Choose the Area Volunteers, then choose the Field Values you want to edit.

In Sumac, all the Skills you record about your volunteers are organized into different Skill Types. With that in mind, before you can define a Skill, you must define some Skill Types. You'll see all the existing Skill Types at the bottom of this window, and we click New to add a New one.

When defining a Skill Type, all that is required is a description, so it's a good idea to think about how you would like to classify the different Skills of your volunteers. For example, you might want to record that your volunteer can speak different languages, like French or German. That ability would fall under a Skill Type like “Language Skills.” Click OK, and Sumac saves the new Skill Type into the database.

Many organizations track whether or not a volunteer has completed any necessary volunteer training for things like workplace safety or training on how to interact with clients. Those Skills could be classified under a Skill Type like “Training.”  Another common Skill is whether or not a volunteer has submitted any necessary references, or a criminal background check. Those Skills could be classified under a Skill Type called “Background Check.”

Now that we've defined the Skill Types, we can start adding the Skills to the database. Choose the Field Values for Skills and click New to add a new one.

Let's use some of the examples mentioned earlier and set up Skills for things like languages, training, and background checks. First let's add a Skill to use when a volunteer can speak French. The name for this Skill is French, and it falls under the Skill Type “Language Skills.” Click OK, and Sumac saves this Skill into the database. 

Now we'll add some Skills for training programs. The name for this Skill is “Training Complete,” and it falls under the Skill Type “Training.” 

Finally, we'll add Background Checks. The name for this Skill is “Police Check,” and it falls under the Skill Type “Background Check.” Click OK.

Now that we've defined these Skills in the database, we can start recording them for our volunteers.

In your Contact list, open a volunteer's contact record. In the contact record, Skills are recorded on the Facts tab. Click New, and choose that you want to add a new Skill. 

Click the Choose button, and expand the Skill Type you're interested in. For this example, let's mark that this volunteer has a valid police check, which falls under “Background Check.” Click OK. 

You could also record the name of the person who checked this Fact, the date they checked it, and the next validation date for this Skill. This is especially handy for qualifications like police checks, or driver's licenses, which might need to be updated on an annual basis. If you have Sumac's Reminders module, Sumac can automatically create a reminder for you to verify the skill a year from now. 

Click OK, and Sumac saves the Skill for this volunteer into your database.