A volunteer is having trouble logging into their account. How can I help them?
Overview
Almost every "I cannot log in" case is one of four things: the wrong password, no account at all, an offline profile that has never been invited, or an account created with Google rather than a password.
Work out which one it is before you reset anything. The password reset page tells you in about ten seconds, and it saves you resetting a password on an account that does not exist.
1. How do I find out whether they even have an account?
Send them to the password reset page and see what it says.
Ask them to enter their email address at vomevolunteer.com/forgot. The answer tells you which problem you have:
- It confirms an email was sent. An active account exists on that address. They just need to follow the email and set a new password.
- It cannot find an account. There is no active account on that address, so the problem is not the password. Skip to question 3.
2. They see "No active email account found with these credentials". What does that mean?
Either the email and password do not match, which is by far the most common, or there is no active account on that email address.
It is worth asking them to check the email address itself. A work address they no longer use, or a typo they have been repeating, accounts for a lot of these.
3. There is no account, but I can see them in my database. What is going on?
They almost certainly have an offline profile.
An offline profile is a record you or a colleague created for someone so you could schedule and track them. It holds their history, but it has no login attached, so there is nothing for them to sign in to yet.
To give them one, go to your Database, open the Actions menu, and under Profiles choose Invite offline profiles. They get an invitation, they claim the profile, and their existing history comes with them.
4. Could they have signed up with Google?
Yes, and this catches people out.
The login page offers Continue with Google. If that is how they created their account, they never set a Vome password, so typing their email and guessing a password will never work and the reset email may not help either. Ask them to use the Google button instead.
5. How do I reset their password myself?
From their profile, in your database.
- Open the Database and click the person's profile.
- Open the Actions menu at the top of the profile.
- Choose Reset their password.
- Pick either Automatically generate a new password or Create a new custom password.
- Confirm. Vome shows you the resulting password so you can pass it on.
A custom password has to be between 8 and 256 characters and combine at least three of the following: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, symbols.
6. I cannot see "Reset their password" on the profile. Why not?
Two possible reasons, and both are by design:
- It is an offline profile. There is no login to reset, so the option is hidden. See question 3.
- Your admin role does not include it. Resetting passwords is a separate permission on admin roles. Whoever manages your admin roles can grant it.
7. What should I do after resetting it?
- Send them the password over a channel they can actually reach, which is the point of failure if their email is the thing that is broken.
- Ask them to change it once they are in, so nobody else is holding their password.
- Get confirmation from them that they got in, rather than assuming it worked.
8. They have two-factor authentication and lost the phone. Can I turn it off?
No. Two-factor authentication is set up by the person on their own account, against their own phone number, and an administrator cannot remove it from the database.
Resetting the password will not get them past it either. Contact Vome support for this one.
9. Nothing here worked. What next?
Open Help in Vome and click Chat with support, or submit a ticket.
Tell us the email address they are trying, what the screen actually says, and whether the reset page found an account. With those three things we can usually tell you what is wrong on the first reply.
Summary
- Use vomevolunteer.com/forgot first to establish whether an account exists at all.
- "No active email account found with these credentials" usually means a wrong password, sometimes a wrong email address.
- Someone in your database with no login has an offline profile. Invite it from Database then Actions then Invite offline profiles, rather than having them register again.
- If they signed up with Continue with Google, they have no Vome password to reset.
- To reset one yourself: profile then Actions then Reset their password, generated or custom.
- That option is hidden on offline profiles and requires the matching admin role permission.
- Two-factor authentication cannot be removed by an administrator. That needs support.