This article discusses the classic Administrative home page. This page serves as the landing page and hub for all classic functionality. The modern Admin Console was introduced in January 2020 as an alternative for the classic homepage. The Admin Console houses all of the newest features and functionality. For information on this updated interface, including how to set the Admin Console as your default landing page, refer to The Admin Console for Terra Dotta Study Abroad Knowledgebase article.
This article covers the following topics:
- Admin Home Page and Settings
-
Admin Settings
- Customize Display
- Administrative Settings
- Custom Email Templates
- Creating an Email Template
- Editing an Email Template
- Using Custom Email Templates
- Query Watches
- Tasks
- My Queries and Reports
- SMS Notifications
- My Notes
- Terra Dotta Support
- My Appointments
- My Information Requests
- My Recommendations
- Updates to Sponsored Programs
- Applications without Itineraries or Locations
Admin Home Page and Settings
Once an Administrator logs in using their admin username and password, the Admin Home Page is displayed. This article displays the complete Admin home page and identifies different panels.
Admin Settings
Three panels can be accessed by clicking the 'Admin Settings’ button at the top of the Admin Home Page: the 'Customize Display' panel, the 'Administrative Settings' panel, and the 'Custom Email Templates' panel.
Customize Display
You can use the 'Customize Display' panel on the left to customize the look of your Admin Home Page. If the box next to the name of the feature is checked, it will appear on your home page. If you wish to remove a feature from your home page, uncheck the box.
Administrative Settings
The 'Administrative Settings' panel allows you to choose which homepage you would like to land on when you first log in (this is called your 'landing page’).
The 'Administrative Settings' panel also allows you to create and use a standard signature line for all emails sent through the software. You can use this feature only if you have enabled the HTML WYSIWYG Editor in Settings > System Features > Features tab > Administrative Email Formatting section.
In the 'Administrative Settings' panel on the Admin Home Page, check the box next to 'Use signature for my system emails’ in order to turn on the email signature feature. Turning on this feature means that all the emails you send through the Terra Dotta software will automatically show your formatted signature at the end. This saves you from having to type your signature each time you want to send an email through the system. You can edit and format your signature using the WYSIWYG editor below the check box. When you are done, click 'Save’ to save your changes.
Custom Email Templates
This section applies to clients using TDS 18.1 or a later version. Further note that this section applies to templates for personal, admin-generated emails. To learn how to customize system-generated emails, please refer to the article "Customizable Email Templates."
You can use the 'Custom Email Templates' section to create personal custom email templates allowing administrators to quickly deploy important, relevant information almost anywhere you’re using the system to send an email.
This section will display any existing email templates to which the administrator has access. The name of the template, a description of the template, and the sharing status of the template will be displayed. If the template has been shared for use by other administrators in a permission group, those groups will be listed in the “Shared” column. If the template is for personal use and it has not been shared, the column will be blank.
Creating an Email Template
A new template can be created by clicking “Add new” at the bottom of the “Custom Email Templates”
section. This will open a page on which you can enter the template name, a description for the template,
choose with whom it should be shared, build the content of the email, and preview the email.
A warning will be displayed if you attempt to enter a name for the template that is already in use. Though
you will not be prevented from doing so, we do not recommend using the same name for multiple templates in order to avoid confusion when templates are shared.
The “Share with permission groups” menu will be populated with the default and custom permission
groups on your site. A template can be shared with multiple user groups by selecting them from this
menu. Templates cannot be shared with individual users.
The content area features a full WYSIWYG editor and includes the content merge functionality to enable
mail merge tags, allowing you to make the template applicable to broad groups of users.
Clicking the “Refresh Preview” button will allow you to see a text preview of the email content before
saving.
Click “Update” at the bottom of the page to save your new template.
Editing an Email Template
A template can be edited by clicking the edit pencil icon in the “Actions” column or deleted by clicking the red ‘x’ icon. A padlock icon indicates that the template was created by another administrator and shared to you through a permission group.
Using Custom Email Templates
administrator to utilize a custom email template. This dropdown will list any templates the admin has
created or have been shared with them.
Selecting a template from the menu will populate the WYSIWYG editor content with the saved template
content.
Custom email templates can be utilized in these places:
- The Email tab of an application/record
- The Email tab of a profile
- The Batch Email function (Applicants / Profiles > Search > Options > Send Email)
- Query Watch Emails (“Use Custom Email template” dropdown menu on query watch settings page) - especially useful when using multiple query watches with the same email content that needs frequent editing
- Note: Merge fields do not pull in application data when an email is sent to a staff member because that person does not have an application from which to pull that data. The staff member will not see the applicants' data populated in the merge field since the email is delivered directly to them. This is important to remember when staff members are copied on emails to applicants or included directly in the query watch.
Query Watches
Tasks
My Queries and Reports
You can also use the various icons to the right of the saved query or report to: export the data (either as text or as an Excel document), create a new query or report, and/or edit or delete the query or report. To learn more about creating and saving queries and reports, refer to the knowledgebase article titled Queries and Reports.
This panel also gives you the ability to combine saved queries and reports. For instance, you may have a saved query such as, 'Fall 2017 Paris,’ which queries the applications for Fall 2017 for programs located in Paris. You can then combine one of your saved reports, such as an 'Emergency Contact Report,’ with this query. This combination would create a report of emergency contacts listed in all applications for Fall 2017 programs in Paris:
You can then choose to view the new report in your browser window (click the 'Run report’ button) or export the report to an Excel document (click the 'Excel export’ button).
You are also able to organize your saved queries and reports into folders. To move saved queries or saved reports to a different folder, check the box to the left of the query or report’s name. Then, open the drop-down menu next to 'Move checked items to’ and choose the folder to which you’d like the saved query or report to be moved.
To create a new folder, or to reorder or edit the existing folders, click the 'Manage Folders’ button in the upper right area of this page. This will open the 'Query & Report Folders' page. To edit the name of an existing folder, click the pencil icon to the right of the folder’s name. Type the new name of the folder and click 'Update.' To change the order of the folders as they appear on your Admin Home Page, change the numbers in the '#’ column to the left of the folder names, then click 'Re-order.' To create a new folder, click the 'New Folder’ button above the panel:
Type in the name of the new folder, and then designate whether it is a query folder or a report folder, then click 'Save.’ To delete a folder, click the 'X' to the right of the folder’s name. If you see a padlock instead of an 'X,' then the folder contains saved queries or reports. Move the saved queries or reports to another folder. Once the folder is empty, it can be deleted.
You are also able to search for any queries or reports you've created using the keyword search field at the top of each section.
Both queries and reports are sharable, meaning that you can share them with other administrators as links on their admin home pages. You can begin the process of sharing saved queries or reports by clicking on the 'Share Queries' or 'Share Reports' buttons on the admin homepage.
SMS Notifications
My Notes
The next panel is the 'My Notes’ panel. The My Notes panel is like a personal notebook and can be used to store reminders, facts, important numbers, or any text you wish to store. It is visible only to you, but it is not recommended that you store passwords to any system on it.
Terra Dotta Support
This panel also links to 'Service Alerts. Clicking this takes you to our Terra Dotta Status Page where you can view real-time information about our server and service status and subscribe to updates about any server maintenance or issues that impact hosted site up time.
For more support resources, visit http://support.terradotta.com and log in to the Terra Dotta Support Portal.
My Appointments
Clicking on the applicant’s name will open a new window or tab and take you to the Information Request form the applicant filled out when they scheduled the appointment. You can also e-mail the applicant directly by clicking 'Send Email.’ You can view information about the applicant by clicking 'View Applicant Info’ underneath the appointment. This link will take you to another window or tab with basic information about the applicant, supplied by Terra Dotta software or by your student information system.
Refer to our knowledgebase article on implementing the staff appointment system for more information.
My Information Requests
This panel displays all information requests that are generated by applicants from your staff page for which you have not registered a reply in the information request system.
You can click on the title of the information request to see the applicant’s full question, as well as provide a response. You can click on 'View All’ at the bottom of the panel, and you will be brought to the 'Manage All’ section for information requests. From the 'Manage All’ section, you can see all the information requests that have been submitted, reply to information requests, and view past responses to information requests.
My Recommendations
To complete a pending recommendation, or to view a completed recommendation, click on the name of the person who requested the recommendation. If you click 'View All Recommendations,' you will be taken to the 'Recommender Home,' where you can view all your pending and completed recommendations.
Updates to Sponsored Programs
Click the 'View updates' button. You can look at the updates in more detail and update only those parts of the program information that you wish to update. It is also possible to decline the updates which will remove the notifications from your homepage.