❖ Heads up! This article is intended for site managers who have the disaster dashboard enabled on their site.
In times of disaster, you need quality tools and resources at your fingertips to ensure efficient volunteer tracking and reporting. With the Disaster Dashboard, you can keep track of your volunteer Initiatives, Needs, Schedule, and Reporting in one place! This is a great tool for managing your impact and keeping records that you may need to submit to FEMA at some point.
Where to start
When the disaster dashboard is enabled on your site, you receive an initiative that is linked to that dashboard. To learn more about initiatives, click here.
- The first step is to name and activate your dashboard.
1. Click Disaster Dashboard (Inactive) beside Admin Dashboard. 
2. Enter the name you wish to give the dashboard in the field beside Disaster Name.
3. Click Activate Disaster Dashboard.
The initiative that is created for the dashboard is automatically given the name you assign to the dashboard. If you change the name of your dashboard, then the initiative name is also changed.
Set up your disaster dashboard in 5 steps
To continue personalizing and setting up your dashboard, just follow the five steps listed under the Disaster Set Up dropdown from your dashboard. 
Step 1: Review your Disaster Initiative
Reviewing your initiative should take about 15 minutes. To navigate to your initiative:
1. Select the Disaster Set Up dropdown from the Disaster Dashboard.
2. Click Take a look at your disaster initiative. 
- This takes you to the Update Initiative page where you can start customizing that initiative.
Customizing the banner
To customize the banner:
1. Use the color selector to change the color of your banner. 
- The banner appears at the top of the Need and includes all of the text you have within the Description Field.
- You can either select a color within the selector or input a hex code if your organization has specified branding in place.
2. Choose your text color. 
- You can always come back and edit this later if you don't like how it appears on the site to users.
3. Select an icon. 
- This also appears in the banner to your users.
4. We have provided default text in the Description Field that encourages users to complete their individual Disaster profiles; however, you can adjust the text to best fit your needs. 
- Remember, what you put in the Description Field appears in the banner at the top of the Need to users.
Customizing the Confirmation Message
You can also customize the Confirmation Message sent to users when they respond to the Need on the Update Initiative page.
- We recommend inserting a contact email template key into the new user template for this message. Here are the steps to complete this:
1. Personalize the Confirmation Message field. 
2. Be sure to click Update Initiative to save any changes you made to the message fields.
3. Scroll to the Confirmation Message field and click Team Member (new user) Template.
- This opens a new tab with the notification template.
4. Scroll to the Message area and edit the template as necessary, including inserting the {{contactEmail}} and {{initiative_message}} template keys wherever best fits.
- When this notification is triggered, the message you personalized for the initiative is inserted into that notification if you have inserted the {{initiative_message}} template key.
5. Be sure to click Submit to save your changes.
- Now, when a user responds to the disaster Need, they receive a confirmation message with the content you included in the Confirmation Message field.
ⓘ So you know: You can repeat these steps for the Reminder and Follow-Up Messages. Be sure to add the {{initiative_message}} template key to their corresponding automated notifications.
Step 2: Review your Registration Track
A registration track is just a path volunteers can take when registering on a site.
- If you have the disaster dashboard enabled on your site, then you have both a Standard Track and a Disaster Track.
- You can manage the disaster track right from your disaster dashboard—click here to learn more! Reviewing the track should take about 15 minutes.
1. Select the Disaster Set Up dropdown. 
2. Under Step 2: Review your Registration Track, click Registration Track. 
- This takes you to the Edit Tracks area where you can review your disaster track's settings!
✏️ Quick tip: You can also go to Volunteerism > Tracks and select the disaster track from the table to be taken to the Edit Tracks page!
Step 3: Reach out to your agencies
Now it's time to reach out to your agencies!
1. Select the Disaster Set Up dropdown. 
2. Under Step 3: Reach out to your agencies, click Review and send Agency Outreach email. 
3. This opens the email blast area—click here to learn more about sending email blasts.
- This automatically filters your email recipients to any and all agency managers assigned to agencies that checked yes to using volunteers during a disaster.
Step 4: Share your Disaster Initiative
Once you've set up your disaster initiative and track, it's time to share it with potential volunteers!
1. Go to the Disaster Dashboard. 
2. Select Disaster Set Up.
3. Under Step 4: Share your Disaster Initiative, click the Share button. 
4. Click the social media button you want to share the initiative to or click the Copy Link button.
- Now you can start sharing your disaster initiative to your social media pages or you can copy the link and share it through a spotlight, email blast, etc.
Step 5: Email your volunteers
Now it's time to contact your volunteers and start filling disaster Needs!
1. Select the Disaster Set Up dropdown. 
2. Under Step 5: Email your volunteers, click Send an outreach email to your volunteers. 
3. This opens the email blast area—click here
to learn more about sending email blasts.
- This automatically filters your email recipients to any and all volunteers that have enabled contacting them during times of disaster.
Other things to consider
Review Agency Registration
Check the Agency Registration area for the Active in Time of Disaster question. To check this question:
1. Click your profile image or initials.
2. Log out.
3. Select Click here to register your organization. 
4. Scroll to the bottom of the agency registration form to see what this question looks like to agencies when they register on your site:
Choose landing page
If you want volunteers to be taken directly to your disaster initiative when they log into your site, you can update the landing page!
1. Go to Settings > Main Settings. 
2. Scroll to the Volunteers section. 
3. Use the dropdown beside User Landing Page to select Initiative. 
4. Use the Initiative dropdown to select the disaster initiative. 
5. Be sure to select Update Settings to save your changes.
- Now when a volunteer logs into their account, they're taken to your disaster initiative's page.
Test the volunteer perspective
Want to test out registering through the disaster track as a volunteer? Log out of the site and click Sign Up to start registering a new account. 