VSys One: Volunteer Management Software

Shortcuts, Tips and Tricks in VSys One

Accessing Database Selection and Tools at Startup

If VSys is set up to automatically start with a particular database connection, the table repair tools and database selector window doesn't come up when VSys starts. If you hold down the left Ctrl key on your keyboard for the first few seconds while VSys starts up, it will bring up the database selector window.

Background Fade Options

You can make the backgrounds behind most lists disappear or be less visible – from System preferences and feature enabling or on User preferences on the left side of the VSys One home screen. Change the background fade setting to a higher value to make it less visible, lower to make it stand out more.

Capitalization and Lookups

When looking up people by name, you don’t have to capitalize the values you type in. VSys ignores how names are capitalized when it’s doing lookups.

Comments and Images

If you scan in an image and attach it to multiple people in the Comments and images tool, VSys really only stores it in the database once. Then it lets all of the people link to it. Scanning the same image more than once, though, will not do this: the same image scanned more than once is always very slightly different, in which case every time it’s scanned it will be stored separately and take up more space.

Saving Changes

When the Save button is visible in the upper-right corner of the screen, clicking Save alone saves what you’re working on and takes you back one level. On many screens, if you hold down Save for a half-second without releasing it, a popup menu will appear offering you the choice of Save and close or Save and stay here. This lets you save your changes without having to come back into the current screen. (You can also hold down the left Ctrl key on your keyboard while clicking Save, it has the same effect.)

There are a few places in VSys where this trick doesn't work, usually because VSys needs to exit the screen it's on as part of saving the changes.

Keyboard Shortcuts

When you see a button with an underlined letter, e.g. Print (), you can press Alt+P (hold down the Alt key on your keyboard, and while it’s down, click P) to "click" that button without using the mouse.

In many places, like Reports and the Person lookup tool, hitting the Enter key is the same thing as hitting the most prominent/obvious button on screen. In these cases, it’s the same as hitting the Print and Search buttons, respectively.

You can use the Tab key to move quickly between fields. In the Person lookup tool, your cursor ends up by default in the field for the person’s family name. Type in that value, then hit Tab to go to the first name field, enter that, then hit Enter to search, all without your hands leaving the keyboard.

Looking for a specific value in a drop-down editor? Try typing in the text box to have VSys filter the available options for you, helping you find the one you're looking for.

When entering an address, enter the zip/postal code and if the City and State fields are empty, VSys will fill them in automatically if it can using the zips table.

Not Just For Phone Numbers

You can enter e-mail addresses and websites in phone number fields: just indicate the appropriate type for the contents of the field.

Person Lookup Tricks

Barcode/Magnetic Stripe Lookup: anywhere in the Person lookup tool, scan the person's credential ID or login swipe code using your barcode or magnetic stripe scanner. If VSys recognizes the code, it will immediately find and open that person.

By ID code: In the Person lookup tool, in the Family name field, enter (or paste) a person's 16-digit ID code (e.g. "EUW38W898JD7YZU5"), then hit Enter. This is handy if you're working with the Interactive File Importer or any other tool that references this ID code for each person.

Quick Navigation

In places like the Profile editor where you've got multiple open panels and some scroll off the bottom, clicking on the panel’s name in the left navigation bar will bring that panel into view immediately. You can also use the scroll wheel on your mouse to scroll panels up and down on the screen.