Creating a sign-in sheet through airtable for a volunteer org

[Andrew_Cardoza]

I am a volunteer coordinator for an arts organization and we are looking for a good way to keep track of volunteer participation. We love Airtable and want to sync it with as many processes in the organization as possible. We routinely have volunteer days for organizational tasks and pop up events around town. What would help us a lot is to have a sign in form that would update their volunteer record electronically. Is there a good way to do this?

I am aware that we can create a form for new volunteers to fill in their information, but that will create a new row for each entry. I would just like a sign in form that will fill in a few different columns in previously entered records that collect information on the hours volunteers have worked, which roles they have taken up for the day, and perhaps ratings about their experience.

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

Forms can only be used to create new records, not to update existing records.

So what you’ll want to do is create a new table for something like “Volunteer Sessions”. Each record in this table represents a “Session” that a volunteer serves, and is linked to the volunteer’s record in your first table (the one where the volunteer’s name and information are stored).

This “Volunteer Sessions” table will include any info you want them to report regarding a session:

• Name (this field will be a link to their volunteer record, so they would find their name filtered down as they start typing)
• Date (date field)
• Number of Hours worked (number field)
• Rating of experience (rating field)

Make a form view out of that table and give your volunteers access to it. Each time they work a session, they can submit a new “Volunteer Session” form, which will create a new record linked to their “Volunteer” person record.

Then in your main table (your “Volunteers” table), you can use lookups and rollups to summarize data from ALL of a volunteer’s “Session” records.