The reviewer is a type of staff user who, once added to the Reviewers Permission Group, has the ability to log in to a client's site to review applications and post feedback. This feedback consists of comments and a recommendation as to whether or not an application should be accepted, rejected, or waitlisted.
This article covers the following topics related to the reviewer:
- Reviewers Permission Group: Settings & Restrictions
- Narrowing a Reviewer's Scope
- Removing a Reviewer's Access
- Troubleshooting: Not Ready for Review
- The Reviewer Home Page
- Reviewer's View of an Application
- Submitting a Review
Reviewers Permissions Group: Settings & Restrictions
1. Navigate to Staff > Staff Permissions.
2. Find the "Reviewers" row in the "Manage User Groups" table. Click the "Edit Users in This Group" icon located in this row's "Actions" column.
3. Click the "Add User to Group" tab at the top of the page.
4. From here you will have three options:
- If your site is integrated with your secure campus information system - and the reviewer is affiliated with your campus, you can look up the new staff member from your institution's HR Directory.
- You can manually enter the individual's name, email address, and phone number.
- You can retrieve the individual's information by entering their campus login ID.
This individual will now be added to the list of reviewers. You can then assign them the proper Data Access Objects to restrict them to only being able to view the applications based on program, program group, sponsor, and/or home institution. In addition, you can adjust the student parameter that they have permissions to see when viewing applications.
Important Note: You should always assign a data object restriction to your reviewers after adding them to the group. Otherwise, they will be given access to ALL applications on your site.
Programs can have as many reviewers assigned to them as necessary. The Staff Admin > Staff Permissions tool will not restrict the number of reviewers that are assigned access objects to a particular program.
As each of the reviewers submit comments and recommendations regarding their assigned applications, the reviews will be tabulated and kept on file for the administrators to view from the "Reviews" tab of the application administration interface.
Printing Permission
By default, a reviewer will not have access to a "print application" functionality. To give a reviewer access to this feature means that they will need the "Applicant Admin: Overview" permission as well as access to the application management interface. This can be done by granting the permission of "Progress Auditing" and/or "Application Search (simple)" found in the "Applicant Admin" options of the Reviewers permission group.Combined Facilitator/Reviewer Permission Best Practice
When attempting to configure the settings for a staff member in the Facilitators permission group as a reviewer for one or multiple programs, permission restrictions cascade throughout the staff user's access levels. This can prevent the required access from being assigned.In this scenario, the best practice for a staff member that needs to function as a reviewer is to create a second, external user account using a different email address which is configured as the login to be used for submitting application reviews. This second login will have the staff user's access object restrictions configured while the original login will not (allowing for continued access to all applications/programs).
Narrowing a Reviewer's Scope
In some cases, it will be necessary to assign a reviewer to a sub-set of the applications in a program instead of all of the applications for that program. A common example of this would be a program in which there are multiple reviewers who divide up the applications and each review only a portion of them.Reviewers cannot have a sub-set of applications assigned to them for review, but there are two standard practices that can be used to assign a reviewer to a specific set of applications.
Standard practice #1
- Create an application tag for each advisor.
- Apply the tag to the appropriate applications.
- Provide the reviewer with access to the advanced application search so that they can filter on their application tag (and save the query).
- Have the reviewer submit the reviews through the comments tab or through internal-use questionnaires.
Standard practice #2
- Create a questionnaire requesting the applicant to respond to a question item that would identify the specific reviewer that is to review the application.
- Provide the reviewer with access to the advanced application search so that they can filter on the proper question item response (and save the query).
- Have the reviewer submit the reviews through the comments tab or through internal-use questionnaires.
Removing a Reviewer's Access
When a reviewer no longer requires access to your site, it is important to properly deactivate all the permissions for the reviewer to prevent improper access to student applications and potentially confidential information.This should NOT be done by removing the programs/program groups/institutions from the Access Object section of the reviewer's permissions form. Removing all access objects removes the filter restrictions for the reviewer and provides access to ALL applications on your site.
The proper method for removing a reviewer from your site is the following:
- Navigate to Staff > Staff Permissions.
- Click on the "Edit Users in this Group" icon to the right of the Reviewers group (the people icon).
- Click on the red "X" to the right of the reviewer that you wish to remove.
- Click on the "Manage User Groups" tab after verifying that the reviewer no longer appears in the reviewer list.
- If this reviewer had been given additional user-specific permissions, the reviewer's name will appear in the "Permissioned Users (no group)" list at the bottom of this page. Click on the red "X" to the right of the reviewer's name to remove all remaining permissions.
Troubleshooting: Not Ready for Review
After adding a reviewer, let's imagine they report that they are unable to review the application. They receive a message saying that the application is not ready for review.
Cause
The reviewer permissions are such that your site prevents access to applications not yet marked as ready for the review. While the reviewer can see these applications in their listing on the home page, the actual viewing of the application information is blocked.
Resolution
In order for a reviewer to have access to an application, that application must be marked as ready for review, or the reviewer must be given permission to view applications that are not yet marked as ready for review.
To mark an application as "Ready for Review", navigate to the Reviews tab of the application management interface. Check the box "Mark as ready for review" and click Update.
If you need to change the review status of several applications at once, you can save time by doing a batch review status change.
- Perform an application search that will include the necessary applications in the results.
- Select "Batch Review Status" from the drop-down menu beside "Options" at the top of the search results page.
- Click on the arrow to the left of "Batch Review Status Edit" and select the applications that are ready for review.
- Click Update.
If you do not want to mark applications as "Ready for Review" in order for reviewers to see them, you can skip this step by giving reviewers permission to see applications immediately:
- Go to Staff > Staff Permissions.
- Find Reviewers in the list and click on the edit group or edit individual reviewer icon.
- Grant the Reviewers group or individual reviewer the following permission: Application admin: immediate access to review.
Note: Applications that have not been marked as ready for review will always display the "Not Ready for Review" message in the Reviewers interface. If the reviewer has permission for "Immediate Access to Review", they can click on the application and view it even though it has not yet been marked as ready for review. If you wish to remove the "Not Ready for Review" message from the admin homepage, you can do so by editing text interface field #3578.
The Reviewer Home Page
When a reviewer logs in to a client's site, they will land on the Reviewer's home page by default if they are only members of the Reviewers permission group.
Reviewers who are members of other site permission groups can change which page they land on after logging in to the site by following these steps:
- From the Administrative home page, click the "Admin Settings" button at the top of the page to navigate to the Administrative Settings page.
- Click on the "My landing page on login" drop-down menu. Select "Reviewer Home".
- Click "Update" to preserve this change.
After landing on the Reviewer home page, the reviewer will see a "My Reviews" display panel noting applications that may be available to review based on the permissions assigned for the reviewer in Staff > Staff Permissions > Reviewers > Data Access Object Restrictions.
Information in the "My Reviews" display is organized in the following way:
A series of drop-down menus and search bars allow the reviewer to easily filter the list of applications that appear on every page.
1) Filter to view only those applications pending review or only those applications for which a review has been submitted. Selecting "All" will display all applications together (see example above).
2) Click into this search bar and filter based on the available application cycles that appear.
3) Filter based on the program name.
A series of columns organizes information as follows:
4) Name of Applicant: Clicking on an applicant's name allows the reviewer to view a full display of the application based on the permissions granted to them.
5) Program name
6) Application cycle
7) Application status
8) Review status
9) Recommendation status: This column reflects the recommendation made by the reviewer (i.e. accept, reject, or waitlist). If the reviewer has not yet taken action, "no recommendation" will be displayed.
Each column (with the exception of Application Status) can be sorted by their values by clicking on the gray triangle icons.
Important Note: A recommendation does not change the status of the student. It is an internal note to an admin to help in the overall evaluation process.
If a reviewer has admin access, then a "My Reviews" panel will also be displayed on the Admin Home ( Home Icon > Administrative). This panel includes the same functionality as the Reviewer's home page, only in a more condensed form.
Reviewer's View of an Application
From the "My Reviews" panel on the Reviewer home page, a reviewer can select an application to review by clicking on the applicant's name. The application (all or part depending on the reviewer's permissions) will be shown. A reviewer may be able to see the following:
- Application information.
- Application parameters.
- Questionnaire responses.
- Attached documents: The reviewer will need the "Application Admin: Documents (view)" permission and any relevant data access objects for this panel to appear. Clicking the name of a document will open it.
- Non-internal use documents.
To see the process elements that have been completed at a glance, a reviewer can select the applicable phase from the "Progress Audit" drop-down menu.
This action will take the reviewer to the "Batch Processing: Progress Audit" page where they can select the process elements for which they'd like to run a progress audit. Based on the results, a reviewer may choose to send an email to select students. A drop-down menu provides the reviewer with several other options which include generate a report, batch apply an application tag, or contact the student(s) via SMS (text message).
Important Notes:
- If the advising module has been enabled for a program (Edit Program > Settings > Enable Advising Requirement) to which a reviewer has been assigned access, the reviewer will not have the ability to see this advising-related information. Any completed advising phase process elements, such as questionnaires, are not visible in the Reviewers interface.
- Internal-use documents will not appear in the reviewer interface as these are admin-only documents. If a reviewer needs to view internal-use documents on an application, they will need to navigate to the "Documents" tab of the application to see them.
Submitting a Review
After viewing the application, the reviewer can locate the Reviewer Feedback section at the bottom of the application page. Here the reviewer can add comments and select one of the following recommendations: accept, reject, or waitlist.
Additionally, a review is not complete until the reviewer has checked the "Mark as Completed" box and clicked "Submit". A reviewer can return to the application and edit their comments as long as they have not checked the "Mark as Complete" box.