Guide for Volunteer Hours Entry
VolunteerHours on the Florida National Scenic Trailincludeallthetimeanagencywouldpayforanemployeetodothenecessaryworkthemselves.Avolunteerhourincludesplanningtheproject,recruitingvolunteers,shoppingforfoodandsupplies,packingsuppliesin,settingupbasecamp,maintenancetraining,maintainingthetrail,cookingmealsforthecrew,mealsandbreaks,packingcampup,andadministrativehours.*SpecializedHoursarehoursspentdoingcertifiedchainsawwork,certifiedcrosscutwork,trainedwinchandriggingwork,and/orprofessional-qualityskills.Pleaseestimatethenumberoftotalhoursthatarespecializedhoursand note in the project narrative.
Let’s Begin!
From any page on the FTA website ( hover over the word Volunteer and then select Volunteer Hours Entry.
This will bring up a login screen where you will enter your username and password. These fields are case sensitive. There should be only 1-2 people in your chapter or group logging volunteer hours. If you don’t have a password, or forgot your username or password, please contact Megan at .
Once you have logged in, the actual hours entry form appears.
1. Fill in the name of the person who was leading the maintenance hike, activity, or other volunteer work.
2. Fill in the ‘begin and end work date’. Try not to enter hours in bulk. This detracts from our ability to see how many projects are happening and what it takes to maintain the trail. The report date will default to the current date.
3.Group refers to the group the hours are associated with. This includes Chapters, Land Managers or other partner groups.
4. Maintenance Unit will populate as you fill in your group’s section of trail. For instance, if you start to type St Marks, all of the units for St Marks will appear. You can only chose one maintenance unit per report. This allows us to more accurately trackwork done on the trail. **If your hours are administrative, this is where you would type FTA and the administrative options will appear. (see below).
5. Project narrative is a description of the project and anything in particular you would like us to know. This is where you can also add the name of the person submitting the report. We can usually figure this out by the group that is designated, but you can add it if you wish.
6. Check all of the activities that were done during this project.
7.This is where you log your hours! Volunteers refer to the individual volunteers that worked on that project (including the project leader). This field will populate with the names of volunteers that have created profiles in the system and that have been approved (to eliminate spamming). Each volunteer will need a profile to track individual hours. The trail crew leader will have access to volunteer profiles in paper form (which can be find on the website under Volunteer>Volunteer Resources> Crew Leader Corner, in case the volunteer has not filled one out yet. **For the initial launch, since you have to have a volunteer profile to log hours, we have created a “placeholder volunteer” for each chapter. In the place that says “volunteers” type your chapter name. Those hours will account to that person. Please encourage your volunteers to fill out profiles. We will eventually require all volunteers to have profiles.
8. For each volunteer you enter, you have the option to enter their individual hours. This then compiles the number of total volunteers.
9. Enter the cumulative miles that were driven to and from worksite by each volunteer.
10. Enter your best estimate for the following fields. This will help us understand the trail better and what it takes to keep it maintained. If you note that trail maintenance was done on the trail, than these fields should have numbers in them.
11.Indicate whether or not the land manager was contacted before or after. These project reports are emailed to the land managers that have indicated an interest in receiving them. Also, provide additional comments if needed.
CHECK all of your entries before you are finished and click SUBMIT.
If you made a mistake and submitted a report, you are able to make changes to your report by logging into the backoffice. See the instructions for Searching and/or Editing Reports.