text

Enter the full text of your terms in the “Terms & Conditions” box. This could include the entire text of your terms and conditions, your full waiver, a photo release, or whatever content you need your volunteers to see/accept. As a note, it is important that you include all of the text that you want your volunteers to agree to in this field, as it is not recommended to link out to external documents. The system will store a copy of the exact terms that the volunteer accepted that you can download to show what was agreed to and when, but if some of those terms were linked to in an external document, it is difficult to prove that that content did not change.

Step 3: Chose How to “Display Terms & Conditions”

Once you have entered the full text of your terms, you can change the “Display Terms & Conditions” field to determine how you want your Terms & Conditions to appear on your application. You have 3 options to choose from:

1. Yes - Must Accept: will require your volunteers to check the box that they accept your terms in order to complete their profile. In order to see the full Terms & Conditions, your volunteers must click on the “Click here to view”  link under the intro text, and the Terms will appear in a pop-up window.

2. Yes - Must Accept Inline: will also make it required for your volunteers to accept your terms before they complete their application, but this will display your terms directly underneath the intro text. This way your volunteers can scroll through the text or click to expand it on the same page instead of in a pop-up.

3. Yes - Informational Only: will give volunteers the ability to read the text that you include, but will not require them to accept it.

The next set of options determines how volunteers will mark their acceptance, and you have three options to choose from here as well.

1. Checkbox Only: will display the terms in the default manner requiring volunteers to check a box to mark their acceptance (see either option 1 or 2 above).

2. Require Typed Signature: will provide a box for volunteers to type in their name as an electronic signature.

3. Require Typed Signature - Include Parent/Guardian: will include a second line for a parent or guardian signature in the case that a minor is creating a profile with you. Note: This signature field will be required if you are tracking birthdate in your system and the volunteer is younger than 18 years of age.

Finally, click Update Configuration at the bottom of the section to save your changes.

If you would like for your volunteers to accept the Terms & Conditions when they are signing in onsite, refer to the Knowledge Base article HERE for steps on how to enable that functionality. 

As a note, CERVIS also has the capability to send out and track paper waivers if you need to collect physical signatures from your volunteers. Refer to the Knowledge Base Article linked HERE to read more about the differences between the electronic and paper waiver options.

*Only Administrators have access to the System Configuration to set up the Terms & Conditions.