Building an Application

Application questions are the specific pieces of information (questions) you want to ask those who are applying for one of your opportunities.  You do not have to build  application questions but most organization determine a need to ask a few basic additional pieces of information.  We also recommend that you do ask a few questions to help gain a better perspective on your applicants, their interests, and their fit with your organization.   Some example questions you might ask: How did you hear about us? How have you been involved in missional living? What other short term trips have you attended? What have you learned from other short term trips? Why are you applying for this opportunity? What do you hope to learn from this opportunity?   What fears/concerns do you have? How does your family feel about you attending this opportunity? What are your personal strengths? What are your personal weaknesses? What skills do you have to offer? What is your profession? Do you attend our church / are you a member of our organization? Do you have any dietary restrictions? Are you physically fit to perform the team tasks of this opportunity? Is there anything else we should know? You are given the ability to add various types of questions for an application.  Simply click and drag from the right listing of question types to start.  You can always add questions, edit questions, or delete questions.  Questions can also be noted as mandatory or not.   Here are the types of application questions you can build: Single Line Text - Perhaps you were asking how many global opportunities someone has participated in to date. Paragraph Text - Perhaps you were asking for someone’s reason for applying for this opportunity.   Drop Down List - Perhaps you want to know how someone heard about your organization. Single Selection - Perhaps you want to know which activity someone desires to serve in most.  Multiple Selection - Perhaps you want to ask all that apply to someone’s interests and or skills. Section Break - Perhaps you want to divide your questions into understandable categories  Page Break - This segments the user experience to move to a new page in answering questions.  We recommend this for two reasons - first, each time someone moves from one page to another the information is saved, and second, this helps make your application not seem to cumbersome in length.   Upload File - Here you can require a file to be uploaded during the application process - perhaps you require a copy of their driver’s license or their proof of insurance… or you require someone’s resume to apply.   NOTE: ServiceReef requires basic participant information, such as name, email, phone, and address.  You don’t need to add these as additional questions in your application.  When you view a participant’s application all of the ServiceReef data will be displayed with each user along with their answers to your specific questions.  

Building your application is another complex piece for how you lead missions trips.  Because of the powerful tools available on ServiceReef for handling applications we are going to break this introduction into two part - General Application Settings & Application Builder.   Some things to consider before we get started: Do you require people to apply for your opportunities or just auto-enroll? Do you take roll for who attends your opportunities? Do you have fees associated with applying for an opportunity? Do you have application questions relevant just to your organization, just to an opportunity, or both?    Approval ServiceReef defaults to assume you will require for applicants to apply for an event and then enter an approval process.  We use the term apply for signing up for any event, regardless if the event has unique questions or a simple click to sign up.  If you select the approval process option for this first question then the button on the opportunity page will read “Apply” while if you select the option for auto-enroll the button on the opportunity page will read “Sign Up”.     Our experience shows that more local serving events will select the auto-enroll feature while most every global missions trip will select the approval process.     Roll Will you take roll and record attendance for this opportunity?  Yes or No.  Why do we ask this question?  Simple… many schools require a certain amount of service hours and it’s important that we track who has attended each opportunity.  You may be hosting an opportunity and may not necessarily care of roll is taken but it certainly could matter to those who are serving with your organization.  This really is a matter of who your participants are and if this is needed.  Obviously, if you are a school then you’ll probably always use this function.     The event admin has the ability to note (during or after the event) who attended so there is a tracking of this attendance on ServiceReef.  Each organization is responsible to share with other organization who has served with them… if they take roll.   Application Fee Do you require an application fee to apply for your opportunities?  Application fees serve as a simple means to determine how serious someone is to apply for one of your opportunities. Here are some helpful things to know about the application fee: The application fee is in addition to the trip cost that you set on the Financial page of your opportunity.   The application fee will be processed at the time of application for opportunities that have auto-enroll or it will be processed at the time of acceptance for opportunities that require approval.   If an application fee is required the applicant will be required to fill out financial information in their application process (regardless of when the transaction will be processed).     Application Settings Before you start building specific opportunity application question there are a few more specifics required.  Here’s what you’ll need to know: Does the user need to fill out an application?  If you select Yes then you’ll be able to add/edit specific opportunity questions.  If you select No then you don’t need to worry about creating questions . Do you want to use the Master Application LINK HERE?  Remember you have two applications you can manage - the Master Application and the Opportunity Application.  Here you are selecting if you require applicants to complete the Master Application in addition to any Opportunity questions.  The user experience will guide through one series of questions regardless if you require both question sets or only one - it’s seamless for the applicant. Do you allow applicants to apply elsewhere?  This is for instances where you might have a paper application or some other means of managing applications.  Not many organizations use this.