Offline VMS Registration
User Guide
1. Introduction
This guide describes version 1 of the Offline VMS Registration (OVR) system ‐ software tool for
managing project bookings and registrations for RBC volunteers. It works in conjunction with VMS
(Volunteer Management System) software which is a general purpose volunteer database
application.
Important ‐ this document contains real data so please treat it confidentially. Not for redistribution.
1.1 Glossary
The following terminology is used:
• Volunteer ‐ a volunteer worker (either formally registered with the RBC or not)
• RBC Volunteer ‐ a volunteer worker who is formally registered with RBC 2B and has an RBC
volunteer ID
• Local Volunteer ‐ a volunteer worker who is not formally registered with RBC 2B, but has a
temporary ID that is used to establish identity at the site entrance. Typically a member of
the local congregation who has been present at a health and safety induction. Local
volunteers are project‐specific
• Visitor ‐ a visitor who does not necessarily work on site and is given temporary access to the
site. They may include members of the public and workers from other RBC regions. Visitors
are project‐specific
• Workday ‐ a date on which project activity takes place
• Booking ‐ assignment of a volunteer to a specific project workday
• Registration ‐ recording a volunteer or visitor as arriving or leaving a project site
1.2 Synchronisation with VMS
The OVR software can synchronise with the VMS database which is considered the master source of
most of the volunteer data. For example, OVR cannot be used to add volunteers ‐ this must be
accomplished in VMS, the newly‐added volunteers only appearing in OVR when the synchronisation
function is performed.
The Synchronisation function is part of the Offline VMS Synchronisation (OVS) Tool and is not
discussed in this guide. The following sections assume that the OVR database has been synchronised
with VMS and so contains basic volunteer data that can be used for bookings, registration, etc.
1.3 Project Selection
When OVR is first launched you must select a project (as shown below). The name of the project is
thereafter displayed on the caption of the main form. Thus, during normal operation you only work
with a single project at a time; if you need to change to another project you must close down OVR
and re‐launch.
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Projects List
2. Bookings
2.1 PreBooking
A volunteer can be pre‐booked to a project workday (which is sometimes associated with an
invitation to attend the project on that date). This is a necessary part of project planning as the
project overseers arrange for teams of volunteers with particular skills to work on‐site at specified
times. Additionally, even if a volunteer is not pre‐booked he may be automatically booked during the
registration process (this is discussed in a later section).
2.2 Bookings Page
The Bookings Page is shown below:
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Bookings Page
The Work days list shows all of the dates of the project, the Volunteers booked list displays the
names of RBC volunteers booked on the selected workday, and the Volunteers available list shows
the names of volunteers available but not yet booked on the selected workday. Further explanation
follows below.
Note that pressing F5 refreshes data on the Bookings page which is useful if several people are
making concurrent changes to booking data.
2.2.1 Teams
Select a team from the drop‐down list or select "All Teams". Press F3 to quickly select the "All
Teams" view. The list of bookings and volunteers reflects the team selection made.
When a team is selected, the team overseer's name is displayed to the right of the drop‐down list.
Click on the overseer's name to display contact details as shown below:
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Contact Details Window
Contact details are generally available wherever you see a volunteer name. Sometimes you just need
to click the name; at other times you must right‐click on the names and select the Contact Details
command.
2.2.2 Work days
The Work days list shows all of the project's workdays. These are configured in the VMS software
and cannot be modified in OVR. The numbers to the right of each day indicate how many volunteers
(RBC and Local) have been booked for a particular day. The list is single‐selection (i.e. you can only
select one workday at a time), and when a workday is selected, the Volunteers booked and
Volunteers available lists are updated accordingly.
Tick Only booked days to restrict the display to workdays with extant bookings.
By default, the weekends can be highlighted in green (as shown in screenshot below). This can be
turned off using the popup menu (right‐click in the list).
You can give a short descriptive name, or "milestone markers", to a work day by selecting it and then
typing in the edit box below the Work days list, as shown below, where 29 July 2010 has been
assigned a marker "1st Fix Electrics". Only one marker can be assigned to each date and it's usually
best to limit their use to major project milestones (perhaps only 2 or 3 per build) otherwise the list
becomes difficult to read:
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Milestone Marker
Right‐click in the Work days list to display a popup menu with the following commands:
1. Only Booked Days ‐ this is the same as the Only booked days checkbox. When this mode is
selected, the Work days list is restricted to those days when volunteers are booked. For example, if
you enable this mode and then select the "Electrical" team, the Work days list might look like this:
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Restricted Work Days List
2. Find Today ‐ this command automatically selects today's date in the Work days list (if applicable).
3. Highlight Weekends ‐ this command toggles the highlight of weekends (Saturdays and Sunday are
displayed in bold green text when highlighted).
2.2.3 Volunteers Booked
The Volunteers booked list is an alphabetical list of volunteers booked on the selected workday and
for the selected team. The number of booked workers is displayed in the title of the list as shown
below:
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Volunteers Booked List
Note that if a volunteer has also been checked‐in on the selected workday then a small 'clock' icon is
displayed to the left of the volunteer's name (see above for George Buckley and Jaran Martin). If a
volunteer has been pre‐booked for a project on a certain day you would generally expect them to be
in attendance. So at the conclusion of the day the Volunteers booked list should show most of the
workers as registered (with a clock icon).
Click on a volunteer name to display their team, ID and catering requirements just below the list.
Right‐click in the list to display a popup menu with the following commands:
1. Select All ‐ selects all volunteer bookings in the list
2. Cut ‐ cuts all selected volunteer bookings from the list (i.e. deletes the original bookings and
places them on the clipboard)
3. Copy ‐ copies the selected volunteer bookings (i.e. leaves the originals intact and places a copy on
the clipboard)
4. Paste ‐ pastes any volunteer bookings from the clipboard into the Volunteers booked list
5. Remove booking(s) ‐ deletes the selected booking(s)
6. Edit Booking... ‐ displays the Edit Booking form so that you can modify the attributes of the
selected bookings
7. Contact details ‐ displays contact details for the selected volunteer
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Copying and moving bookings using the above commands is discussed later under Clipboard
Bookings.
2.2.4 Volunteers Available
The Volunteers available list is an alphabetical list of volunteers not yet booked on the selected
workday for the selected team. The number of available workers is displayed in the title of the list. If
a volunteer is a member of multiple teams, they will be displayed in the Available list when any of
their applicable teams are selected.
