Assemble Mobile brings the everyday essentials of volunteering into a single app.

Volunteers can catch up on news, complete training, message the team, manage notifications and get in touch with feedback, all from a phone.

The app can either be white-labeled or generic, so the logo, colours and app name can carry your organisation's own branding, while the features described in this guide still stay consistent across every organisation using Assemble.

This guide covers the first release, Drop 1: Volunteer Engagement, which launches on 10th August. It is written for three audiences, and each article is labelled accordingly:

You can also download the guide by accessing the link below:

Signing in connects the app securely to your organisation's Assemble account, so your training, messages and activity history are ready as soon as you open it.

Home is your dashboard for a quick view of your volunteering activity. It brings together a personalised welcome, impact stats, your next activity, the latest news and any outstanding training.

Five tabs sit along the bottom of the app: Home, Activities, Feedback, Messages and Resources.

News keeps volunteers up to date with what's happening across the organisation. Articles appear in a carousel on Home and in a full News list, and open into a clean, readable article view.

The News list shows every article with a running count (‘Showing X of Y articles’). Scroll to load more automatically, with a ‘Loading more articles...’ footer while it fetches the next batch. Each article card shows a thumbnail, title, short excerpt and a relative time such as ‘2 hours ago’.

An open article shows its title, timestamp, hero image with caption, the full body and any tags, followed by up to three related More News articles you can jump straight into. The share icon lets you send the article on using your phone's own share options.

Article content is written in Markdown, and any link a volunteer taps is handled by the app rather than passed straight to the browser, so the best experience is chosen automatically:

Training lists every induction and ongoing learning module assigned to a volunteer. Modules can be marked Required, and can carry a due date and a renewal or expiry date.

Every module uses exactly one of three completion methods, set by the admin when the module is configured. The app shows the right action automatically, so volunteers never need to work out which applies.

Used when volunteer completion is switched on for the module. The volunteer confirms the training themselves.

Used when volunteer self-completion is switched off and the module isn't linked to an LMS. The volunteer sees a read-only view with a Done button to close it, and cannot mark it complete themselves.

A manager, or anyone with the training-records permission, records the completion on the volunteer's behalf from the Assemble web platform. The module then shows as Complete the next time the volunteer's training list refreshes.

Used when the organisation has a supported Learning Management System enabled and the module is linked to a course with sync switched on. These modules are labelled eLearning.

Supported LMS providers: Moodle, CLC (a Moodle-based LMS with pathway support), TalentLMS, Cornerstone and Litmos. Completions come back from the LMS through an automatic background sync.

Self-certification and LMS linking are mutually exclusive. If a module is linked to an LMS course, volunteer self-completion is switched off automatically, so a volunteer only ever sees one completion action per module.

The Messages tab brings a full inbox into the app, so volunteers with the right permission can read, write and manage messages without leaving Assemble Mobile.

The tab is hidden completely for anyone without the send-messages permission.

A red badge on the tab shows the unread count, capped at ‘30+’.

Five folders sit along the top: Inbox, Important, Sent, Drafts and Deleted, each with its own count badge. The list refreshes on pull-down and loads more messages automatically while scrolling.

The search bar finds messages within the current folder. It waits about a second after typing stops before searching, to keep things responsive.

The recipient search draws on several sources, each gated by permission:

Before sending, a message needs at least one recipient, a subject and a body - the send icon stays disabled until a recipient is added, and any missing items are listed if a volunteer tries to send early.

Work in progress is saved automatically at intervals while composing. Closing a message with unsaved content prompts a choice: Save Draft, Delete Draft or Keep Editing. Saved drafts sit in the Drafts folder, ready to resume.

Opening a message marks it as read for recipients, and reply threads are grouped together. From an open message:

System messages and bulk broadcasts can't be replied to - Forward is the only option offered for these.

The ⋮ menu on an open message (not shown in Sent) toggles Important, Read/Unread, and Delete or Recover.

Long-press a message, or tap its avatar, to enter selection mode, then tap further messages to add them. A bulk action bar offers Read/Unread, Important and Delete or Recover. Selection is switched off in Sent, and Read/Important actions are hidden in Drafts and Deleted.

Tapping a message notification opens that message directly.

The bell icon on Home opens a volunteer's notification history. Notification Settings lets them choose exactly what they hear about.

The Feedback tab opens a short Microsoft Form inside the app, giving volunteers a direct way to share their thoughts on the new mobile experience.

Tapping the avatar on Home opens the Profile screen, showing a volunteer's details and giving access to sign out.

Signing out logs the volunteer out securely and stops notifications going to that device.

Most of the app works the same for every volunteer, but a handful of features depend on permissions and settings held on the Assemble web platform.

Where a module isn't set up for self-certification or an LMS, it falls to a manager to record completion. This happens from the Assemble web platform against the volunteer's training record. Once saved, the module updates to Complete in the app the next time the volunteer's training list refreshes - there's no separate step needed on the volunteer's device.

Linking a module to a supported LMS course (Moodle, CLC, TalentLMS, Cornerstone or Litmos) and enabling sync automatically switches off volunteer self-completion for that module, so there's no risk of a module ending up with two conflicting completion methods.

Assemble Mobile is rolling out in drops, so volunteers, managers and admins see improvements sooner and can shape what comes next. Drop 1: Volunteer Engagement, covered in this guide, is the first of five planned drops.

These dates are indicative and follow the same roadmap safe harbor statement as the wider Assemble roadmap: they set out our current thinking and may change as development progresses.