I seem to be having an increasing problem with duplication of volunteers on v-base cloud due to importing. It seems as though, if all the volunteer information is not exactly the same, it duplicates the volunteer, so if they change their address for example a duplication is made. This is really annoying, not least because if you delete one of them it then shows up as not imported. There are also knock on effects for stats because of this, because if the older one is deleted it counts the new import as a new volunteer and if there are any activities that have to be reinputted from the deleted one the dates are then distorted for the stats. e.g when the volunteer may have been previously placed with an opportunity. If you keep the older one, edit the address and delete the new it will not import the new do-it application activity. There is no way of adding a do-it application manually (like in the old version of v-base, which was very useful on occasions). Is anyone else having these problems?
Hi Lorna
I'm not sure that I understand exactly what you are saysing here!! I do know that (in VBC) firstname, lastname and email address constitute a unique volunteer. Any deviation from that will be deemed a different volunteer I think.
You refer to the volunteer changing their address. Where are they changing it, because Do-it only gives you postcode. I do take your point about deleting a volunteer. It still shows up as not imported in My Applications. That is because it still exists in Do-it and there is no way to delete it from there. This is one of my grouses about difficulties in testing. You just cannot clean up the system after you try stuff out.
As to your final point, you can create an application manually using opportunity match.
Well I haven't explored this fully due to time restraints, but I have had several. The one I noticed this morning was a volunteer that I had inputted manually and placed in an opportunity under activities. She then applied for another opportunity and I sent for more info from her. I always check the further info they give and when I searched for her she was on twice. Her names, e-mail and phone number were identical, all that was different was the address. Now this may be because she was inputted manually but the old v-base used to recognise they were the same person and we had very few duplicates. I am pretty sure that I have had the same problem with those that have been imported originally as well.
Hi Lorna
So - did you create the volunteer as a LOCAL volunteer? Then she registered on Do-it and applied for something else? In that case I am pretty sure that they are treated by VBC as separate - they are regarded as different by VBC. I believe we have had a couple examples of this (I am not the user, just the IT guy!!). Of course they are in different "My Applications" lists as well - which is unfortunate.
I think we have to look out for that. If someone comes through the door and expresses an interest in volunteering AND says they have internet at home and an email address, we encourage them to register on Do-it (either in the office or most likely when they get home) and apply for the opportunities that way. In that way we limit the number of locals. But we do have some of course and just have to be aware.
Richard
I do not create them as local, just click the box add volunteer. I create quite a lot that way, especially our volunteer drivers who often have an e-mail address but would completely freak out if I asked them to apply on do-it. Surely there must be a way round this. The old v-base had no problem with this.
We've had this issue on a number of occasions too, where a client has been in to see an advisor, and is created as local using the New-> Volunteer function, and then goes away and applies on Do-It.This isn't a new phenomena- it used to happen all the time with 2.5 too, but the difference was you could open all of the activities on a record on 2.5 and change the linked person so that the activities moved over to the do-it generated account. In VBC not only do they have two records in the system but it's impossible to edit their referrals and move them over, even though you can move all the other activities. It would be helfpul if there were a 'merge records' function to prevent this, or even a "Oh, we noticed someone with similar details" function (Prince's Trust Talent Match have this in their version of the CiviCRM database... (Yes, I am lucky enough to have access to 2 CiviCRM databases...))
Looks like this is something that could be made into an enhancement request. Who wants to volunteer to describe the requirement.
(Lorna - creating a volunteer in VBC as opposed to inporting from Do-it is what I meant by local volunteer)
Well, I can have a go. It's clear that the functionality already exists because it's used in the other database I use. Here goes.
When a new volunteer record is created in the database that has matching information in ANY of the following fields, a prompt is offered for "Do you want to create a new record, or add this information to one of the existing records which appears to match your criteria". You would then have 3 options: Merge, Create new Record, Cancel
Those essential criteria would be:
So if a new local OR Do-it record is created with the same name OR Telephone number OR Email Address as any existing volunteer record then the system would offer up any records for comparison. Obviously this would then throw up any people using the same mobile or email address, but I don't necessarily think that's a problem as long as there is a way to work around it i.e. a cancel button.
I think probably the Merge idea is a seperate functionality which would simply allow users to create an exact copy of one set of data into another record, and then archive the orphaned record. The key would be ensuring that data in the record receiving the merged fields was not overwritten, rather that the incoming data sits alongside it for review. Can't see a major issue with this as the system already supports multiple records in each contact field, but it may be more of an issue in the drop down fields where only one piece of information can be selected.
Good job Heather. I have taken the liberty of creating a new thread for this in the Enhancement requests area. I have added some comments of my own - but have not changed Heather's text.
Comments welcome and maybe this will be included in the next vote.
https://v-base.org/content/handling-potential-volunteer-duplicates