❖ Heads up! This article is intended for site managers. If you're a program facilitator looking for more information about how to review your programs, click here!
You may want volunteers to meet certain requirements to register for your site or respond to opportunities. The Prerequisites area on your site is where you'll create those requirements! This tool also helps ensure volunteers are matched well to the opportunities they respond to. In this article, we cover:
How to create a prerequisite
You can create prerequisites from your site manager panel:
1. Navigate to Volunteerism > Prerequisites. 
2. From the Manage Prerequisites page, click Add New Prerequisite. 
3. Start creating prerequisites!
Once you're on the Create Prerequisite page, you'll see several options for setting up your prerequisite, like status, type, duration, etc. Here's a breakdown of each section:
- Status: The default status is set to Active, which means it's shared publicly on your site once you finish creating the prerequisite. Inactive status is for when you want to deactivate or remove a prerequisite.
- Type: There can be up to four question types available for your prerequisites:
ⓘ So you know: The fourth question type is Background Check. This is only available if you have the First Advantage integration activated on your site. Want to learn more? Click here!
- Dropdown: With the dropdown option, you create a list of options for volunteers to choose from when answering the prerequisite's question.
- File Upload: If you want volunteers to provide supporting documents for a prerequisite, then this is the option for that.
- Background Check: Select this option if you want to require volunteers to complete a background check before responding to your opportunities.
- Click here to learn more about activating background checks on your site.
- Waiver: Do you have any opportunities that require volunteers to sign a waiver? This is the option for that!
- You'll need to create a waiver to assign to this prerequisite. If this option is selected, a Create New Waiver button appears. Clicking this button takes you to the Waiver Setup area of your site.
- Once you've created a waiver, it appears in the dropdown menu below the Type field.
- Title: The title appears in the volunteer's prerequisite table, opportunity form, etc.
- Question: This is the question you want the volunteer to answer. Type it here as you want it to appear for the volunteer. You can also use this section to instruct volunteers on how to complete this Prerequisite. For example, you might say "Please sign this waiver".
- Auto Approve: You can choose to have volunteers' answers to the prerequisites auto-approved by selecting Auto approve from the dropdown here. The default setting is No, which means you'll need to approve any Pending Prerequisites that are submitted to your site.
- Required on registration: If you want all volunteers to answer prerequisites during registration to your site, toggle this button On.
- Hide from registration: If you want to hide prerequisites from volunteers during registration, toggle this button On. Volunteers can still answer prerequisites in their profile or when responding to opportunities that have an assigned prerequisite.
- Permissions: There are two options in the dropdown:
- Required to View Any Opportunities: Select this option if you want volunteers to answer the prerequisite before they can view any available opportunities with your organization.
- Required to Respond to Any Opportunities: Select this option if you want volunteers to answer the prerequisite before they can respond to any available opportunities with your organization.
ⓘ So you know: The First Advantage background check prerequisite has additional permission settings. Click here to learn more!
- Duration: There are ten duration types available in the dropdown:
- User-provided date: Select this option if you want volunteers to provide an expiration date when they answer the prerequisite question.
- 1 or 2 weeks: These are great options for health-related waivers—e.g., if you want volunteers to sign a waiver that they haven't had any signs or symptoms of illness in the last two weeks.
- 1 or 6 months
- 1, 2, or 3 years
- First of the year
- Forever
ⓘ So you know: These dates reflect when the prerequisite is answered and added to the volunteer's profile—not the date they're approved.
- Add content link: Toggle this On to add content to a prerequisite. The Link URL and Link Text fields appear when you toggle it On:
✏️ Quick tip: This is helpful if you want to have volunteers review your organization's privacy policy on a custom page you've created or if you'd like to share any other links to additional content for their review when answering a prerequisite.
How to set up a waiver
You can create and assign waivers to prerequisites as necessary.
To set up a waiver:
1. Navigate to Volunteerism > Prerequisites.
2. On the Manage Prerequisites page, click Waiver Setup.
3. Select Add New Waiver.
4. Now, you'll see the Manage Waiver page where you can start setting up your waiver:
5. For Waiver Type, select if the waiver is for Adults and Minors, Adults Only, or Minors Only.
6. Click Submit.
7. You'll be prompted to upload a .pdf of your waiver.
8. Add signature and date fields for your volunteers.
- To add date, initial, or signature fields, click and drag the element you want to add to your waiver and place it where it needs to be in the document for signing:
- Once you've applied the signature fields where they need to go, click Submit Page:
- Now that your signature fields are in place, click Finalize Waiver(s):
ⓘ So you know: You can reassign the fields if necessary by clicking Re-assign Fields.
- If you click Finalize Waivers, you won't be able to re-assign those fields.
9. From here, you can either create a new prerequisite to attach the waiver to or select Done.
- If you select Done, the waiver appears in the dropdown menu when you create a new prerequisite and select Waiver as the question type.
Clickwrap Waivers
When an opportunity has this kind of waiver attached, the volunteer sees the following checkbox at the end of their opportunity response form:
ⓘ So you know: This waiver is required for the volunteer.
- They won't be able to complete their opportunity response until they've marked the waiver check box.
- The waiver statement is a link.
- Volunteers can click the link to view the waiver before agreeing to it.
- They must agree to your clickwrap waiver each time they respond to one of your opportunities, even if they've agreed to it before.
How to upload a clickwrap waiver to an opportunity
To get started:
1. Go to Volunteerism > Opportunities. 
2. Select the opportunity from the table.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the Update Opportunity form.
4. Click Choose File beside the Waiver field.
- You can upload a .doc, .docx, and .pdf here.
5. Select the file you wish to upload by either double-clicking it or clicking it and then hitting Open.
6. Click Update Opportunity. 
- If the opportunity already has volunteer responses, then you may want to consider checking the box beside Notify respondents of this update? before you hit Update Opportunity.
ⓘ So you know: Some sites have language overrides in place. Some use prerequisites while others use qualifications, agencies instead of programs, or needs instead of opportunities. You can also request language overrides for your site by contacting us with your request!
Why use prerequisites?
Prerequisites are a great tool for matching volunteers to opportunities that they qualify for. It's also helpful in ensuring other requirements are met, including:
- Having volunteers review your organization's privacy policy during the registration process
- Sharing important content that volunteers must review before responding to or viewing posted opportunities
- Bringing attention to important areas on your site, such as Custom Pages or other important elements that you want volunteers to be aware of when they register or interact with your opportunities
- Getting answers to important questions to ensure the volunteer meets the minimum requirements to participate with your organization or volunteer for your opportunities
Examples from the volunteer perspective
Here are some examples of what prerequisites may look like from the volunteer perspective, depending on their purpose:
- If you have a waiver attached to a prerequisite that requires volunteers to answer the prerequisite before they can view any opportunities, it might look like this:
- If you have a prerequisite with the dropdown menu option for volunteers to answer a question before responding to any opportunities, it may look like this:
- If you have the file upload option set up for volunteers to submit supporting documents when viewing or responding to an opportunity, it might look like this:
- If you want to have volunteers review content during registration or when responding or viewing an opportunity, your prerequisite could look like this:
- You can also use prerequisites to ask important questions when a volunteer first registers with your site. These questions appear in the final step when they fill out the registration form for your site:
