Before creating your report type/s, have a read of our best practice article that may conceptualise the necessity of report types for your operations.
If you are looking to not submit a report you can visit our other articles on No Report Required (No Impact) or No Report (Impact Tracked).
Creating a report type can be done in two places:
Management / Activities Console / Manage Report Types
Management/ Activities Console / Click an Activity / Edit / Add another session / Create New Report Type
Please note:
You cannot select a default report for activities, you will need to manually select a report type every time you create an activity
You cannot change the report type once an activity has taken place
Activities Console
Navigate to Report Management
2. Click 'New Report Type'
3. Fill in this box to give your report type a name and then click on ‘Add a description’ below to add a description.
* Adding a description is optional, this can be utilised to add notes for this particular report type and will not be visible to the volunteers.
4. Start adding some fields to your report type. Fields are impact measurement points. What do you want to know about and measure from this activity?
When creating your fields, keep in mind:
Reports are captured after a session is complete
By default, the reporter will be asked the start and end time, and the attendance of the activity
By default, the report submission includes an optional space for the reporter to leave any additional comments or feedback
Therefore, you won't have to include the above fields in the report.
There are 7 field types that capture different data points in Volaby: number, text, time, thumbs up/thumbs down, checklist, dropdown, star rating. Each field type is best used for different data points. There is the option to provide a description for each field. When thinking about constructing your fields, think about how you would like data exported in the future.
If you have a lot of fields that need to be in the report, consider "Add Heading" to break up the volume and give the report type structure, again this is optional.
5. Click on ‘Add description’ to add instructions.
6. You can opt to highlight this field by clicking on the slider next to ‘Assign as Featured Field’.
You can also make this field optional by clicking on the slider next to ‘Make field optional’, not clicking on the slider will make this a required field.
7. Click on ‘Add field’ at the bottom to save changes.
*You can also opt to choose from Existing fields already (if there’s any). To do this,
Click on ‘Add field’.
Select ‘Choose Existing’
Click on one of the fields to select one that is already available, and then click on ‘Add Field’ to save.
See our best practices guide for a breakdown of each field type, use of headings and descriptions to see how it might best fit your operations.
Save Report Type
Once you have finished adding in reporting headings and fields, you can save the report by clicking Save Report Type.
Session Creation Screen
Sometimes when you are Creating an Activity as well as its sessions, you may find your existing report types don't quite suit. If this does happen, you have the ability to create a new report type when creating your activity. When you start creating activities initially, this may be the easiest place to set up your report types.
Personalised Report
Click Create New Report Type
Which will drop down a screen displayed below:
2. Create your report type as you would in the previous steps starting with a name, and description and continuing with field types.
3. Save your new report type and it will be saved in the Report Type Bank with any others.
Who can edit a report?
It is important to note that only Admins of Volaby (highest level of permission) can create and edit reports. Program Managers, although they can create activities, cannot create or edit report types.
Who can submit a report?
Volunteers, managers and admins can submit a report. It is important to remember that only volunteers who have been rostered on to a specific activity, can submit a report for that specific activity.
If you choose to have volunteers submit reports, this is a conversation best had as part of orientation or inductions so they are aware of this responsibility. Alternatively, management can fill in the reports.