Activist HandbookOn this page
In this guide, we will help you to get started as a Tech supporter. If you are already a Tech supporter, we encourage you to edit this guide to make it fit better with your working style. This will help both you and your successor! Also make sure to check out the guides for coordinators.
If you would like to contribute to the development of Rebel Tools, check out how to join our project.
Your role
Summary: As Tech supporter, your purpose will be to provide assistance to Activist Handbook volunteers who are facing tech issues, as well as to create guides regarding tech support.
You will also be acting as liaison and provide a helping hand for the Rebel Tools tech sub-circle within the Tech circle.
Role definition: You can find the exact purpose, domain and accountabilities of this role in Airtable.
Welcoming new volunteers
Tech training
Schedule an individual tech training with all new volunteers. Talk about the following, and adapt the training to their tech-savviness:
- Slack: Help them download the app and turn on notifications. Explain how to use channels, threads and huddles.
- Google Workspace: Creating a Google Chrome profile and signing in with their Google Workspace account.
- Show how they can use their Gmail, Calendar and Drive with their Google Workspace account.
- Show how they can create a video call within Google Calendar,
- Show how to use our templates in Google Drive.
- Passwords: Show how they can access all relevant passwords using the Passwd tool.
- Airtable: Using the to-do table in Airtable.
- Website: Sign in to the website using their Google Workspace account. Make sure to explain how they can edit their own volunteer guide.
Administrative steps
When new volunteers join our organisation, you are responsible for doing the following (also explained in video):
- Create a new user account for this volunteer in the Google Admin Console. Use only their first name for their email address, unless it is already taken.
- In the Google Admin Console, update the contact information (under the user information section) and recovery information (under the security section) of the user profile. As contact info, add both their email and phone number. As recovery info, only add their email. You can find their info in the volunteer list in Airtable.
- Add the user to the right user groups in the Google Admin Console. This way, they will automatically get access to the right passwords.
- Give new accounts access to our collaborative Google Calendar, so they can see and edit our events.
- Add the new account to the shared Google Drive.
- Add the email address of the new user to Grammarly, so they have access to our Pro team subscription.
- Add them to the right Slack channels.
- If necessary, give them access to our Youtube channel.
Keep tech guide up-to-date
As a tech supporter, it is your responsibility to keep our tech guide for volunteers up to date.
Common issues
Forgot Google Workspace password
Reset their password in the Google Admin Console. Choose an automatically generated one, and click the send email button. They will then receive a link to reset it. This link is only valid for a limited time.
They can also reset it themselves with their personal email address if you added it to their recovery info.
Forgot website password
- Ask what email address they used to log in
- Look up their name & email address in the admin view of our website. If there is none, look them up in our Slack & Mailchimp, to see if they may have used another email address. If you then still cannot find the account, they probably just never created one. In that case, show them how to create an account.
- If you can find the account in the website admin dashboard, change the password for them (use a random password generator). Send them this password, and ask them to change it. Once they are signed in, this can be done here: https://www.activisthandbook.org/p/profile
Related articles
External resources
- Google Drive folder
- Technical support by Wikipedia
