Using skills in Timecounts

Skills help you keep track of the abilities, experience, and qualifications your volunteers have.
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Unlike Tags, Skills are selected from a global library in Timecounts. This gives Skills some structure and helps make sure they represent an actual skill or qualification rather than another type of volunteer attribute.

Examples of Skills might include:

Once a skill is added to a volunteer's profile, you can use it to find and filter volunteers in your Directory.

Admins can add Skills directly to a volunteer's profile. From the Directory, click on the volunteer's name to open their profile card.

From the Profile tab, select Add Skills and search the Skills library for the Skill you want to add. You can add multiple Skills to a volunteer's profile.

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If you'd like volunteers to tell you about their own Skills, you can add a Skills field to a form. Edit the skills field from Settings → Profile Fields, then add it to the form where you want to collect this information by dragging it over.
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When a volunteer completes the form and selects their Skills, their answers will automatically update the Skills on their profile. Using a Skills field on your forms is optional. You can also manage Skills directly from volunteer profiles or through positions.

Skills can also be added to positions. This is useful when a particular volunteer role involves specific skills. When someone volunteers for a shift in that Position, those Skills can carry over to their profile when they are credited their volunteer hours. This helps you build a more complete picture of your volunteers' experience based on the work they've actually done with your organization.

Use the skills filter in your Directory to find volunteers who have — or don't have — a particular skill. Add multiple filters if you're looking for a combination.
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The filter only shows skills that have been added to volunteers in your organization, keeping the list relevant and easy to use. If a skill isn't listed, it hasn't been added to a volunteer profile yet.

Tip: If certain skills are important to your organization, make sure you're collecting them through your forms, adding them to profiles, or assigning them through Positions.

Skills and Tags can both help you organize and find people in your Directory, but they're designed for different purposes.
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Skills represent abilities, experience, or qualifications a person has. They're selected from Timecounts' global Skills library so they remain consistent and structured.

​Tags are flexible labels created by your organization. You can use them for almost anything you want to track or use to organize people.
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For example:

If you're describing what someone can do, it's probably a Skill. If you're using a label to organize or categorize someone, a Tag is usually the better choice.

If you search the Skills library and can't find what you're looking for, contact Timecounts Customer Support to request that it be added. Before submitting a request, make sure what you're looking for is an actual Skill rather than a characteristic, preference, status, or other attribute.
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If it isn't a Skill, a Tag or Profile Field may be a better way to track it.