The portal brings AFIC's day-to-day work into one place. You sign in once and reach every module you have access to.

The home page

Needs your attention down the left lists only things waiting on you - leave requests you must approve, action items past their due date, deadlines approaching. If it says nothing is waiting, there genuinely isn't anything.

The tiles on the right open each module. The numbers on them update every time you load the page.

Signing in

Use your AFIC email address. If you've forgotten your password, choose Forgot your password? on the sign-in screen and a reset link is emailed to you.

Click the gear icon at the top right of the home page and choose My Profile or Change Password. Both open the same page.

What else appears in that menu depends on your role. Most staff see only the account items; HR, the Executive Director, Communications and administrators each see the tools they're responsible for.

What you can change

• Your name, job title and department
• Your profile colour - used for your initials throughout the portal
• Your password

Your email address and role are set by an administrator and can't be edited here.

Log what you work on month by month, against AFIC's strategic themes. This is what the annual report is eventually built from, so keeping it current matters more than it might look.

Logging an activity

1. Open My Activities and choose Add Activity.
2. Give it a title, pick the strategic theme it belongs to, and set the dates.
3. Add the colleagues working on it with you — pick them from the list, or use Add All Staff. The text box underneath is for people outside AFIC, such as partner or member-organisation contacts.
4. Set a status - Planned, Ongoing, Completed, Delayed or Cancelled.
5. Record KPIs and outputs, achievements and challenges as the work progresses.

The form has four tabs. Basic Info covers what and when; Progress & Results covers targets and what actually happened; Engagement covers visibility and members; Details holds feedback, resources and notes.

The other views

• My Work Plan - your activities for the year, grouped by theme (see below)
• Calendar View - your activities laid out by date
• Meeting Actions - action items assigned to you from meetings, alongside your own activities
• Annual Report - a summary grouped by theme, for the year you choose
• Export Data - download your activities as a spreadsheet

A work plan sets out what you'll be working on this year and how each piece connects to one of AFIC's strategic themes. It lives inside the Activity Tracker under My Work Plan.

It isn't a second place to type things. A plan is simply a labelled bundle of your activities — the ones you already log — so the page groups them by theme and shows how far along you are.

Getting started

1. Open My Work Plan and choose Create my work plan. You get one plan per year.
2. Add activities from that page, or set the Work Plan field when logging an activity anywhere else.
3. Aim for six to fifteen activities. Fewer isn't a plan; many more becomes a diary.

Two fields people ask about

On the Engagement tab of each activity:

• Visibility Plan — how will anyone outside the room know this happened? A press release, a social media push, a launch event, a published report. If nothing is planned, write that; it's a legitimate answer for internal work.
• Membership Engagement — which AFIC members are involved, and how? Consulted, co-hosting, contributing data, joining the advocacy. Leave it blank where it doesn't apply rather than inventing something.

Projects

Where an activity belongs to a funded project, pick it in the Project field. That's what lets the organisation see everything happening on a given project across all staff. If the list is empty, the projects register hasn't been filled in yet — leave it blank and carry on.

Requesting leave

1. Choose Request Leave and pick the leave type.
2. Set your start and end dates. The form shows how many working days that is.
3. Nominate a stand-in - a colleague who will cover for you.
4. Add a reason if you wish, then submit.

What happens next

Your stand-in is notified first and must accept. If they decline, you'll be prompted to choose another stand-in - your request doesn't have to start again. Once accepted, it goes to the HR Manager, then to the Executive Director for final approval. You're notified at each step, and all staff are told once leave is approved.

The rules

• A stand-in is required for every type except Sick leave
• Only colleagues who aren't themselves on leave during your dates can be chosen
• Annual and Compassionate leave are capped at 10 working days per request
• Weekends and public holidays are not deducted from your balance
• Leave types: Annual, Sick, Maternity/Paternity, Compassionate, Study, Emergency

Other things here

The team calendar shows who's away and marks public holidays. Your remaining balance per leave type is on the main leave page.

Recording a meeting

1. Choose New Meeting and fill in the title, date, type and venue.
2. Add attendees - staff from the system, or external people by name and email.
3. Write a summary, and add a minutes link (a Google Doc, for example).
4. Add action items, assigning each to a person with a due date.

Minutes are reviewed before they go out

1. When the minutes are ready, choose a colleague and Send for Review.
2. They either Approve or Return for Changes with a comment.
3. Returned minutes go back to draft so you can edit and resubmit. Every round is kept on the meeting.
4. Once approved, you can circulate them.

Sending action items

Press Send Action Items and each person receives one email listing only their own actions from that meeting. Creating an action no longer sends an email by itself - people get an in-app notification straight away, and the email when you send them.

Meetings are grouped by month. Use the month selector to narrow the list.

Contact details for AFIC's member organisations. Each appears as a card, colour-coded by whether its details have been verified. Click a card to see the full record - addresses, phone numbers, websites and named contact people.

Keeping details current

Use Send Verification on a member to email them a link. They confirm or correct their own details. Phone, website and social fields update automatically; changes to name, address or email come back for review under Update Suggestions.

Mailing lists

The Mailing Lists button gathers addresses for a group - primary contacts, communications, finance, or everyone - deduplicated and optionally filtered by region. Copy them to your clipboard or download a CSV, then send from your own mailbox.

Research, publications and advocacy materials from AFIC and its member organisations. Filter by category, type, year or organisation, or search by title and description.

Resources are documents, video links or external links. Documents download; links open in a new tab.

Member submissions

Member organisations can contribute without a portal account. An administrator sends them a submission link by email; they upload the resource, and it appears once reviewed. Submissions from members are marked as such and carry a note that the views are the organisation's own.

Appraisals run in cycles - Annual, Mid-Year or End of Probation - opened by an administrator, who adds the staff taking part.

How yours progresses

1. Your appraisal starts as a Draft that only you can edit.
2. Complete your sections: training and qualifications, technical competence (60% weight) and competences and soft skills (40%).
3. Submit when you're finished. It moves to Under Review and you can no longer edit it.
4. Your supervisor scores and comments, then confirms. The appraisal becomes Reviewed.

Completed appraisals can be exported as a PDF report.

Funding calls and the proposals written against them, from first sighting through to award.

The stages

1. Programme Review - anyone can add a funding call. Programmes, the ED or an admin decide whether to pursue it, and assign a lead, co-lead and budget person.
2. Not Started - approved, waiting to begin. The lead presses Start Working.
3. Under Development - being written. Add resources as you go, split into Programmatic and Finance.
4. Under Review - submitted internally for checking.
5. Submitted - sent to the funder.
6. Awarded or archived.

Each card shows the deadline, turning amber within a fortnight and red once overdue. Reviewers are emailed automatic reminders 10 days and 3 days before a deadline.

The page looks broken or out of date

Press Ctrl + F5 (or Ctrl + Shift + R) to force your browser to fetch the newest version. This fixes most oddities after an update.

I've been signed out

Sessions last seven days. Sign in again - nothing is lost.

I can't see a module I expect

Some modules are limited by role. If you think you should have access, ask an administrator to check your role.

A number looks wrong

Tile figures refresh when the page loads. Reload before assuming a count is stale.

I didn't get an email

Check your spam folder first. In-app notifications appear under the bell icon regardless of whether the email arrived.