Monthly Archives: November 2018

first volunteer coordinator – usability – a click analysis

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I am co-volunteer coordinator for the NYC FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) regional. The volunteer system could have better usability.  I’ve been thinking about writing up a “click analysis” for common workflows. The idea being that good usability shouldn’t take a large number of clicks to do something common. When my friend asked how to cancel an application, I finally decided to it.  (cancelling is at most 4 clicks once logged in which isn’t bad. )

But on to the most common volunteer task once you are logged in as a volunteer coordinator. How many clicks and are they all necessary.

Accepting a volunteer – 9-12 clicks

  1. Click on the regional name [if you only manage one event, this click should be inferred and not something you have to do each time]
  2. Click on the role you want to assign
  3. If you don’t already know the person, right click their name for details (to open in a new tab)
    1. Click current applications
    2. Click assignment history
  4. Either drag the person’s name to the table at the bottom or click the checkbox and then
    “move applicant into schedule”. I find dragging slower, so this is two clicks for me.
  5. Drag tentative to the table once per day the person wants to volunteer. (Or drag once and expand the bar to cover all the days). So this is 1-3 click/drags
  6. Click complete assignment
  7. Click checkbox for name again
  8. Click assign and notify selected
  9. Type message
  10. Send

Seeing all unassigned volunteers = 3 + 2n

There’s a report called “all unassigned volunteers”. But it doesn’t have links from the person’s name to their profile. Which means you can’t assign from there and have to do it the long way.

  1. Click on the regional name
  2. Click a role. Ideally without any unassigned volunteers
  3. Click unassigned applicants
  4. Right click each to open new tab
  5. Click current applications

 

 

how to cancel when volunteering for first (frc/ftc/fll)

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A friend asked me how to switch from one volunteer event to another on firstinpires.org. It isn’t intuitive at all.

The answer:

  1. Logon to firstinspires.org
  2. Click “My dashboard”

If you were already assigned to the role

  1. Expand “assigned event volunteer roles”
  2. Click “Role options” pull down
  3. Click message coordinator and write a message that switched to Saturday

If you were not yet  assigned to the role

  1. Expand “pending applications”
  2. Click “Role options” pull down
  3. Click “withdraw application”
  4. Click “withdraw”
  5. Hope it worked. The role still appears in your list so you aren’t automatically withdrawn (not great usability)

toastmasters pathways – how to see what your members are up to

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Sept 2019 update: The percentage is now on report 2 (the level progress tab). The percentages have changed slightly as well. See the updated post:

toastmasters pathways – how to see what your members are up to – part 2

In Pathways, three Toastmasters officers are able to access Base Camp Manager. They can view individual progress. For example, this bar chart shows how many members my club has currently working on level 2. (If you don’t see anything in your bar chart, refresh.)

I knew you could click the little arrow and view details (in a browser) or export to Excel to see which members are on which paths.

However, I didn’t realize you could tell how many projects they did within that level until yesterday. A big thanks to Cambria Heights Toastmasters for saying “what’s that” when I was demoing.

When you log in as a member, you see two percentages:

  1. The percentage complete within a level.
  2. The percentage complete within a path (aka across all five levels)

What do the percentages mean? (If you don’t like math, skip to the table at the end)

Ok, so what does this mean? Suppose a member has completed the Icebreaker and Evaluation/Feedback projects in level 1. This member has two projects remaining in level 1 (Research/Presenting and Level Completion.)

Therefore the member is 50% done with level 1. The member is also 10% done with the path. (Completing the full level would mean being 20% done with the path since one of five levels would be complete. Since the member completed half of level 1, the member completed half of 20%. Which means the member is 10% done with the path.)

Let’s try another example

In the screenshot above, we have three members at 20% done with the path. These members completed level 1 but did not complete any level 2 projects. We also have one member 25% done with the path. This member completed one level 2 project. (Remember 20% means completed level 1 and 40% means completed level 2.)

Can i just have a reference without doing math?

Sure

Percentage What it means
0% Signed up for a path, but didn’t do the icebreaker yet
5% Completed the icebreaker
10% Completed two projects in level 1
15% Completed all the projects in level 1 but needs to submit the level completion (or have it approved)
20% Completed level 1, but hasn’t yet done any projects in level 2
25% Completed one level 2 project
30% Completed two level 2 projects
35% Completed all level 2 projects but needs to submit the level completion (or have it approved)
40% Completed level 2, but hasn’t yet done any projects in level 3
45% Completed one level 3 project
50% Completed two level 3 projects
55% Completed all level 3 projects but needs to submit the level completion (or have it approved)
60% Completed level 3, but hasn’t yet done any projects in level 4
66% Completed one level 4 project
73% Completed all level 4 projects but needs to submit the level completion (or have it approved)
80% Completed level 4, but hasn’t yet done any projects in level 5
85% Completed one level 5 project
90% Completed two level 5 projects
95% Completed all level 5 projects but needs to submit the level completion (or have it approved)
100% Completed level 5; path complete!