We're excited to announce that we've already enhanced our new custom fields feature with a data import wizard! This makes bulk uploads of data for your existing members to your group's custom fields quick and easy.

How do I upload custom fields data?

An upload template file is provided for your convenience with your group's custom fields and members already included. To begin, simply download this template, add the data you'd like to import, save as a CSV file and upload this file in the first step of the import wizard.

The second step of the import wizard gives you the opportunity to match the columns in your data file to your custom fields. This is particularly useful if you choose to upload your own data (for instance, an exported file from another platform) Any columns that match the names of your custom fields are matched automatically.

Once you've matched your file columns, you can then verify your data. This allows you to correct any errors immediately instead of updating and re-uploading your data file. Once you've verified your data, all you need to do is click 'Next' to upload it!

More information on how to upload data to your custom fields can be found in Be Collective's Help Centre here.

If you have have any questions or feedback on Be Collective's custom fields functionality, please contact our friendly support team at help@becollective.com.

We're very excited to announce that Be Collective now offers the functionality for volunteer managers to create custom fields for their members!

This is a great new way for Be Collective Plus+ groups to capture and store more data on your members. With custom fields, it's now easier than even for volunteer managers to:

• match volunteers to opportunities
• complete induction processes
• manage vaccination details

And so much more! If you manage a Be Collective Plus+ group, you can create as many custom fields as you like across nine field types from text to dropdown menus, all tailored to the needs of your organisation.

To learn more about using custom fields, please see the following articles in our Help Centre:

How do I set up custom fields?

How do I enter data in my group's custom fields?

If you have have any questions or feedback on Be Collective's custom fields functionality, please contact our friendly support team at help@becollective.com.

Be Collective's messaging and chat functionality will soon be improved to make it more clear when messages have been received within our platform. Another announcement will follow later this week when these improvements have been released.

What's changing?

All messages between a group and multiple users will release an email notification to all recipients. For example, a group owner/administrator sending a message to all group members, or all volunteers assigned to a specific opportunity.

This will not, however, override any individual recipient's customisable profile settings. If a recipient does not have email notifications activated for received messages, they will only receive an in-platform notification and the message to their Be Collective inbox.

We encourage you to check messages regularly to ensure you don't miss out on any communications from volunteers or organisations. Messages can be accessed easily through the message icon in the header bar.

In the coming months, we aim to better understand the needs of our users with a view to releasing new and improved communications tools later this year.

If you have have any questions about Be Collective's messaging functionality, please contact our friendly support team at help@becollective.com.

Full service has been resumed, and we're delighted to announce that our new suite of scheduling and rostering features are live! Thanks you again for your patience.

If you'd like to learn more about our new features and how to use them, Be Collective's Help Centre is a great place to start - please click here for more details or get in touch with our friendly support team at help@becollective.com.

Thank you for your patience while we've been offline this morning – now that we're back, we're delighted to announce that our new suite of scheduling and rostering features will be live soon!

Our developers are hard at work on the final stages of our software updates and while we're back online now, not all features are currently available. We recommend you don't make any changes to your profiles or Be Collective data until further notice.

If you'd like to learn more about our new features and how to use them, Be Collective's Help Centre is a great place to start - please click here for more details or get in touch with our friendly support team at help@becollective.com.

Be Collective will be temporarily offline on the evening of 29 November (UK) / the morning of 30 November (AU & NZ).

This will allow our engineers to carry out essential maintenance before the launch of our exciting new scheduling and rostering features.

This outage is currently scheduled for:

United Kingdom: Sunday 29 November 9pm - Monday 30 November, 1am (GMT)
Australia: Monday 30 November, 8am - 12pm (AEDT)
New Zealand: Monday 30 November, 10am - 2pm (NZDT)

We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this outage, and we'll endeavour to make sure full service is restored as soon as possible.

If you'd like to learn more about our new scheduling and rostering tools, please click here.

Be Collective is changing! Later this month we will be updating our platform with class-leading new features which make it easy to manage scheduling and rostering of your volunteers.

To learn more, please click here.

We're pleased to announce the launch of our new Resource Centre! 

This can be found at becollective.com/resources, and houses useful 'how-to' guides on getting started with Be Collective, whether you're a volunteer or volunteer manager. Soon, you'll be able to find video guides here too!

The Resource Centre sits alongside our Help Centre, which can be found at help.becollective.com and is the place to go for more detailed answers to any questions you have about Be Collective's suite of volunteer management tools.

As always, we're keen to hear from you on any additional resources you'd like to see. We're committed to providing you with the tools you need to make the most of Be Collective.

Great news! If you're a volunteer manager you can now search all member data fields within your group, including notes. This can be very useful in helping you identify suitable volunteers within your existing member list.

For instance, if your group provides lunch for your volunteers and you've entered dietary requirements in volunteers' notes, you can select open the Manage Volunteers tab of your group profile in Management mode, then open the Advanced Filter.

From here, you can select 'Notes' from the drop-down menu and enter, for instance, 'vegan' to return a list of all group members with 'vegan' in their notes.

If you'd like to look for any potential volunteers with an active Working with Children check, all you need to do is open the View drop-down menu (which reads 'View: Default') and select 'Working With Children/Vulnerable People Check'.

Say hello to heat maps (Be Collective Plus+ only)

If you're a Be Collective Plus+ user and you'd like a better idea of your volunteer activity, we have you covered with our new interactive maps! These can be found on the Reports tab of your Group management dashboard, and will give you a quick visual representation of the areas your opportunities and volunteers are situated.

If you have any feedback, we'd love to hear from you - please feel free to contact us at help@becollective.com.