How to Locate Volunteer & Placement Opportunities

Click on the Opportunities section  in the left panel or,
locate opportunities from your Dashboard.

In the Opportunities section, you can view placement opportunities by Organization, Position, Location, and Sector. If a placement has an address set, then it will appear on the map as well.

Examples of opportunities:

Click on a specific placement to review any details associated with the placement – this includes the placement description, qualifications and contact information.

How do I prevent students from adding Employers, Positions, and Contacts for hour tracking?

How to Activate the Feature

1. Click on the Main Administrative tab by clicking on your high school’s name.

2. Click on the Settings tab.

3. There will be an option titled Employer Setting. Check off this box.

4. Select .

How do Students Select Employers?

1. First, teachers will need to add all of the students’ employers. This can be done by following the steps in this FAQ.

2. Now, when students add hours, they can find their employer by typing the first few letters of their employer’s name into the Organization field and selecting that employer.

How do Employers and Parents/Guardians add our Email to a Safe List and Check Their Spam/Junk Folders?

Checking Spam/Junk Folders

When Using Gmail

1. Go to your Gmail account.

2. Along the left side of the page is a list of labels. If you keep scrolling you will reach an option that says More. Click on it to reveal more labels.

3. Once you click More, scroll down until you find the Spam label, click on it.

4. Check the box next to the Hour Verification email, then select Not Spam.

When Using Hotmail/Outlook

1. Go to your Hotmail/Outlook account.

2. Along the left side of the page is a list of labels, click Junk Email.

3. Check the box next to the Hour Verification email, then select Not Junk.

If the email was not there, please follow the steps below to add our email to your safelist and request the student to submit the hour verification.

Adding an our Email to your Safe List

If you cannot locate the hour verification email in your spam/junk folder, then please see the steps below regarding how to add our email to a Safe List in Gmail and Hotmail/Outlook.

When using Gmail

#1. Click on the gear icon in the top-right corner. Once the menu pops up, select See all settings

#2. Go to the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab and click Create a new filter

#3. Enter noreply@hourrepublic.com into the From field then click Create Filter

#4. A menu will pop-up, select Never Send it to Spam then click Create Filter

5. If the email was being blocked, request that the student resends the hour verification email to you.

When using Hotmail / Outlook

#1. Click on the gear icon in the top-right corner and then click View all Outlook settings

#2. Click on the Junk email tab then scroll down to the Safe senders and Domains section to select Add

#3. Type in noreply@hourrepublic.com, press the enter key, and then Save your changes

4. If the email was being blocked, request that the student resends the hour verification email to you.

Alternative: Teachers/Coordinators can share a direct link to an hour log with an Organization/Employer or Parent/Guardian
Teachers can share a direct link with an Organization/Employer (or with Parents/Guardians specifically as it relates to volunteer hours) to verify  hours. Simply click on the "Copy hour verification link" and paste that link into any message. That will take an employer directly to an hour summary web page where they can verify hours. This is a helpful alternative when employers have not received an hour submission via email. Or, when you need someone else to verify an hour log (e.g. supervisor who is covering off for a colleague).

Active vs Pending Organizations/Employers

Both teachers and students can add organizations/employers:

  • Teachers have access to the entire database of organizations and can modify existing organizations or add new organizations
  • Students can add organizations via the Hour section only

How do students locate organizations/employers that a teacher added?

When an organization/employer is added to the database by a teacher and status is set to Active, a student can locate this organization when they add hours. In the Hour section, students type the organization’s name into the Organization search bar and it will pop up.

Students can search Active employers only (see image below).

What is a Pending versus Active organization/employer?

When a teacher adds an organization, the organization’s status is automatically set to Active.

When a student adds an organization, the organization’s status is automatically set to Pending.

Students are not able to search organizations that are set to Pending unless they were the one that added it (i.e. they only see organizations that they added).

NOTE: For more details on how to add organizations/employers, click here

Teachers can change the status of an organization/employer to Active by following these steps:

Teachers may want to convert a Pending employer that a student added to an Active employer that other students can search and locate too.

1. Click the  tab

2. Set the Status filter to Pending to quickly locate all the Pending organizations

3. Search and click on the desired organization

4. Under the General tab, scroll down until you find the Status field and click on the drop down menu to set the status from Pending to Active

5. Select Save in the top right corner of the page to save your changes

If you don’t want students to add organizations/employers:

You may want students to only search and locate Active employers that a teacher has added. If so, here is how you can do that:

1. Click on the tab with your school’s name

2. Along the centre of the screen there should be a number of tabs such as General, Logo, Access.. etc. At the bottom of that list there is a Settings tab. Click on Settings

3.  Check off the box that reads Do not allow students to add employers/contacts/positions for Hours

TIP

If students are unable to locate an employer then please make sure that the student is only typing a few letters of the organization’s name. It is better to type in a few letters than the entire name of an employer just in case it is spelled differently.

If you type in “Tim”, then anything with “Tim” will come up. If you type in “Hor”, then all of the Tim Hortons stores will come up. But if you type in “Horton’s” into the search bar, our system will not recognize the apostrophe if the employer is not spelled that way (Horton vs Horton’s).

 

Published and Public Positions/Opportunities

What is a position?

For work placements, this is the position of the student at placement (e.g. Automotive Assistant).

For community service, these positions represent volunteer opportunities (e.g. Food Bank Sorter).

Access the Positions / Opportunities section

1. Click  on the left toolbar

2. Search and select the desired organization, then click on the Positions icon

3. Select an existing position (e.g. Food Bank Clerk)
At the bottom of the General tab for a position, you will see the Published and Public fields.

NOTE: If you’re looking to create a new position/opportunity, then please reference our FAQ here.

When both PUBLISHED and PUBLIC check boxes are not checked

By default, all positions are private (i.e. only visible to a teacher/coordinator) since neither the Published nor Public boxes are checked.

When both the Published and Public boxes are unchecked, the position/opportunity cannot be viewed by students under any circumstance. This is essentially a draft version of the position/opportunity and can only be accessed by teachers/coordinators.

NOTE: Publication Dates (i.e. when a position/opportunity is visible) do not work unless either the Published or Public boxes are checked (see below).

When only PUBLISHED is checked

When only the Published box is checked, only students from your school are able to view the position/opportunity on their Opportunities page. This is ideal if the position/opportunity is exclusive to your school.

If the Publication Date (i.e. when a position is visible) is expired or has yet to be published, this position/opportunity will no longer be available to the students at your school and will not show up on students’ Opportunities page.

When only PUBLIC is checked

When only the Public box is checked, the position/opportunity is viewable to anybody with a link to it. However, it is otherwise inaccessible to anybody except teachers/coordinators and will not show up on students’ Opportunities page. The link can be found under the position/opportunity’s title in the Preview and on the page advertising it.

NOTE: Publication Dates (i.e. when a position is visible) do not apply or work for this type of position/opportunity.

When both PUBLISHED and PUBLIC are checked

When both the Published and Public boxes are checked, the position/opportunity is accessible to everybody. The position/opportunity will show up on students’ Opportunities page. It will also have a shareable link that you can send to students inside and outside of the school.

NOTE: If the Publication Date (i.e. when a position is visible) is expired or has yet to be published, this position/opportunity will no longer be available to anybody without the web link. This means that it will not show up on students’ Opportunities page anymore.

TIPS

1. Public events can be shared on social media through Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter:

2. If you leave the Publication Date blank, the position/opportunity will be advertised indefinitely.

3. For more details on how to create a position/opportunity, please click here.

How do I add a Volunteer or Placement Opportunity/Position?

What is a position?

For work placements, this is the position of the student at placement (e.g. Automotive Assistant).

For community service, these positions represent volunteer opportunities (e.g. Food Bank Sorter).

Access the Positions / Opportunities section

1. Click  on the left toolbar

2. Search and select the desired employer, then click on the Positions  icon

Create Positions / Opportunities

3. On the Positions page, click the icon to create a new position, or select  to generate a pre-existing position

4. Fill out the following fields to create a position

  • General
    – *Position Name (Required)
    – Type (Placement or Volunteer)
    – Date Range
    – *Contact person (Required)
    – Address
    – Description (i.e Tasks and Activities)
    – Publication Dates
    – Mark the opportunity Published to keep private, or Published for all students to view. If you would like to learn more about Published and Public positions/opportunities, please click here

NOTE:

To learn more about Published and Public positions/opportunities, please click here

  • Expectations
  • Goal & Benefits
  • Qualifications & Training
  • Scheduling (add the time commitment duration, and timeslots for the position)
  • Demographics (Age, Gender, etc..)
  • Required Skills
  • Developed Skills (Which skills are developed in this opportunity?)
  • Once all the skills are filled out, click  to see how students view the position/opportunity

How do I add contacts to an Organization/Employer?

1. To add a new contact to an Organization/Employer, click the  button on the left toolbar

2. Click on the desired Organization/Employer’s name such as Canadian Tire, Best Buy, etc.

3. Select the Contacts button in the left toolbar under the icon

4. Click the button to add new supervisors to an Organization/Employer

5. A drop down will appear and you can begin to fill out all of the contact information

6. Once you have filled out the fields, click to finish creating the contact

How do I add new Organizations/Employers?

KEY INFORMATION

When adding a new Organization/Employer to Hour Republic, it is important that you fill in the following information. This information will show up for students when they track hours.

1. Organization/Employer name (eg. Best Buy, Walmart)
2. Contact name (i.e. Name of supervisor; make sure to include their email address)
3. Position name (i.e. the position of the student at placement such as Cashier or Kitchen Assistant)

LETS BEGIN ADDING AN EMPLOYER

1. To add a new Organization/Employer, click the  button on the left toolbar

2. Select theicon in the top right corner

GENERAL

1. Fill out the general fields including: Organization/Employer, sector, a description, website link, and School Board/Institution

2. Choose to add a start and end date the Organization/Employer is available

LOGO

1. Click the logo tab to add an image for the Organization/Employer

ADDRESS

1. Select the Address tab and fill out the following fields to generate a location

2. Once you have filled out the address, it will mark the location on a map

3. You can click ‘Remove Address’ to detach the location from the organization/employer or select ‘Add Address’ to create a new one

CONTACTS

1. Click the Contacts tab to add new supervisors to an Organization/Employer

2. Along the top of the Organization/Employer page you will find 3 icons
– Use this icon to add notes private/shared notes
–   Add attachments such as PDF, pictures, word documents
–   Create new positions by clicking the icon

POSITION

1. On the Positions page, click theicon to create a new position, or select  to generate a pre-existing position

2. Fill out the following fields to create a position

  • General
    – Position Name
    – Type (Placement or Volunteer)
    – Date Range
    – Contact person
    – Address
    – Description (i.e Tasks and Activities)
    – Publication Dates
    – Mark the opportunity Published to keep private, or Published for all students to view
  • Expectations
  • Goal & Benefits
  • Qualifications & Training
  • Scheduling
    – Add the time commitment
    – Duration (i.e. September-February or 3 months)
    – Daily timeslots for the position
  • Demographics (Age, Gender, etc..)
  • Required Skills
  • Developed Skills (Which skills are developed in this opportunity?)
  • Once all the skills are filled out, click  to see how students view the position/opportunity