Quick Start Guide

Before you begin

You'll need:

• An admin account with Owner or Volunteer Admin access. Branding, settings and domain pages are Owner-only
• Your logo and brand colours (optional but helpful)
• A list of the sites where you need volunteers
• The shift times for each site and how many people each shift needs

Step 1: Sign in to the admin portal

1. Go to the admin sign-in page and enter your email address
2. Open the email PurposeTech sends you and follow the link (or use your passkey, if you have added one under My Account > Security)
3. You land on the dashboard, with a New Campaign button and a list of your campaigns

Step 2: Check your tenant defaults

Your tenant holds the defaults every campaign uses until it is told otherwise. Owners can review them before creating a campaign:

1. Settings > Tenant Settings – the tenant name, description, hosted domain and optional custom domain, plus the Terminology card if you want to rename Region, Area, Site or Shift
2. Design – default styles, brand colours, header and footer, CSS and the registration form fields

Step 3: Create your campaign

1. On the dashboard, choose New Campaign
2. Basic Setup:

3. Schedule & Settings:

You can change the name, dates, time zone and cutoff later in Settings > Campaign Settings.

Optional: campaign branding

If one campaign needs its own look, turn on Override tenant style settings in Campaign Settings. The pages under Design > Campaign Branding then apply to this campaign only. The campaign registration form applies as soon as you save it, without the override.

Privacy

New campaigns are password protected. You can see and change which domain a campaign uses, and its privacy setting, on the Domains page. Turn protection off when you are ready to open sign-up to the public.

Step 4: Build your location tree

Open Volunteers > Overview. This page lists the campaign by region, area and site, with a pie under each name showing how full its shifts are, and a live preview of the sign-up page.

The quickest way to load a lot of sites is Add Campaign Data, a window with three steps:

1. Data – a grid with one row per site (region, area, site). Upload a CSV or XLSX file, or paste from a spreadsheet
2. Shifts – set up the shifts for those sites
3. Review – check, then save

For a small event you can instead add items one at a time. Hover a region or area on Overview and add an area or site beneath it, or use the Regions, Areas and Sites pages under Volunteers > Locations.

For each site you can set a public message, admin notes, a street address and whether it is shown with Display on website. Items added from Overview start as drafts and do not show to the public until published.

Step 5: Add shifts

Open a site, or go to Volunteers > Shifts, and add the time slots volunteers can book. A shift has:

Bulk creation

For many sites with the same schedule, avoid adding shifts one by one:

• Shift Generator on Overview creates shifts across many ticked sites at once
• Generate Shifts inside an opened site adds shifts to that site
• Make copies on a region or area copies it, with what is inside it and its shift times, up to 20 times
• Duplicate Campaign copies the regions, areas, sites and shifts from an earlier campaign into a new one, rescheduled around its first shift date

Step 6: Review your emails

PurposeTech sends automated emails at key moments. Review them before opening sign-up:

1. Go to Messaging > Email Templates
2. Open each template and check the wording and, where it applies, the timing
3. Send yourself a test from the template's panel. It uses a registered volunteer account, so register a test account first
4. Check the sender: the from-address and name are set under Settings > Campaign API Keys

Step 7: Set your header and footer

1. Go to Design > Header & Footer (the tenant default, or the campaign version if you have turned on the override)
2. To match your existing site, enter its web address and generate a header and footer. This uses AI and may need tidying
3. Or paste your own HTML
4. Preview before saving

This step is optional. PurposeTech provides defaults.

Step 8: Assign coordinators

If you are delegating:

• Area coordinators – open an area and use the Coordinators tab to add them
• Site coordinators – open a site and assign coordinators from its panel, or use the Volunteers page

A person who is assigned as a site coordinator receives an email. You can add coordinators later, even close to the event. For a first campaign you might run everything yourself.

Step 9: Test the full flow

1. Open the campaign site in a private browser window. Enter the password if protection is on
2. Browse the shifts and check the sites, times and numbers
3. Sign up as a test volunteer, all the way through
4. Check the welcome and confirmation emails arrive
5. In the admin portal, find the test volunteer on Volunteers
6. Sign in on the campaign website as an admin or coordinator and open the Roster for that site. The roster is on the campaign website, not in the admin portal

Checklist before going live

• Shifts have the right times, durations and numbers needed
• Sites and shifts are set to display on the website, and no drafts remain that you want public
• The registration cutoff date is correct
• Email templates are checked, tested and, where wanted, switched on, including reminders
• The sender address is right
• Branding, header and footer look right
• The registration form has the fields you need
• At least one admin or coordinator can run the roster
• Password protection is off, or you have the password ready to share

Step 10: Go live

Share the campaign address through your usual channels: email, social media, your website and partners. If you add UTM tags to your links, the UTM Report shows which ones brought sign-ups.

Then watch Overview and Reports to see how coverage is building.

What to do next

In the days before the event

• Check fill rates on Overview and Reports, and the area breakdown under Filled by Area
• Work the Waitlist page if waitlists are on
• Check Messaging > Email History to confirm emails are being delivered
• Add or confirm coordinators

On event day

• Coordinators open the Roster on the campaign website
• Add walk-ins from the roster
• Move volunteers between shifts on a larger screen
• Download a PDF roster as a backup

On-the-day check-in is on the roadmap.

After the event

• Review Reports: fulfilment, scheduled hours, Post Campaign and Anomalies
• Sync to Salesforce if you use it
• Send a thank-you with a bulk-send email template
• Record feedback and private notes, and tag volunteers you want to find again
• Use Duplicate Campaign to start next time from this campaign's structure

Further reading

• How It Works – the full workflow
• Campaigns & Events – campaign configuration
• Shift Booking – advanced shift management
• Email & Messaging – email templates and scheduling
• Roster Management – day-of coordination
• FAQ – quick answers to common questions