Assemble’s Events feature allows you to create and manage meetings, conference talks, training sessions or anything else you need to organise and invite other Assemble users to attend.
Events are part of Activities:
1) Upcoming events – As the name suggests it lists all upcoming events and it can be filtered by:
- Invitations: Events you were invited to.
- Organising: Events you are organising.
- Team events: Events organised by your team.
- All: All events in SSAFA that you have access to. This will depend on the permission your role holds and your position in the hierarchy.
2) Past events - All past events that you have access to
3) Outcomes reports - List of outcomes that have been completed for past events, including summary aggregates.
Creating an event
The event creation wizard will guide you through creating your event. It's divided into sections – all mandatory fields in each section should be completed to move on to the next section. If you miss any, a red cross will be shown for that screen on the process flow.
1. Event details
This section is for all your events basic details such as event name and event description, within the event description, you can make use of the markdown options to format your text. The description will be included in the onscreen invitation to users so you provide the text for the invitation here, adding links and images if you wish.
Also, you will need to select the event category. This is the activity category which the event will be recorded under and will provide certain settings and outcomes for the event activity.
You also have the option to add attachments eg a PDF to the invitation, perhaps to provide information or pre-reading for those invited if you want.
2. Sessions
Here you set up the time, date and location of your event.
While a volunteer thank you event or party will probably be a single session, you can set up multiple sessions within one event. A volunteer conference, for example, may have multiple workshops to choose from whilst the London Marathon spans multiple days with the pre, race and post race events, cheerpoints etc. Events in Assemble can cover multiple timeslots and locations over multiple days.
Each session must have a set Location, Date, Start time, End time and minimum attendance set (maximum is optional), you can also add an optional session title to each. Locations can be set to be online so a link must be provided for the details to a virtual meeting to be shared with the invitation.
3. Invitations
In this section, you can set which Assemble users will be invited to your event.
This is very flexible and easy to use. You can invite people individually or by role(s) or team(s).
If you would like to open an event to the entire organisation you can do so by checking the organisation-wide option (this option requires the specific permission).
Click the team or user to add to the Selected column; selecting a team will display the "how would you like to invite" pop-up as shown in the image below.
Inviting team members will send individual invitations to all current members of that team - if the send invitations option is ticked on the final screen.
Opening an event to a team won't send individual invitations. However, users can view all events that are open to them through the event listing and calendar views. This option is particularly handy when events are further in the future as all newly added members of that team will automatically have the same event open to them without the manager having to add them individually.
On the Invitation screen, you can also set RSVP date for volunteers to respond, a chase date (to remind them to respond) as well as the option to send a reminders to attendees, perhaps the day before the event. You can also add a reminder for yourself if you want to send thank you messages, an update or even certificates after the event.
You are not required to invite anyone at this stage. This can be done after the event creation from the event or from My team, where you can use filters to get a more nuanced selection of potential attendees eg with specific skills, living with x miles of a location etc.
Training
By checking “Yes, I would like to add training to this event” you can associate the event with training modules. These modules must be set up in Assemble before creating the event (although you can edit the event to add the linked training modules later). Using this option will automatically add the training as completed to the records of all of the attendees. This is based on those in the Accepted list (not if on the waiting list) for the event.
If the user is removed from the "Accepted" list when they have already received the training, the training completed date will be removed from this module for them.
If a user is added to the event after the session is completed, they should automatically receive the training.
Reports will only show users who have this training associated with one of their roles but the training record for all users who attended the event will be updated with the training module.
Additional options
Associate activities to the events' attendees
You can set events to associate activities to its attendees ie if the event is seen as volunteering to be counted towards their volunteering hours. To do this, select the "create activity for attendees" option at the bottom on the invitations screen.
Any changes made by the event manager to the associated event will automatically be reflected in the activity, you cannot directly amend associated activities.
If the attendee cancels their attendance, the activity will be automatically deleted.
4. Recruitment
You may want to recruit new volunteers for some events. If you have the correct permission to create opportunities, you'll see the tab named "Recruitment". By checking the “Yes, I would like to recruit volunteers for this event” option, you will be able to provide details for a one-off opportunity that will be created and that links directly to the event.
Create the opportunity following the on-screen prompts. Please note, if you have the correct permission level and need to change the long description for the opportunity, you will need to edit this in the opportunity editing screen after it's been published.
If only one event location has been provided, the advert location will be prefilled, however, if you have more than one location, you must provide the advert location. Multiple locations and time-slots for your event will be available on the opportunity for applicants to select as for all one-off opportunities.
5. Summary
Review your event details. If you think there's a mistake, you can click edit to go back and make any changes. Select your invitation and attendance approval preferences before clicking the 'create' button.
By checking the “Attendance approval” you will enable the waiting list in which accepted users will be placed on until an event manager officially approves their attendance to the event.
NB Any acceptances received after the RSVP deadline will automatically be added to the waiting list.
Once created your event will be live, invitations will be sent and if recruiting the opportunity will be created.
We recommend you always send invitations via Message Centre. This is because if you select to send only via SMS, users without a registered mobile number won't get the invitation. Also sending SMS invitations won't send attachments.