Web App Updates

Oct 2024

  • We’ve brought back a Dashboard concept for ALL users! Use it to easily find your current projects, bookmarks, and past completed/posted projects. Projects are listed directly in the dashboard itself, as well as in new pages that show them all.
  • The dashboard also lists a variety of statistics, which we plan to continue to increase.
  • The project details page has receive big updates, making better use of the space and providing buttons for common actions all in one place.
  • The 9-dot “app selector” has been replaced by a full navigation sidebar!
  • Major updates to the tables used throughout the platform, allowing consistent searching, sorting, and paging.
  • A handful of bug fixes to project intake, involving time-sensitive deadlines and quirks with self-submitted projects.
  • Multiple improvements to the list view available in the Map.
  • The language selector has been moved to the upper bar, as opposed to floating in the lower left. The latter was getting in the way.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing tagging from working from within a project’s page.
  • Email is no longer a required field for homeowners.
  • Clarifications to project intake to make the anticipated process more clear.
  • Overhauled the admin’s Project Queue list and made it easier to approve projects from within the View Project page.
  • Improvements to admin’s Neighbor Search.
  • Multiple areas of performance improvement and tuning — you’ll start to see noticeably faster page load times.
  • Continued cleanup and streamlining behind the scenes.

Sep 2024

  • Significant cleanup behind the scenes! The vast majority of the work is invisible to users, but sets the web app up for future flexibility and planned new features.
  • The selectors for all date and time entries have been replaced by “mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm am-or-pm” text inputs across the board.
  • Multiple corrections and simplifications to the Edit User Profile screen.
  • Corrections to how a project’s Completed Date is handled, by both the Edit Project screen and automatic updates.
  • Auto assign the current user as the project leader if the project status is updated to planning/scheduled/in-progress/completed. IE, disallow those project statuses unless a leader is identified.
  • Automatically move a project into the planning stage if a leader is selected through the Edit Project screen.
  • Updates and clarifications to auto emails that are sent as projects and volunteers are accepted/rejected.
  • Cloning a project now copies the POC details, if different than the homeowner.
  • We’re beginning to explore new data visualizations! To start, here’s a work-in-progress heat map that highlights areas requesting help on the web app. https://app.neighborlink.org/visualizations/heatmap/1/ More to come!

Aug 2024

  • Significant cleanup behind the scenes! The vast majority of the work is invisible to users, but sets the web app up for future flexibility and planned new features.
  • Originally, Fort Wayne was the “default” organization for volunteers and projects that were outside of NL affiliate locations. That caused a lot of confusion. We’ve changed this to instead provide a default “NeighborLink” organization as the catch all. The Fort Wayne staff will still manage the volunteer and project queues for this new “organization”.
  • Volunteers and projects outside of the Fort Wayne and other affiliate areas have been automatically moved to that new organization.
  • When the nearest-organization is selected for new volunteers and projects, the range has been decreased to 30 miles (originally 50). NE Indiana and NW Ohio affiliates were starting to overlap.
  • Volunteers can start the intake process through a text message question-and-response. They’ll receive an email to finish their registration through the website, including a link that prefills the form with answers already provided through text messaging. We’ve found this extremely helpful during in-person events. Please contact us if your affiliate would like to have this capability!
  • Similarly, homeowners can request help through text messaging. Please contact us if your affiliate would like to have this capability!
  • The ability to post certain types of projects can now be restricted to types of users.
  • We’ve restricted the ability to post Financial Support projects to super admins of affiliates only. Financial support is not NeighborLink’s core mission and the number of financial projects was starting to surge. However, unique circumstances do arise and we’re leaving it open for staff to publish these requests on their own as needed.
  • In the Find Projects map screen, we’ve updated the sidebar to include more details, such as time-sensitive and skill-level.
  • We’ve increased the options available in table pagination, providing longer options and defaulting it to 50.
  • The Project Search screen now allows searching by volunteer.
  • The Project Search screen now hides the date fields, organizations drop-down, and tags for standard volunteers, restricting their use to admins only. We found that they caused confusion for everyday users and weren’t necessary.
  • Bug fix: in project intake, the state field wasn’t allowing keyboard selection if the user was tabbing through the form.
  • Bug fix: the Neighbor’s Other Requests tab of the project details screen was broken.
  • In the Find Projects map, we’re now only showing projects that are Available or ones that are requesting additional volunteers. Any other project that’s in a planning, scheduled, or in-progress stage is hidden. These were causing confusion for brand new volunteers trying to find initial projects.
  • We’ve implemented a “checklist” system for the volunteer intake queue. The queue now has the ability to track notes, background check steps, social media reviews, reference checks, and communication with the volunteer. Please let us know if you’d like a walk-through!
  • Bug fix: corrections to the query that powers the map’s search box, in addition to allowing the <Enter> key to submit the search.
  • Updated the Slack integration (“The Link”) to provide more details in posts to #projects from the web app.
  • The database and map now have the ability to display “special markers”, which we plan to use to highlight strategic partners. If your affiliate would like to do the same, let us know!
  • Bug fix: multiple issues with volunteer search results.

Jul 2024

  • Significant cleanup behind the scenes! The vast majority of the work is invisible to users, but sets the web app up for future flexibility and planned new features.
  • A “project notes” textbox has existed on the Edit Project screen for some time. We now show the same box on the project intake form, only visible to volunteers/admins.
  • We’ve introduced a new “skill level” concept. All project types have been categorized into Everyday, Skilled, or Contractor skill levels. This concept has been worked into Find Projects, Search, project details, etc. Additionally, the color coding on the map has been updated to reflect skill levels, as opposed to the project status.
  • On the map, project cluster icons have been switching to using a gray color, better emphasizing the above color scheme for the actual projects.
  • Bug fix: time sensitive projects were not showing up as red icons on the map.
  • Bug fix: the use of project search’s “Only My Projects” checkbox was not including In Progress projects in the results.