Find volunteers and preview the fields a role can see

For the established (legacy) Volunteer Management portal. These steps differ from the newer Volunteer Management interface. Staff access is determined by their assigned administrator role(s). Administrator roles have fixed capabilities; the configurable volunteer roles described here are separate from staff administrator roles.

In the established VMS portal, open Manage Volunteers → Volunteers. The default list can show only volunteers you manage. If it is empty, check Search all volunteers or Show All Active Volunteers before concluding that the school has no volunteers. Add New Volunteer asks for name, email and at least one role, with separate optional external ID, assignment-limit override, class year and affiliations. The upload workflow has its own CSV schema; do not use a constituent import template for volunteer accounts.

Open Manage Volunteers → Roles, then the role name. The editor separates who the role can see, available reporting, visible data and allowed actions. Searching constituents, choosing assignments, sending to assignments, sending to unassigned constituents/classmates and messaging other volunteers are distinct permissions. Allow Volunteer To Choose Assignments can produce Request Assignment when administrator approval is required. Modify Datapoints is separate from the role's general permissions. A school-level default can be overridden for a role or individual volunteer; inspect the relevant settings before assuming the same limits apply to every volunteer.

Use Manage Volunteers → Constituent Preview to inspect sample Full Record, Partial Record and Snapshot layouts, selecting a role and refreshing when needed. This preview uses example values and custom-datapoint placeholders; it is not proof that an actual constituent has those values or that an import succeeded. Cohorts have their own membership conditions under Manage Volunteers → Cohorts → Modify Cohort.

Volunteer roles versus administrator roles

The role configuration described here applies to volunteers and their visible data/actions. It does not edit the built-in roles assigned to staff administrators. Staff administrator roles have fixed capabilities; an authorized administrator assigns or removes the appropriate role. Do not use volunteer Roles & Permissions or a legacy volunteer role’s datapoint settings to try to enable an action for an Online Giving campaign administrator.