Getting Started Checklist

This page provides a checklist to getting your organisation started with Three Rings. Every organisation is different, so everything here is only a guideline. However, it might be a useful tick-list to make sure that you haven’t missed anything!

Discover Three Rings

Starting point: Your organisation is interested in Three Rings.
Finishing point: Your organisation is ready to get access to Three Rings.

Learn about Three Rings

If you’re reading this checklist, you’ve already begun your journey!

Take a demonstration

Most organisations new to Three Rings opt for a self-guided or guided tour of Three Rings. We maintain a dummy Demonstration account which we can give you access to and you can have a look around for yourself. Alternatively, a Three Rings volunteer will initiate a Zoom call (other platforms are available) at a mutually convenient time and show you around the Demonstration account.

In order to make your demonstration as relevant as possible, we’re likely to ask you about your organisation. In particular, we’re interested in how you run your rota (do volunteers sign themselves up for shifts, or does a rota secretary/team do it, or somewhere between the two)?

  • Guided tour/demonstration

Explore Three Rings

At the end of a guided tour, your guide will provide you with usernames and passwords so that you and your team can continue to play with Three Rings for as long as you need to decide that it’s right for you. And, of course, the Support Team will be there for you every step of the way.

  • Explore Three Rings

Arrange an Activation Date

When you’re ready to get an account of your own, get in touch and we’ll set one up.

  • Decide when you’d like to begin
    You can pick a specific date, or just tell us “ASAP”: we can usually get new accounts set up within 48 hours.
  • Get a free trial
    You’ll be offered a free trial period with no commitment: we want you to have the best rota and volunteer management system for you, so we don’t want to lock you in to Three Rings if it isn’t perfect for you
  • Nominate a Three Rings Champion
    This will be the first person we’ll grant access to your account (and will have full administrative privileges). They can, of course, set up accounts for other users including other administrators

Plan for Three Rings

Starting point: Your organisation is ready to get access to Three Rings.
Finishing point: Your Activation Date (or shortly thereafter).

Check that your records are up-to-date

Now is a great time to check that your existing records are up-to-date, before you switch to Three Rings.

  • Check your digital volunteer data (e.g. spreadsheets or databases of volunteer personal details)
    We can usually import this for you (see below)
  • Plan for awareness
    How are you informing your volunteers about the switch to Three Rings? Who might you need to ‘win over’ to the change?
  • Plan for training
    Your training needs will vary depending on your organisation’s technical proficiency, training strategies, and the Three Rings features you plan to use. Speak to us if you need help planning your training programme.
  • Plan for rollout
    Will your switch to Three Rings happen ‘overnight’, or will you run it in parallel with your existing system for a time? If the latter, whose job is it to maintain concurrency between the two systems? What happens if there’s a discrepancy?

Set up Three Rings

Starting point: Your Activation Date.
Finishing point: You are ready to use Three Rings at your organisation.

Activation Date

  • The designated Champion will receive their login credentials by email
  • They can then create additional accounts for other administrators to help them out
  • Review this checklist

Check Features and Localisation settings

  • Use the Admin > Features panel to turn on or off parts of Three Rings to reflect how you’ll use it
  • You don’t have to know all the answers on day one, but it helps to scan through the options and think about what you might like to try. You might also like to look at the Admin > Localisation panel as this controls preferences for timezones, calendar, and how shifts that start after midnight are displayed.
  • Three Rings is charged based on a combination of turnover and the number of volunteers (active accounts). Put your turnover into the Admin > Invoices panel so we have it. If you don’t, you might be invoiced at the maximum rate!

Create Roles

  • Use the Admin > Roles panel to create roles for the different positions within your organisation.
    E.g. you might create roles like ‘Director’, ‘IT Officer’, ‘Training Team’, ‘New Volunteer’ or ‘Leader’
  • You may wish to set up the permissions associated with roles at the same time – or you can come back later.
  • You need one Core Role to start with – usually called ‘Everyone’ – it establishes the basic permissions for all volunteers. Don’t create additional Core Roles at this stage.

Create Rotas

  • Create rotas for your organisation
    These represent distinct activities that volunteers can perform, such as ‘Calltaking’, ‘Desk Shift’, ‘Leader’, or ‘Usher’. Create a separate rota for each distinct activity that you track independently, and possibly create multiple rotas for the same kind of activity where the rules differ between them (e.g. “Day Shift” and “Night Shift”).

Set up shift rules

  • Set up Permissions for rotas using Edit Permissions – Administer, Manage, Self-manage or View. This determines what volunteers with the specified roles are allowed to do on that rota. (and which volunteers can’t see it at all!).
  • Consider the general rules for your rotas:
    How far in advance can volunteers sign themselves up? How much notice do they give to pull out or to swap? Can they undo signups that they’ve just made?
  • Set up any additional rules, such as limitations on how many ‘New Volunteers’ can be on together, for example.
  • Will you be using the Autopopulator?
    If you plan to have Three Rings assign shifts to volunteers, rather than having them nominate themselves to them (most common) or having a rota secretary assign them on their behalf, think about how your rules impact upon the ability of the Autopopulator tool to fill your rota. If in doubt, get in touch.

Create Shifts

  • Add shifts to each rota
    You will normally do this by selecting the ‘+’ sign under the date you want the shifts to start on the Rota itself. Think carefully about whether you want shifts to repeat and with what frequency.

Select Properties

  • In Admin > Properties, decide what information you want to store on your volunteers (and what you don’t!) and determine who can view or edit each item. This doesn’t have to be a final list but it should include the properties you want to import.

Add volunteers

  • Add accounts to your system for all of your existing volunteers
    You can add these one at a time or you can ask Three Rings to help you import them in bulk.
  • Consider an initial import
    If you want us to do an initial import for you, put your volunteer data into a database or spreadsheet and upload it to your Filestore, then contact the Support Team to let them know.

Send passwords to your volunteers

  • Go to Admin > Email Templates and edit the New Volunteer template to reflect the information you want your volunteers to receive along with their credentials
  • Check any information in the Filestore (e.g. lists of volunteers) is appropriately secured before letting everyone onto the site.
  • Issue passwords to your volunteers individually from their Directory pages
  • Or, if you wish, our Support Team can issue them in bulk to all your loaded volunteers on your behalf.

Keep in touch with the Three Rings team/community (optional)

Start using Three Rings

Starting point: You are ready to use Three Rings at your organisation.

  • Run training, if necessary
  • Get people to start signing up to shifts and maintaining their Directory profiles
  • Discard your prior system
  • Contact us if you need help!