Vome can turn your opportunity list into a file you can print, pin up or work with in a spreadsheet. This article covers where to find it, which format to pick, and what ends up in the file.

1. What does Export opportunities do?

It takes the opportunities you can see and produces a file from them. There are four formats, and they answer two different needs.

• PDF (Bulletin board) and PDF (Table) are for printing and sharing.
• Microsoft Excel Worksheet (.xlsx) and Comma Separated Values (.csv) are for working with the data.

Nothing is changed in your account. An export only reads.

2. Where do I find it?

1. Go to My Opportunities.
2. Click Actions in the top right.
3. Choose Export opportunities.

The window that opens has your settings on the left and a live preview on the right. The preview is the file: what you see is what downloads.

3. Which format should I choose?

It depends on who is reading it.

• PDF (Bulletin board) gives you one card per opportunity, laid out one, two or three to a row. This is the one to print for a noticeboard, a welcome desk or a community centre wall.
• PDF (Table) gives you one row per opportunity. Use it when you want a compact printed reference rather than something to pin up.
• Excel gives you a spreadsheet you can sort, filter and edit.
• CSV gives you plain columns for loading into another system.

4. What makes the bulletin board different?

Each opportunity becomes a card with its title, category, sites, description and a QR code. Someone standing in front of the board can scan the code with their phone and land on that opportunity straight away.

Under Styling options you control the card layout:

• One, two or three cards per row.
• Show QR code, on by default.
• Show colour bar, which prints each card with its opportunity colour along the top.
• Full description, which prints the whole description instead of the first few lines.

Cards show the QR code rather than a printed web address. A link long enough to be real is too long to read off a wall, and nobody types one in from across a room.

5. Which fields are included, and can I change them?

Yes. Open Manage fields in the export window. Every field has a switch to show or hide it, and you can drag fields into the order you want. That order is the column order in the spreadsheet and the order fields appear on a card.

The export starts with a sensible set already chosen, and the two kinds of file start differently on purpose:

• A spreadsheet starts with title, category, description, sites, location type, address, commitment, tags, coordinators, watchers and the shareable link.
• A bulletin board starts with the same list minus coordinators and watchers, since staff names do not belong on a public noticeboard.

Beyond the defaults you can add status, visibility, custom tags, meeting place, commitment detail, age requirement, application deadline, impact value, created date and the opportunity ID.

6. Can I group the opportunities?

Yes. Under Group, choose to group by category, site, opportunity tag or status, or leave it ungrouped. Grouping by category is the usual choice for a noticeboard, so everything in one programme sits together.

On a PDF you also get Start each group on a new page, which gives you one clean page per category to pin up separately.

In a spreadsheet, grouping adds a Group column instead of heading rows. Heading rows in the middle of a sheet break sorting and filtering, which is usually the reason you exported a spreadsheet in the first place.

Sites: grouping and filtering by site are available on the Enterprise and Ultimate plans, and only to administrators linked to more than one site, or to the account holder. Everyone else sees the other options as normal.

7. Can I export only some opportunities?

Yes, in two ways, and they work together.

The export opens scoped to what you were just looking at. The line under the title tells you how many are included, and clicking it switches between the opportunities in your current view and every opportunity in your organization.

Inside the window, Filters narrows things further by status, category, site, opportunity tag and visibility. Whatever you choose is listed at the top of the PDF, so anyone reading the printout can see what it covers.

8. Why is the shareable link blank for some opportunities?

Because the opportunity is not published. Vome only creates a shareable link for an active opportunity, so drafts and inactive opportunities export with that column empty.

This matters most for the bulletin board. Filter to active opportunities before printing something for a public wall, or some cards will carry a code that leads nowhere useful.

Before you print: set the status filter to Active for anything going on a public noticeboard. Draft and inactive opportunities have no shareable link, and their QR codes will not take a reader anywhere they can sign up.

9. Can I edit the spreadsheet and import it back?

Yes, and the columns were chosen for exactly that. The default spreadsheet columns match the ones the opportunity importer reads, so you can export your opportunities, make your changes in Excel and bring them back in.

If you reorder or hide columns before exporting, keep the headings as they are. The importer matches on the heading text, not on position.

A use for this: exporting to Excel is a quick way to review every opportunity description in one place, fix the wording in bulk, and import the sheet back rather than opening each opportunity one at a time. See How do I import opportunities from a spreadsheet?

10. Does exporting change anything?

No. An export only reads your opportunities. Hiding a field changes what appears in the file and nothing about the opportunity itself, and Reset puts the export settings back to how they started without touching your data.

Summary

• My Opportunities then Actions then Export opportunities.
• Four formats: a bulletin board PDF with QR codes, a table PDF, Excel and CSV.
• Manage fields decides which fields appear and in what order.
• Group by category, site, opportunity tag or status, with one page per group on a PDF.
• The export starts scoped to your current view, and the filters narrow it further.
• Only active opportunities have a shareable link, so filter to Active before printing for a public board.
• The spreadsheet columns match the opportunity importer, so you can export, edit and import back.

Still stuck? submit a ticket and we will help, or email support@vomevolunteer.zohodesk.com.