CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Hey, all,

Earlier this year I wrote a Drupal module for a client that basically allowed the client's volunteers to create contacts and activities through a minimal Drupal front-end.  This was a counseling / therapy organization and their volunteers were health care practitioners.

Some of this would be possible using hooks and profiles (like randomly generated ID #s and things I did through the API, which I would probably now do with Civi's hooks).  But I don't think the use case fits something like CiviCase because the detail level was pretty low (just hours, some notes, etc.)

I've been working on a more generic version of this module in my "spare" time so I can release it.  The module would create some simple Drupal FAPI-based forms that allow volunteers to log their hours as CiviCRM activities and potentially create contacts related to the activities (through Civi relationships).  It would also provide simple reporting to the volunteers without having to get into Civi.

Does anyone think this would be useful in their projects or for their clients?  Would you rather use hooks and QuickForms stuff to accomplish front-end volunteer hours tracking?  I'm interested because I'm running on negative spare time at this point.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts,
Andrew

Dave,

Thanks for your reply.  It's great to know the kind of requests you usually get.  Here's the work-flow my non-generalized code handles:

Assuming the organization has a constant need for specialized volunteers (health service workers) whose hours are typically associated with clients rather than events:

1. Potential volunteers apply for position, giving skill/focus information.

   [Profiles, storage in Civi via custom fields + contact record]

2. Org. reviews applications, sets up introduction/training

   [Approval via custom fields, org. creates Drupal account for volunteer, intro/trainings are Civi events]

3. Members of the public search for volunteers [service providers] on the web site, then contact the providers directly for services
  
   [Drupal module provides front-end geocode-enabled search using Google maps etc. against Civi volunteer data]
 
4. Once contact is established, approved volunteers log into the site, create clients and client groups (for group sessions), and log volunteer hours

   [Drupal module provides front-end form logic for creating clients as Civi contacts, establishing a Civi relationship (Provider -> Client) between the care provider and client, and creating activities in Civi for volunteer hours logged]

5. Volunteers may view a simple report of their hours

   [Via the Drupal form they use to log their hours, which has two modes - edit and report]

6. Org. views simple and complex reports of volunteer hours

   [Admin interface to the same Drupal forms the volunteer uses to create and view clients, client groups, and hours; and through the use of custom searches...essentially for dumps to OO.org Spreadsheet or Excel, at this point]

I recognize that some of this use case is handled more appropriately by CiviCase, and that most orgs have event-focused or periodic volunteer needs.  What I'd like to accomplish with the generalized module is something useful for uses like the ones you described.  I've focused more on the actual time entry process, which was critical for my non-generalized code, so your reply helps me to think through potentially expanding that into the first two areas.  

I am still negotiating with the organization over how to release the non-generalized code, but when that's resolved I hope the code will offer some examples on using the API, etc.  

Best,
Andrew

this is currently not on our short/medium term roadmap. This would need to be either community contributed or sponsored by an organization for it to appear in the next release (v3.1)

lobo

Still not on our short/medium term roadmap.

While many non-profits have this need, no one has been willing to fund a Make It Happen. Would your organization be interested in getting this going?

Might be good if you can drum up support within your group of non-profits. I suspect we can do a first phase of a volunteer scheduler in 100 hours

lobo