Setting Up & Using Impact Tracking

Volunteers contribute more than just hours to your organization and CERVIS can help you keep a record of this. Impact Tracking is a great way to capture some of the other ways that volunteers benefit your organization. You can keep track of numerical metrics that are relevant to your organization such as the number of boxes packed, the number of meals delivered, or even the number of dollars raised. Once created, you can choose which impact items apply to which events. Volunteers can record their own Impact Items when signing out of a shift or by logging them afterwards, or an administrator can log them on their behalf. This article will detail how to create, enable, and log the Impact Items for your CERVIS account.

As an additional resource, find helpful tips and further instruction in our Utilizing Impact Tracking webinar found HERE. 

Creating Impact Tracking Items

First, you will need to determine and create the inventory of Impact Items that are meaningful to your organization. You may only have one item you want to track for your organization or you may have multiple. We have included some examples of common Impact Items in the image below. 

To create Impact Tracking Items in your system, follow the steps below:

1. Login to your CERVIS Account.
2. Click on Impact Tracking Management under the “Opportunity Management” section of the Main Dashboard.
3. At the top of the page, fill in the “Impact Tracking Item Name” field.
• This field can be up to 50 characters.
4. Optionally, fill in the "Impact Tracking Item Description" which will be used as an explainer of what exactly this item is tracking.
• This field can be up to 250 characters.
5. Select ‘Enabled’ for the "Impact Tracking Item Status" when creating a new impact item.
6. Select the Add Impact Tracking Item button.
• Once the Impact Tracking Item has been successfully added, a message in green reading “Success! Your Impact Tracking Item has been added!” will appear above the list of existing Impact Tracking Items, and the new item will appear in the inventory in alphabetical order.

Enabling Impact Tracking Items

Once your organization’s inventory is created, you can choose which items are associated with which opportunities (they can be applied to Events or Service Projects). For example, you may want to track the number of boxes packed for a warehouse event, and the number of meals delivered for a delivery event. In addition to selecting the impact item, you’ll also want to determine how volunteers will record their impact.

You can enable Impact Tracking Items on an existing opportunity by following the steps below: 

1. Click on Search / Manage Existing Opportunities under the “Opportunity Management” section of the Main Dashboard.
2. Locate the opportunity in question. 
3. Click on the Update/Edit Opportunity icon to the left of the opportunity name. 
4. Locate the Log Opportunity Impact field under the section “Advanced Options” and select the way you’d like for volunteers to log their impact and record any notes about their activity based on the descriptions below (these are also described in more detail in the next section of this article):
• On-site: Volunteers will be prompted to log their impact when signing out using the Sign-in Console or Mobile Sign-in.
• Online: Volunteers can log their impact by logging into their volunteer portal on a computer after the opportunity. 
• Both: Volunteers can use either method above to record their impact.
• Admin Only: Volunteers will not be able to log their impact, only users with Event Leader, Group Leader, Leadership Team or Administrator access can do it on their behalf.
5. Locate the “Impact tracking items associated with this opportunity” field and select the Impact Tracking Item(s) you’d like to capture for this event by clicking the check box(es) to the left of the item names(s).
6. Click the Update Opportunity button to save your changes.

Recording Volunteer Impact

Once enabled on the opportunity, volunteers and/or administrators can begin logging impact for events or service projects. Depending on how you have configured the opportunity, as described in the step above, volunteers or administrators will be able to record impact. Examples of what each option looks like are included below. 

Recording Impact when Signing Out of a Shift

Whether your volunteers use the Sign-in Console on site or Mobile Sign-in to log their hours, they will be prompted to enter the value for the impact tracking item(s) enabled for that opportunity upon sign out. They will be required to enter a number for the Impact Item and they can optionally add a note about their service. See the sample images below of what this will look like depending on the method being used.

Sign-in Console: 

Mobile Sign-in:

Recording Impact through the Volunteer Portal

Volunteers can also record their Impact after the event takes place by logging into their Volunteer Portal and manually entering the information. They will just need to click on the Record or Update Volunteer Impact menu option then select to log impact for the appropriate event as is visualized in the images below.

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Recording/Updating Impact as an Administrator

Staff members can always record Impact on a volunteer’s behalf. They can also adjust the Impact information that was previously recorded. To do this, they can follow the steps below:

1. Login to your CERVIS Account.
2. Click on the Search / Manage Existing Opportunities link under the "Opportunity Management" section of the Main Dashboard.
3. Locate the opportunity on which you need to update Impact information.
4. Click the Register Volunteers/Groups icon to the left of the opportunity name.
5. Click on the Log Volunteer Impact icon () to the right of the volunteer record you want to update. See the image below for a visual of the location.
   • Note: To log impact for a Service Project, you will first need to click on the icon to Log Service Project Activity ().  From here you will see the Service Project Activity Log listing and you can use the Log Volunteer Impact icon () located on the far right where you can then choose to add the impact data as applicable.  
     • Note that you can see at a glance whether or not each volunteer has already recorded activity based on the color of the button. Black means it has not been recorded, gold means that it has.
6. In the pop-up menu, enter/adjust the Impact Item information and notes, as applicable.
7. Click Log Impact to save your changes. 
8. Click Close to return to the volunteer registration menu.

To learn about how to report on Impact Tracking, please refer to the article linked HERE.