Volunteer Training Guide

These are the common procedures for training a volunteer on their first day of orientation.

1)   Introduce the new volunteer to the VCN Volunteer Homepage and have them sign up for a shift.  Go through the procedure on how to sign up for the shift which would be on the bottom of the page.

2)  Then, go through the Helpdesk Checklist Level 1 with them.

Before proceeding:

Make sure the volunteer knows how to:

  • Create a VCN Account under their name and register a VCN account for another person.
  • Check voicemail messages and document the message on a ticket
  • Use the passwords of everyday operations (, wi-fi passwords, laptop passwords, etc.)
  • Answer calls.  For example, “This is Lauren from VCN Helpdesk; how may I help you today?”
  • Create a request in the queue
  • Reply to a request and use the appropriate signature.
  • Check for the MRTG (which is a graph assigned to VCN for dial-up up-time and down-time on a 24-hour basis).

After this:

Go over the main components of the VCN website.  Make sure the volunteer knows how to:

  • Open a new VCN account
  • Test and setup their own dial-up connection using
  • Call back any voicemails left to VCN
  • get their own VCN account
  • Setup email for multiple platforms (SquirrelMail, Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.)
  • Troubleshoot incoming/outgoing e-mail problems

Spam processing guide:

  • Open the ticket
  • Click the Basics under the navigation
  • Change the queue to spam
  • Click save changes

Volunteers can advance to Network Administrator Level 1 and 2 once they have mastered the Helpdesk procedures.