❖ Heads up! This article is intended for Site Managers. Only Site Managers can create Qualifications and Waivers. If you're an Agency Manager looking for information about Qualifications and Waivers, click here. 

You may want volunteers to meet certain requirements to register for your site or respond to Needs. The Qualifications area on your site is where you create those requirements! This tool also helps ensure volunteers are matched well to the Needs they respond to. Looking for information about deactivating Qualifications or Waivers? Click here! In this article, we cover:

• Why use qualifications? 
• How to create a Qualification 
  • Qualification categories
• How to set up a Waiver 
  • Clickwrap Waivers: Recommended for Agency Managers
    • How to upload a clickwrap Waiver to a Need as a Site Manager
• Examples from the volunteer perspective

Why use qualifications? 

Qualifications are a great tool for matching volunteers to volunteer Needs they qualify for. Qualifications are most often used to require volunteers to sign a site-wide eSign Waiver when creating an account on your site. It's also helpful in ensuring other requirements are met, including: 

• Having volunteers review your organization or an Agency's privacy policy during the registration process
• Sharing important content that volunteers must review before responding to or viewing posted Needs
• Bringing attention to important areas on your site, such as Custom Pages or other important elements that you want volunteers to be aware of when they register or interact with Needs
• Getting answers to important questions to ensure the volunteer meets the minimum requirements to participate with your organization, an agency, or Needs

How to create a Qualification 

1. Go to Volunteerism > Qualifications.

2. Click Add New Qualification. 

3. Fill out all required and applicable fields. 

4. Click Create Qualification when you're done.

• On the Create Qualifications page are several options for setting up the Qualification, like status, type, duration, etc. Here's a breakdown of each section: 
  • Status: The default status is Active, which means the Qualification is shared publicly on the site once you finish creating it. Inactive status is for when you want to deactivate or remove a qualification. 
  • Type: There are six question types to choose from. What you choose depends on what kind of question you want to ask volunteers: 

• Question types and descriptions:

Question Type	Description
Small Text Field	This provides a blank field for volunteers to write in a short reply Use this type when volunteers need to provide a short answer to your Qualification question
Large Text Field	This provides a blank field for volunteers to write in a longer reply
Dropdown	This provides a dropdown selection for volunteers to choose an answer you provide An Options field appears for you to enter options the volunteer can choose from Be sure to enter each option on its own line
Radio Button	This presents answers that you provide with buttons for volunteers to select from An Options field appears for you to enter options the volunteer can choose from Be sure to enter each option on its own line
File Upload	This gives volunteers the option to submit a file with their answer(s) Use this type when volunteers need to submit supporting documents (e.g., a copy of their driver's license)
Waiver	This requires volunteers to sign a waiver when submitting the qualification Note: You must create a Waiver first and then you can select that Waiver from the dropdown. A Create New Waiver button appears when you select this type.

• Title: The title appears in the volunteer's Qualification table, Need form, etc. 
• Question: This is the question you want the volunteer to answer. Type it here as you want it to appear to the volunteer. 

✏️ Quick tip: If you have a Waiver type Qualification, you might write, "Please sign this waiver" in the Question field. 

• Auto Approve: You can choose to have volunteers' answers to the Qualification auto-approved by selecting Auto approve from the dropdown here. The default setting is No, which means you'll need to approve any Pending Qualifications submitted to your site. 
  • Click here for information about reviewing and approving submitted Qualifications! 

• Permissions: Here you can decide how volunteers must interact with Qualifications on your site. Permission types include: 

• Duration: There are ten duration types available in the dropdown: 

• User-provided date: Select this option if you want volunteers to provide an expiration date when they answer the Qualification question. 
• 1 or 2 weeks: These are great options for health-related waivers—e.g. if you want volunteers to sign a Waiver confirming they haven't had any signs or symptoms of illness in the last two weeks. 
• 1 or 6 months
• 1, 2, or 3 years
• First of the year
• Forever

ⓘ So you know: These dates reflect when the Qualification is answered and added to the volunteer's profile—not the date they're approved. 

• Add content link: Toggle this On to add content to a Qualification. The Link URL and Link Text fields appear when you toggle it On: 

✏️ Quick tip: The Add Content Link option is great if you want volunteers to review your organization's privacy policy on a custom page or if you'd like to share additional content for their review when answering a Qualification. 

Qualification categories

You can create Qualification categories to help sort and find Qualifications when adding them to a volunteer Need. 

1. Go to Volunteerism > Qualifications. 

2. Under Qualification Categories, select Click here. 

3. Type the title of the category into the field beside Add Category and click Add to finish. 

• You can now select from these categories when creating a Qualification. 
• These appear in the Qualification dropdown when creating or editing a Need. 

How to set up a Waiver 

You can create and assign Waivers to Qualifications as necessary too. 

1. Go to Volunteerism > Qualifications. 

2. On the Manage Qualifications page, click Waiver Setup. 

3. Select Add New Waiver. 

4. On the Manage Waiver page, start setting up your waiver: 

5. For Waiver Type, select if the waiver is for Adults and Minors, Adults Only, or Minors Only. 

✅ Best practice: We recommend always selecting the Adult and minor option since the site directs the user to either the adult or minor version depending on their birthdate. 

• This also helps you avoid any issues a user might run into if you do allow minors to volunteer on the site but they're blocked from continuing because an Adult Only Waiver is in use. 

6. Name the Waiver. 

7. Click Submit. 

8. You'll be prompted to upload a .pdf of your Waiver. 

9. Add signature and date fields for your volunteers. 

• To add date, initial, or signature fields, click and drag the element you want to add to your Waiver and place it where it needs to be in the document for signing:
  

• Once you've applied the signature fields where they need to go, click Submit Page:
  

• Now that your signature fields are in place, click Finalize Waiver(s):
  

ⓘ So you know: You can reassign the fields if necessary by clicking Re-assign Fields. 

• If you click Finalize Waivers, you won't be able to re-assign those fields. 

10. Here, you can create a new Qualification to attach the Waiver to or select Done.

• If you select Done, the waiver appears in the dropdown menu when you create a new Qualification and select Waiver as the question type. 

ⓘ  So you know: Some sites have language overrides in place. This means one site might use Prerequisites, another may use Qualifications. Contact us if you'd like to request any language overrides for your site! 

Clickwrap Waivers: Recommended for Agency Managers

You or your Agency Managers can add clickwrap Waivers to Needs. These allow you or Agency Managers to add content you want volunteers to review and agree to when responding to a Need. When Agency Managers approach you about requirements for their volunteer Needs, we recommend telling them about clickwrap Waivers first. This is because they are easier to manage in the Agency perspective!

When this Waiver is attached to a Need, the volunteer sees the following checkbox at the end of the Need response form: 

ⓘ So you know: This Waiver is required for the volunteer. 

• They won't be able to complete their Need response until they've marked the Waiver check box. 
• The Waiver statement is a link. 
  • Volunteers can click the link to view the Waiver before agreeing to it. 
  • They must agree to the clickwrap Waiver each time they respond to a Need, even if they've agreed to it before.
  • You can request a language override for the text "I have read and agree to the volunteer waiver" by contacting support! This change will be reflected in all Agencies and Needs.

How to upload a clickwrap Waiver to a Need as a Site Manager

To view and share how agencies can add their own clickwrap Waiver, click here. 

1. Go to Volunteerism > Needs. 

2. Select the Need from the table. 

• You can also do this when creating new Needs. 

3. Scroll to the bottom of the Update Need form.

4. Click Choose File beside the Waiver field. 

• You can upload a .doc, .docx, and .pdf here. 

5. Select the file you wish to upload by either double-clicking it or clicking it and then hitting Open. 

6. Click Update Need. 

• If the Need already has volunteer responses, then you may want to consider checking the box beside Notify respondents of this update? before you hit Update Need. 

Examples from the volunteer perspective

Here are some examples of what Qualifications may look like from the volunteer perspective, depending on their purpose: 

• In this example, you have a Qualification with the permission setting Required to View Any Needs: 

• If you have a Qualification with the Dropdown option for volunteers to answer a question before responding to any Needs, it may look like this:

• If you have the File Upload option set up for volunteers to submit supporting documents when viewing or responding to a Need, it might look like this: 

• If you want to have volunteers review content during registration or when responding or viewing a Need, your Qualification could look like this:

• You can also use Qualifications to ask important questions when a volunteer first registers with your site. These questions appear in the final step when they fill out the registration form for your site: