When volunteers sign in using their Timecounts account and apply for Opportunities, the signup form will auto-populate and hide questions they have already answered on previous forms. For example, if the volunteer has already entered their birthdate on a past signup form, the birthdate field will auto-complete and hide. The volunteer won't be frustrated by answering the same question again, but you ensure you are getting a complete application each time whether it's a new volunteer or a returning volunteer.
The volunteer can always click to open and see the full form, along with the auto-populated fields, if they think their details may have changed since the last time they signed up.
Volunteers with Timecounts accounts can also update their basic profile information (email, address, phone number) at any time in their user settings. When volunteers update their profile information, Timecounts requests permission to share the updated information with your organization.
Prevent Hidden Fields
You can prevent a field from ever being hidden by checking the 'Ask Every Time' checkbox when editing or creating the form.
For example, if you want to use the same signup form for all of your activities, you may want to set the question "Why are you interested in helping out with this activity?" to 'Ask Every Time'. Because if the 'Ask Every Time' checkbox isn't ticked, the second time a volunteer fills out the form, the field will be hidden.
If you're still uncertain, an easy way to determine if you need to check the 'Ask Every Time' box is to ask yourself: do I need a new answer to this question every time new AND current volunteers sign up for something? If yes, check the 'Ask Every Time' box.
Reviewing Form Submissions with Hidden Fields
Keep in mind that Timecounts auto-fills answers for volunteers if the field is hidden. This means that a logged-in volunteer's form submission will look the same as a new volunteer's form submission. There will be answers to all required questions. The only difference is that for logged-in volunteers, some of the answers may be pre-populated with what Timecounts knows about the volunteer. For example, if you asked for birthdate and it was hidden for a current volunteer (because you already have their birthdate in your system), the form submission you see in their profile card will still contain their birthdate, auto-filled by Timecounts.