A docent finishes a Saturday shift, signs a clipboard by the volunteer lounge, and goes home. Two weeks later someone in the volunteer office types that clipboard into Altru, squinting at handwriting and guessing whether “1:30” meant start time or hours worked. Multiply that by a few hundred volunteers and it’s easy to see why people go looking for a way to let volunteers record their own time online.
The short version: Altru can store volunteer hours well, but it isn’t really built as a self-service time clock. The practical answer is usually a simple online capture step that feeds Altru, not a replacement for Altru’s volunteer records. Below is how to think about it and a few setups that work.
What Altru handles well, and where it stops
Altru’s volunteer functionality is designed around staff managing volunteers: keeping volunteer information on the constituent record, setting up jobs and shifts, assigning people, and recording time so you can report on hours by person, job, or period. That’s the part you want in Altru, because it ties volunteer service to the same constituent who may also be a member or donor.
What most organizations don’t find is a volunteer-facing page where someone logs in, clicks “start shift,” and clicks “end shift” when they leave. Time entry is generally something staff do on the volunteer’s behalf. Altru’s web capabilities have changed over the years, so if you’re not sure what your version supports for volunteers online, check with Blackbaud support or test it in a sandbox before you build a workaround. If a native option exists for your setup, use it.
Decide what you actually need to capture
Before picking a tool, get clear on which of these you need. They lead to different setups.
- Total hours per shift. Enough for most grant reports, recognition milestones, and annual volunteer value totals.
- Actual arrival and departure times. Matters if you need to know who is on site right now, for safety or headcount.
- Hours by job or area. Useful if you report separately on education, horticulture, animal care, or events.
- Off-site or remote work. Docents researching tours at home or committee members prepping events won’t walk past a kiosk.
If all you need is totals per shift, a true punch-in/punch-out clock may be more than you need. If on-site headcount matters, you need something volunteers interact with as they arrive and leave.
Three setups that work alongside Altru
1. A shared check-in device with a simple form
Put a tablet at the volunteer entrance running a short online form: name or volunteer ID, job, date, time in, time out (or hours). Volunteers fill it in as they leave. A shared form tool or spreadsheet collects the entries, and staff review and enter them into Altru on a set schedule, weekly or every two weeks.
This is cheap and easy to start. The weak spot is matching: if volunteers type their own names, you’ll get “Bob,” “Robert,” and “R. Smith.” A dropdown of active volunteers, or a short volunteer ID printed on their badge, solves most of that.
2. A personal link for off-site and remote hours
The same form can be shared as a link volunteers bookmark on their phone. This covers the home-based work a kiosk misses. Ask for a short description of the work so a coordinator can approve it before it goes into Altru. Approval matters more here than with on-site shifts, since nobody saw the work happen.
3. A dedicated volunteer management platform
Larger programs sometimes use a separate volunteer scheduling platform that includes check-in and hour tracking. If you go this way, decide up front how hours get back into Altru. Some teams import detail; others record a monthly summary per volunteer. Confirm what Altru can import for volunteer time in your environment before you commit, and keep Altru as the place you report from so volunteer hours stay connected to the rest of each person’s relationship with you.
Getting the hours into Altru cleanly
Whichever capture method you choose, the step into Altru is where accuracy is won or lost.
- Use one identifier. Match each entry to the volunteer’s constituent record using something unique, not just a name. Duplicate constituent records are a common reason hours end up split across two people, so check for a match before creating anyone new.
- Batch on a schedule. Pick a day each week or pay period to review and enter hours. Small, regular batches are easier to check than a quarter’s worth at once.
- Flag oddities before entry. Shifts over ten hours, entries with no time out, or hours on days you were closed are usually typos. Fix them with the volunteer while they still remember.
- Reconcile with a query. After each batch, build or run an Altru query of volunteer time recorded for that period and compare the total against your form’s total. If the numbers don’t match, find out why before moving on. (If you’re not sure which query fields cover volunteer time in your setup, test it on a small batch first.)
A few things to settle with your volunteer coordinator
- Who approves hours? One person, or each department lead for their own volunteers?
- What’s the rounding rule? Nearest quarter hour is common and avoids arguments over minutes.
- How long can someone wait to log time? A deadline, say within seven days of the shift, keeps entries accurate.
- Do training and meetings count? Decide once and put it on the form so volunteers don’t have to guess.
Quick answers
Can volunteers enter hours directly into Altru themselves?
In most setups, no. Time is recorded by staff. If you think your version offers a volunteer-facing option, confirm with Blackbaud support before planning around it.
Is a kiosk enough on its own?
For on-site shifts, usually yes. Add a personal link if you have volunteers doing remote or off-site work.
Should we keep paper sign-in sheets as a backup?
Yes, for the day the tablet’s battery dies or the Wi-Fi drops. Just make sure paper entries go through the same review step as everything else.
