It is National Volunteers Week — what better time to provide an update on progress with the Essential Service Volunteers mobile application (ESV app) since its release in April.

Of course, Covid-19 caused a number of disruptions for both our staff and the client. For the Volunteer Bush Fire Brigades of WA, regular brigade meetings were interrupted and so word of mouth knowledge of the app was impacted. For Gaia Resources ESV App team, going to lock-down to keep everyone safe made it somewhat harder to collaborate on ESV Stage 2. But by no means impossible! Gaia Resources management quickly responded to comprehensively support working from home and so development continued at a good pace.

Stage 2 has seen major improvements to the app on mobile devices, allowing for better features and an improved user experience, providing more control for volunteers indicating their location with manual tracking, and better geographical search functions for nearby businesses offering discounts rewarding volunteer efforts.

During this stage, our development team also commenced work the web-based administrative portal to manage volunteers, brigades, businesses and the reporting of data. The admin portal is looking to be in a usable state this week and has just been presented to the clients for comment. Work will then continue for the near future to make it even better for all parties.

The clients are keen to find more volunteer-supporting businesses in country areas. If they come on board as Covid-19 restrictions are raised to allow internal state travel, then it is expected that many more supporters will rally around the ES Volunteers. For example, in just the last fortnight there has been over a 200% increase in supporting businesses! Hopefully, this is one example of a silver lining around the disruption the pandemic has caused.

For more detailed information about the ES Volunteers App, including usage instructions and information for suppliers that would like to list a special offer for volunteers, please visit www.esvolunteers.org.au — help these guys help our community.

If you’re interested in how mobile data collection apps could help your organisation, feel free to comment below, contact me at angus.mackay@archive.gaiaresources.com.au, or start a chat via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Wishing you all well in this trying time and hope you are keeping safe.

Gus