Recommendation Forms
For a visual look at Ratings, check out our video here.
Recommendation Forms are used hand and hand with Candidate Ratings. Through recommendation forms, the entire process is available online and can include a ratings matrix as well.
The process begins from the candidate who initiates it from their checklist by sending a request to the teacher or faculty member of their choosing. A notification is received by the person who then selects the link to be taken to the form. After filling in all of the data, it is submitted behind the scenes to the assigned admissions manager for review and final confirmation. This also means that the candidate never see the details of the form, but if notifications are enabled, they'll continued to be updated on the progress as well as when it has been completed.
Before the process can begin however, new Recommendation forms must be created. You can start working on or managing existing recommendation forms from Enrollment management, Admissions, Admissions setup, and the Recommendation Forms.
Recommendation forms can also be used in checklists. Edit the checklist and add the Recommendation form to the appropriate step where it's needed.
Select +Add recommendation form to create a new one from scratch.
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Under General, you control the basic details of the form adding a new form name, setting the status as well as a Published Date Range if you only want the form to be active from a certain time period. Otherwise, you don't need to set an actual date range.
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Administration Notifications is where you customize and set up the notifications that are sent to administrator users. The three options are when a request is submitted, declined, and declined/disallowed. Expand a section to toggle it active, customize the reply email, from name, subject, body message, and recipients that should be notified either by a specific role or individual users.
Multiple staff members can be added from the Recipient(s) field. They need to be added one at a time.
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Candidate Notifications are for keeping candidates updated with the recommendation request. They can be customized exactly like Administrator notifications for when a request is sent or submitted.
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Recommender Notifications are the final part of this setup and are for the person doing the recommending. They work like the other two notification types and can be set up for when a recommendation is submitted, requested, and as a reminder to do the recommendation.
When your satisfied with the information entered select Save & Close to return to the Recommendation forms list or Save & Edit Form to be taken to the form editor to customize the look and feel. If Cancel is selected, you're taken back to the Recommendation forms list and none of the information you entered is saved.
All previously made Recommendation forms can be found here. Each column can be sorted or adjusted like other Lists while the data can be quickly adjusted such as editing form names or changing the status. Filters can also be applied to reduce the amount of results displayed.
A context menu is available for every form with the following options:
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Access settings - Can change the settings from when the form was first created.
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Edit form - If you need to make an actual change to the form itself, you can do so from here. Add new elements or blocks, change the data that displays, or update certain form settings like visibility or if a field is required or not. This section is identical to creating or modifying other forms in the product.
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Copy form - Use this option to quickly create an identical version of an existing recommendation form.
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Delete form - Removes a form from this list.
Keep in mind that when you use this option, all started and submitted forms associated with it are also deleted. This action is also permanent and can't be undone. A confirmation screen does show how many started or submitted forms are associated to help make the decision a little easier.
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Archive form - As an alternative to deleting a form, you can select to archive it. While the form is not longer available, it can be made active again if needed.
As noted above, this entire process is initiated by the candidate from their checklist. Select Start next to a Recommendation step to open the request details. In here, the Candidate can add the Recommender Name, their Email address, and any additional comments for the faculty member. A preview is available for use before the request is sent out which displays what the notification looks like to the person receiving it.
When everything looks good, select Send Request. The status of the request displays on the checklist as well as the timestamp to keep the candidate up to date on the process. After a form is sent to a faculty member, the status displays as Requested, then changing to Completed once the form has been completed by the faculty member.
Recommendation forms can be resubmitted if needed. You can send to the same person and email, a different email, or a different person entirely.
When a Recommendation request is sent from a candidate, the faculty member receives an email notification provided that the feature was setup initially.
If needed, teachers can decline the recommendation request from a link inside the notification. Otherwise, the teacher is taken to the Recommendation form page where they see who made the request, the name of the request, and any comments. In order to begin, you'll need to complete the reCaptcha to prove you're not a robot then select Continue Recommendation to be taken to the form.
Each form is customized by the school, but generally the initial page displays the student information such as their name, grade, and other relevant information. Selecting Next will enable the person filling out the Recommendation form to step through each section until they get to the Signature and then Confirmation sections. Once complete, select Submit to send the form to the admissions manager for review and final processing.
For longer forms, teachers can come back at a later date and pick right back up where they left off without having to start the form all over again.
When attempting to edit a locked form, a blue banner now appears at the top indicating that the form is in use and locked for editing. However, admissions managers can now select Edit Form on the left side which will open a warning screen that needs to be confirmed before the form can be edited. Keep in mind that only text-based fields can be edited (text blocks, field names etc).
Edits made after the form has been locked are also added to an audit log, which will keep track of changes made including the date of the change, the user who made the edits, which fields were changed and the previous and new values. The logs are accessible from View History under Edit Form.