Volunteers for Salesforce FAQ

Do I have to use Volunteer Job Shifts?

No. Volunteers for Salesforce works with or without Shifts. You can just track volunteer activity at the Job level if you don't want to use Shifts.

How do I track Jobs that aren't tied to a specific event or Campaign?

Volunteers for Salesforce requires that Jobs are created as children of a Campaign. This allows the application to provide rollup summary information about Volunteers and their Hours. For Jobs that aren't tied to a specific event, simply create a placeholder Volunteer Campaign. For example, you might create a Campaign called Office Volunteer Jobs and use it to track all of the ongoing office Jobs that your volunteers help with.

How should I manage Jobs and Shifts that occur on a regular basis?

Volunteers for Salesforce supports Job Recurrence Schedules (JRS) and Volunteer Recurrence Schedules (VRS). With a JRS, you can set up Job Shifts that repeat into the future at a schedule you specify. With a VRS, you can easily schedule a volunteer for a specific repeating Job or Shift.

You can also use the Volunteers Wizard to copy Jobs and Shifts from one volunteer event to the next. This is useful if you have an annual event with similar or the same Jobs every time.

Does Volunteers for Salesforce include rollup summary fields?

Yes. Volunteers for Salesforce adds the following rollup summary fields.

By default, Salesforce limits you to 10 rollup summary fields per object. You can request that Salesforce increase your limit per object by entering a Case with Salesforce Support.

Important If you have six or more Campaign rollup summary fields, Volunteers for Salesforce will fail to install. You must have Salesforce increase your rollup summary field limit before installing.

How do I make sure that Shifts show the correct time zone to the user viewing the Shift on my website?

There are multiple factors that affect time zones in Volunteers for Salesforce, so it's important to understand how they work.

• When you save a Shift's Start Date and Time, Salesforce assumes the time zone specified in your Salesforce user account, and saves the Date and Time internally in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
• If a Salesforce user views the Shift in Salesforce, the Shift Start Date and Time is displayed in the time zone specified in that user's Salesforce account (even if it's a different time zone than yours).
• When a person views the Shift on your website, either from the Job Calendar or Job Listing page, the Start Date and Time are based on the following (in order):
  • The Job's Volunteer Website Time Zone (if set)
  • The Campaign's Volunteer Website Time Zone (if set)
  • The Site Guest User Profile's Time Zone (if set)
  • GMT

So, if the Jobs/Shifts for a particular Campaign are in multiple time zones because they are in different locations, set the Volunteer Website Time Zone on the Job to ensure that the Start Date and Time appear in the correct time zone for the user viewing the Shift.

What kind of Salesforce user license do I need to use Volunteers for Salesforce?

You can use Volunteers for Salesforce with any Salesforce user license that has at least Read access to Campaigns.

Can I add new fields to the Volunteer Signup form?

Yes. We provide versions of our signup pages that use Salesforce field sets. This allows you to customize which Contact fields appear on the forms.

For more information on customizing the signup form, see Customize the Volunteer Signup Page.

I want to add some fields to the signup form using field sets. Can I make them required?

Salesforce only allows you to mark custom fields created in your org as required in field sets. Standard fields, such as Primary Address, and custom fields in the Volunteers for Salesforce package can't be marked as required.

Why don't Shifts appear as full on my website even though the requested number of volunteers have signed up?

Web pages continue to display a signup link as long as the Shift's Volunteers Still Needed field is greater than zero.

Only volunteers with a Volunteer Hours Status of Confirmed or Completed count against this number. By default, people who sign up on your website using a signup link have a Volunteer Hours Status of Web Sign Up (this ensures they get emails), but that means these signups don't count against the Volunteers Still Needed amount.

To get the Shift to display as full, do one of the following:

• Manually change Volunteer Hours with the Status Web Sign Up to Confirmed
• Reduce the Number of Volunteers Still Needed

Note If you want web signups to automatically be set to Confirmed, you can write a workflow rule to update the Volunteer Hours Status. For more information, see Configure How Volunteers for Salesforce Handles Sign-Ups.

Why is a new Contact created in Volunteers for Salesforce when an existing Contact signs up for the Job or Shift from the website?

The most likely cause of duplicate Contacts from web signups is Sharing Settings. If sharing is set to a restrictive setting (such as Private), the app can't see the existing Contact, so it creates a new one.

To resolve this issue:

1. From Setup, enter Sharing Settings in the Quick Find box, then click Sharing Settings.

2. Ensure that the Default Internal Sharing is set as follows:

   • Account: Public Read/Write
   • Contact: Controlled by Parent or Public Read/Write
   • Campaign: Public Read/Write or Public Full Access

3. Click Save.

Important The changes above have implications for your entire organization. The suggested settings mean that all users in your org can access all Accounts, Contacts, and Campaigns. Most nonprofits want that level of transparency, but some may be concerned about keeping donor information private to only certain members of the team. So proceed with caution and make sure that changing these settings won't interfere with your org's intentions. And keep in mind that there are ways of hiding information while keeping these objects public, such as hiding specific fields by profile.

Why is the Volunteers for Salesforce app failing to install with the error "Apex Classes(org id) vol_ctrl_volunteersbulkenterhours.CodeCoverageTests() System.AssertException: Assertion Failed"?

Understand the tasks that our test code completes during installation.

• Creates an Account
• Creates a Contact
• Creates a Campaign
• Adds the Contact to the Campaign
• Tests the specific volunteer objects (Jobs, Shifts, Hours)

If you don't have Create and Edit permissions on all of these objects, the installation fails. Make sure that a System Administrator installs V4S, since they have appropriate permissions.

Additionally, if you have any required fields or validation rules on any of these objects, they may prevent the app from creating the objects listed above, and therefore, tests may not run successfully.

Why can't some users create Volunteer records?

If Volunteers for Salesforce was installed without specifying Install for All Users, then only the profile of the person who installed Volunteers for Salesforce has access. If you haven't added data to Volunteers for Salesforce yet, uninstall and reinstall the package. Be sure to choose Install for All Users this time.

If you have volunteer data in V4S that you need to preserve, manually enable the following for each custom profile that needs access (you can't modify these values on standard Salesforce profiles).

Note This section assumes you're using the Enhanced Profile User Interface. If you're using the Original Profile User Interface, these settings are in different areas.

• Assigned Apps—Make sure Volunteers is set as Visible.
• Object Settings—For each V4S object (Volunteer Jobs, Volunteer Shifts, Volunteer Hours, Job Recurrence Schedules, Volunteer Recurrence Schedules, Contacts, Leads, and Campaigns), edit as follows:
  • Set Tab Settings to Visible
  • Assign V4S record types and page layouts.
  • Set object permissions to Read, Create, Edit, Delete.
  • Set field permissions on all V4S fields to Read and Edit.
• Apex Class Access—Make sure all classes that start with the prefix GW_Volunteers are added to the Enabled Apex Classes.
• Visualforce Page Access—Make sure that all pages that start with the prefix GW_Volunteers are added to the Enabled Visualforce Pages.

Why don't I see all the Volunteer Wizard fields?

To see all the Volunteer Wizard fields, you must have access to them. Make sure your profile has access to the Volunteers for Salesforce application, its pages, and its objects and fields.

Why don't the Volunteer Sign Up and Job Listing pages work?

Setting up Salesforce Sites and adjusting all permissions for the pages correctly can be tricky.

You should carefully review Make Volunteers for Salesforce Part of Your Website, starting with Decide Which Pages to Add to Your Website and ensure you followed the steps exactly as written. Here's a list of common issues we've seen people run into:

• When the package was installed, security wasn't granted to all users.
• The Site was created, but wasn't activated.
• You filled in the Default Web Address field when editing your Site, but didn't account for it in the URL.
• Your Site wasn't set up to work in an iFrame.
• The permissions for your site weren't correctly set (in the Site's Guest User Profile).
• The Sharing Settings for the Campaign are set to Private.
• The Volunteer objects are marked as In Development instead of Deployed. This can happen if you're upgrading from a very old version and forgot to deploy the package.

Why do I see an Authorization Required error when I look at my Sites pages or Personal Sites pages?

If there is an issue when a page loads, Salesforce displays its standard error page with error information. Because Sites pages are running without a logged in user, Salesforce won't display the standard error page and shows the Authorization Required error instead. We recommend testing your Sites pages while logged into your Salesforce instance so that you see the appropriate underlying error.

Why do I see an error about External Signup Url fields?

You may see an error, like the one below, about External Signup Url fields when you edit a Volunteer Job record, create a new Job Recurrence Schedule or Volunteer Recurrence Schedule, or manually process the Recurrence Schedules batch. Additionally, your volunteers may see this error when they attempt to edit their hours on your Volunteer site.

Insert failed. First exception on row 0; first error: FIELD_CUSTOM_VALIDATION_EXCEPTION, Please enter a valid URL: [External_Signup_Url__c],

This error occurs if the External Signup Url field values on the Volunteer Job object don't start with http, https, or mailto. To resolve this issue:

1. Fix the problematic External Signup Url values. We recommend using a report to identify them.

   1. Create a custom report using the Volunteer Jobs with Shifts & Hours report type.
   2. Add External Signup URL as a column.
   3. Add a filter for External Signup URL, with the Operator set to Does not contain, and the value set to http,https,mailto.

2. Run the batch.

Alternatively, you can temporarily disable the validation rule:

1. In Setup, click the Object Manager tab.
2. Click Volunteer Job, then click Validation Rules.
3. Click Edit in the row for ValidateExternalSignupUrl.

4. Temporarily deactivate this validation rule by deselecting the Active checkbox.

5. Run the batch.

6. Activate the ValidateExternalSignupUrl validation rule.

Site Guest User Email Issue

When you create a Salesforce site, Salesforce automatically creates a site guest user. In any site created before the Salesforce Summer '21 release, the email address for the site guest user record was that of the Salesforce user who created the site. After the Salesforce Summer '21 release, the system generates a dummy email address to use in the site guest user record. If you plan to use the guest site user as the sender of automated emails triggered by workflow rules, you must update the site guest user email address to a valid email.

From your site, click Public Access Settings, then Assigned Users. Click Edit next to the site guest user name and update the email address. For more information, see the Salesforce Summer '21 Release Notes.