AggiePulse Frequently Asked Questions

General Questions

Why does USU partner with AggiePulse?

There are three primary ways that AggiePulse benefits USU:

Across USU campuses, students, faculty, and staff are participating in high-impact community engagement projects, but often we don’t know what others are doing or where it is happening.
Community partners report confusion about how best to connect with USU. AggiePulse will serve as a virtual front door for community partners.
Community engagement is at the core of USU’s mission. AggiePulse provides data and insight about how we are performing in the community engagement realm.

Why should I use AggiePulse?

AggiePulse can help you find ways to impact your community, meet new people, and keep track of your community engagement activity. By participating in AggiePulse, you become eligible for USU community engagement recognition programs for faculty, students, and staff. AggiePulse can communicate with other USU platforms such as Banner, Canvas, Engage, and Profiles, so you can track your personal community engagement.

What can I put in AggiePulse?

Logging community engagement hours is just one feature of AggiePulse. The platform can be used to register campus and community members for public lectures, programs offered for free to the community, or community-based research projects. You can also record your service to non-profit organizations.

Technical Questions

How do I get started?

All you need to do is claim your account and complete your profile. All USU students and faculty already have an account made for them. In order to claim the account, go to usu.edu/aggiepulse. In the top right corner, select “Log-in.” In the pop-up menu, select “Log-in with AggieID.” Once you have logged in, select “Account” in the dropdown menu under your name. From here you can enter your information, including the causes you care about and the skills you have.

Filling out your profile information is important because this helps groups find you for events that you may have the skills for or might be interested in.

How do I start recording community engagement activities?

Create an impact in one of the following ways:

Register for an event on AggiePulse. If you have already registered for the event, select “My Registrations” by scrolling over the “My GivePulse” button in the account tab at the top right of the screen. Under “Actions” select “Add Impact” from the dropdown menu. All of your information should be filled out already. Click “Save Impact” before leaving the page.
If you are adding an impact for an event you have not registered for, select “Add Impact” on the AggiePulse homepage. From there you should be able to select the group and add the impact by filling out the necessary information.
If you can’t find the group you served with, select the blue “Can’t Find It?” button in the “Add Impact” screen. There you should be able to fill out all the necessary information including the contact information of the verifie

I don’t want others to be able to see information about my community engagement. How can I change my privacy settings?

Under your name in the top right corner, select “Account.” In the account settings menu on the left side of the screen, select “Settings.” The box to set your account to private will be in the middle of the menu. Hit “Save Changes” before leaving the page.

I’m the administrator of a group on AggiePulse. How can my group make sure we are sharing information and events with another group? For example, if you have a student organization that is tied to both a school and Student Affairs, how can you make sure impacts are recorded in both places?

You’ll want to affiliate with another group. Affiliating allows groups to share events with one another. It also allows administrators to see the shared impacts between the two groups. To affiliate with another group, you must be an administrator of your page. Go to the main page of the group that you wish to affiliate with. Under the administrators section of the page, click the “Affiliate” button in the “Get the word out” section. From here you will be able to set event sharing options. This will also allow you to add the other group as an administrator or event manager for your group. Once you have filled that page out, hit “Send Request.” This will send the affiliation request to the other groups for approval.

How can the GivePulse mobile app help me?

You can search for community engagement opportunities based on a keyword search from the main mobile landing page. For example, if you enter “environment,” it will show you upcoming opportunities and groups that are active around environmental issues. You can also check details about upcoming events you’ve registered for under “Dashboard.”

You can also use the mobile app as an administrator of an event. Hit Profile/Switch to Admin. If you’d like to sign participants into an event so that their impact is automatically recorded, you can go to Sign In and search for the event. When you click on the event, the app will display a list of everyone who registered. Swipe right to sign someone in, swipe left to record that they did not show up.

The leader of our group changed. How do I change the administrator to be someone new?

In order to change administrators for a group, you will need permission from a current administrator. From the “Manage Group” page, select “Users,” then “Manage Memberships.” From the dropdown menus under “Actions,” the current administrator will be able to add and take away administrator access.

I’d like to get involved in the community. How can I sign up for an upcoming event?

There are a couple of ways to find an event on AggiePulse. The easiest way to scroll down to the “Events” section of the AggiePulse homepage, and you can see what’s coming up. You can also select “Get Involved” in the top right corner of the screen. From that page, you can browse by keyword, causes, skills, type, date, and other parameters.

Once you have found an event, you can register for it by scrolling to the “Shifts and Dates” section of the event page. Select “Register” for the date and time you wish to serve. Some groups may ask for more information than others while registering. Once you have filled out the proper information (most will be auto-populated typically) it will confirm your registration.

I’d like to learn more about recording my impact.

Here are a couple important things to remember when it comes to recording impacts.

Sharing impacts with multiple groups: At the bottom of the “Add Impact” screen, there will be a box that has all of your groups listed with check-boxes next to their name. Click the checkbox, and once your impact is added, it will be shared with those groups. Note: You can only share impacts with groups that you are a member of.
Auto-sharing impacts with groups: If you are consistently sharing your impacts with specific groups, you may wish to turn on auto-sharing for those groups. Under your name in the top right corner, scroll over “My GivePulse” and select “My Groups.” This page will list all of the groups you are a member of. On the right side of the group’s box, you will see a small arrow. Click the arrow and move your cursor over “More Options,” then click “Always Share Impacts.” It will now automatically have this group selected when you add impacts. You can still deselect that group within the “Add Impact” screen if you wish to not share specific impacts with them.
Adding impacts with non-partners: If you can’t find the group you served with, select the blue “Can’t Find It?” button in the “Add Impact” screen. There you should be able to fill out all the necessary information including the contact information of the verifier.

Faculty

How can I customize my class page?

To customize your page, you first need to click on the “Manage” button next to the page’s picture. Most of your custom options are going to be under the “Customize” tab on the left side of the screen. One example of something to add to your class page are “threads” on your wall. You can set these to be creatable by anyone in the class, or you can make it an administrator function if you wish to use the page for class discussion. You can also rename the labels on your page (for example, you may want to use the term “projects” instead of “events”).

Community Partners

How can my organization join AggiePulse?

If you are a local non-profit, school, or government entity and would like to partner with USU, please email amanda.bevington@usu.edu to let us know you would like to have a page on AggiePulse. In your email, please provide the name of your organization, a brief description, address, and the name and email address of the person at your organization who will manage the page. You will receive an email from the system when your page has been created.

What’s the difference between shifts and time slots when I’m creating an event?

Shifts are for opportunities where you need volunteers for specific sets of time. Shifts allow you to set exactly when the volunteers will start and end their service. Time slots are for more open-ended opportunities. Time slots allow you to set a period of time where the user can volunteer to select when they want to serve. Example: You may have a need for volunteers anywhere from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Using time slots, volunteers can select to serve from 10 a.m. to noon. Note: You do have the ability to set a minimum number of hours that the user must serve.

What’s the process of verifying an individual’s impact at my organization?

The responsibility of verifying impacts falls on the opportunity organizer. It is important to verify all legitimate impacts as quickly as possible, as many of our students could need these hours for a class. In order to verify impacts, go to the “Manages Impacts” page under “Impacts” in your page dashboard. From here you can verify multiple impacts by selecting the checkbox next to the user’s name. Then select “Bulk Actions” and “Verify Selected Impacts.” You can also verify individual impacts by finding the user and selecting “Verify Impact” in the dropdown menu on the right side of the screen.

What data will be available to my organization?

Using AggiePulse, you can create custom impact reports. To do this, start from your page dashboard. Select “Impacts” from the menu on the left of the screen and then click “Manage Impacts.” On this page select “Configure Layout.” This menu will allow you to select which items you want to look at. Once you have done that, click the blue “Actions” button and then click “Export.” This will give you the option to export all of the data or just the items visible on the page. Once you select your preference, it will export the information into an excel document.

How do I change my organization information (description, address, phone number, website, etc.)?

To edit group settings after you have created your group, go to your group’s page and click on the arrow next to the blue Manage button (under your group name). When the drop-down menu appears, click "Edit."

If we haven’t answered your question or you’d like more information, please contact Amanda Bevington.

Resources

AggiePulse is part of a larger company called GivePulse. GivePulse provides support, resources, and training on how to use its platform.