Blog

By Lisa Ciota, Class of 2020, Education Guide

When the year started, we knew 2024 would be a year of change.  With Volunteer Matters planning to terminate our scheduling platform on September 30, we needed not only to launch a new scheduling platform but also find a new home for The Bridge, our internal site for docent & volunteer news, stories, and information.  In August, we successfully launched Better Impact as our replacement scheduling platform.  Then, in September, we created our new Bridge site and integrated it with Better Impact. 

With all this change, the background info and helpful hints below could be useful as you navigate all this change.  Hopefully, after reviewing this, you’ll find that the old Jon Bon Jovi song “The More Things Change” still rings true today.

“The times they are a-changin’
We’re here to turn the page
It’s the same old story but it’s told a different way
The more things change the more they stay the same.”

WEEKLY UPDATE EMAIL
The Weekly Update will continue with its basic content and functionality being essentially the same.  However, rather than each headline containing a link to the specific announcement or article, the Weekly Update email will simply take you to Better Impact.  Once you have logged into Better Impact, scroll down to the NEWS section where you will find links to all the latest Announcements, and Feature Articles.

This approach eliminates the need to have dual logins/passwords and helps ensures a secure, one-stop login for all your updates and information. 

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BETTER IMPACT’S ROLE
Better Impact serves multiple purposes in addition to being our scheduling platform.  It also serves as a repository for many of the CAC’s important or proprietary files & documents such as tour manuals, docent handbooks, docent council meeting minutes, etc. 

Better Impact also serves as our gateway to the new Bridge via the links contained in the News section. By making the new Bridge accessible via Better Impact’s NEWS section, it ensures a secure, one-stop login for all your updates and information and eliminates the need for dual logins/passwords.

In addition, all our Quick Links will be listed at the bottom of the News section to make it easy for you to check the Will Call list, complete a Neighborhood Tour Report, request Comp Tickets, etc.

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THE “NEW” BRIDGE
Our new Bridge site will look like and have many of the same features and functionality as our old Bridge.  The new Bridge’s key sections include:

1. Announcements will continue to contain important and time-sensitive news and announcements that the Docent/Volunteer community needs to know. The list of Announcements will continuously scroll, however; to stop this scrolling, simply hover your cursor over the up/down arrows.
2. Features are the stories and articles that educate, inform, and entertain the Docent/Volunteer community.
3. Quick Links will be a duplicate of what appears in the Better Impact News section, thereby making it easy for Docents/Volunteers to find and access the resources and forms needed to help them perform their roles more effectively.
4. Architecture News section will link to recent news and stories about architecture featured on 3^rd party news sites.
5. Homepage is what you’ll click to return the Bridge’s homepage no matter where you are within the Bridge.
6. Features Archives section contains all the old Feature articles that have appeared on The Bridge since 2017. This content is searchable by key word but is otherwise organized by year.

Please note that the content previously stored under the Files & Documents on the old Bridge has been moved to the Files section of Better Impact.

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We hope this overview eases your transition to our new Bridge site
and strengthens your engagement with the CAC.

CLICK HERE for more stories on The Bridge.