How can I create a private event?
When you a publish an event, anyone can sign up and come to help out. When you create a private event, it will show up on the app to anyone who you have established as part of your organization. Creating a private event is a great way to track your volunteer hours, increase engagement, and remind your volunteers of upcoming events with push notifications.
How to Make this Happen:
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When you create an event (Need help with this? Click here), choose from the drop-down box if you want your event to be public or private.
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Then choose the privacy level. You have the option to make an event private for all volunteers in your organization (See the “Internal” tag on your “Volunteers” page), or private for a specific group. Hint: You need to have the group already created by this step. For more information on creating a group, click here.
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The event will be shown to all the members on the group on their app. To let them know the event is ready for them to sign up, send the group an email or text with the sharable link.
- You’ll know the event is private by the tag in the upper right hand corner of the event.
POINTer: When an event is created for a private group, it will show up at the top of the users in that group POINT app under a little section called “Just For You”, so your events are front and center!
Explaining event privacy options
PUBLIC:
This event is public, meaning anyone can jump in and help out. Creating a public event is great for recruiting new faces.
Examples:
- Volunteers coming to plant in the community garden
- Volunteer Orientation
Places volunteers can see your event:
- When volunteers are logged into POINT on their app or web platform
- Your POINT organization page (only public events show up on your POINT page)
- Your website (used embed code).
- The event link
Ways to Share your event:
- The website integration
- The event link
- Your POINT page
Note: Public events are shown to everyone in your city using POINT, so you might see some new faces outside of whom you’ve recruited.
PRIVATE:
You can create a private event on POINT so only certain (Internal) volunteers will be able to see. There are two options for your private event – creating a link or not creating a link for the private event.
What’s the difference between a private event and a secret link?
When you create a private event, the event will show up to your internal volunteers of organization when they’re logged into POINT. When you create an event with a secret link, the event will only show up to those that have the link and will not show up on your volunteers app.
PRIVATE WITHOUT A LINK:
This event will only show up on the app to volunteers that are logged in and a part of the organization or group the event is private to.
Private for your organization: any volunteer with “Internal” Status will see this event.
Private for group: any volunteer in the group will see this event.
Examples:
- You create a group labeled “Background Checked volunteers” and make a private event called “Tutor elementary school students”. Only the volunteers who your organization admins have put into the group “Background Checked Volunteers” will be able to see and sign up for the event.
Ways to share your event:
- Volunteers can only see your event if they’re logged into POINT web or mobile app.
- Website iframe
- Note: if volunteers click on your private event from the iframe and they are not logged in, the event will show “Private Event” and block all of the information.
- If a volunteer is logged in and they click on your private event, and they meet the criteria for seeing the event, they will be able to see and sign up for the event.
- The event link
Note: If you upload your volunteers into POINT with your CSV and mass sort them into groups, volunteers will see private events for the group they’re a part of.
For example, you invite Alex S. to join you on POINT and add him to the group “Background Checked Volunteers”. Alex S. will be able to see the events private to “Background Checked Volunteers” as soon as he creates his account and accepts his invitation to join your organization.
PRIVATE WITH A LINK:
When you create a private event, POINT will ask you if you want to create a link for the event. If you create a link for your private event, this means the event will show up on the app to volunteers that are logged in and fit the characteristics of your criteria (i.e. a part of a certain group, like “background checked volunteers)
Ways to share your event:
- Volunteers can see your event if they’re logged into POINT.
- On your website iframe
- By sharing the event link
Note: if you use a link with a token for the event, it will be available to anyone. This means that anyone who has a link with a token will be able to see the event and sign up to the event. Example Link.
Examples:
- You have a church group that comes often to help out in the food pantry. You make the event private for the group “First Community Church”. You want the volunteers in that group to see the event on their app when they log in, but you also want to send the link to the pastor at the church so they can invite more members of their church to sign up and help up.
SECRET LINK:
This event is secret, meaning only people who have the link will see the event.
Ways to share your event:
- By sending the event link
Note: Secret link events are solely meant for people who have the link. You can’t add these events to your website, and volunteers won’t be able to see them from their app unless you send them the link.
Note: If you send the volunteer the link and they open the link on their phone, the link will open in their POINT app. But, once they close out of their app, the event will no longer be available on their app. They will need to find the link again and open the link again.
Examples:
- A corporate group is coming to plant in the community garden. You only want people of this corporate group to see the event, and not your current volunteers who are looking at your events on their POINT platform.
Need help? Have any questions? Let us know at support@pointapp.org.