All resources, including articles and video instruction, related to Deployment Rules can be found in the Reviewers Management Learning Resources article.
Overview
This article contains responses to common questions related to Reviewers Management in Terra Dotta Study Abroad.
Questions
2) Do the "Approve" and "Reject" decisions impact the flow of a sequential review workflow?
4) Does Reviewers Management offer a "Waitlist" option"?
10) Do the Application Submitted and Application in Review Triggers work retroactively?
11) Which reviewer notification contains the link to the application to be reviewed?
Responses
1) I want applications to come to us in the Education Abroad office first so that we can eliminate ineligible applications before the review process begins. How do I do this using Reviewers Management?
There are two options:
A) You would not configure the Application Submitted Trigger to automatically mark an application as ready for review. Instead, after an application has been submitted and reviewed by your office, you'd then manually mark the application as ready for review from the "More Application Actions" menu in Application Admin Manager. This action would alert the Application in Review Trigger to fire and kick off your review workflow.
B) When building our your review workflow in the Application Submitted Trigger, your first workflow of a sequential workflow would be to your office. For example, you might create a Reviewer Role of "Internal Reviewer" and assign this to a staff group.
2) Do the "Approve" and "Reject" decisions impact the flow of a sequential review workflow?
No. When a decision is made, it is specific to a reviewer in a workflow. Therefore, if Reviewer A selected a decision of "Reject", that would not stop the review sequence from continuing on to Reviewer B.
3) As part of a sequential review workflow, one of my reviewers has notified me that they've made a mistake. What are my options?
If a review workflow is in progress and needs to be modified, the admin has the option to delete any reviews that have already been submitted and completely restart the review workflow. This delete action is done from the "Reviews" panel of the application in Application Admin Manager. This means that if 2 of 3 reviewers have submitted their reviews, then all submitted reviews will be deleted.
The admin should then unmark the application as "Ready for Review". When ready to restart the review process, the admin should mark the application as "Ready for Review". Because the review process only runs a single time across an application, there will be no duplication should you need to stop/restart the review process in this way.
A reviewer does not have the option to edit a submitted review on their own. If a sequential review process is being used, and Reviewer A submits a review, then Reviewer B might use the information from Reviewer A as the basis of making their decision. Allowing Reviewer A to go back and edit their review could impact what every subsequent reviewer would have submitted. This is why, when an admin chooses to delete an in-progress review workflow, that all submitted reviews are deleted as part of this process.
4) Does Reviewers Management offer a "Waitlist" option"?
Right now, we only offer "Approve/Reject" and "Submit" as the decision options that your Reviewer Role would need to take on a review.
However, another option that can be considered for use is to take advantage of the Reviewer Form in the following way:
- Create a question item that asks: What is your final decision on this application?
- Select the "Single Selection" type and enter in the options of "Accept", "Reject", and "Waitlist".
- When your Reviewer Role is assigned this Reviewer Form, they will be presented with this question item and will have the option to select "Waitlist".
- When creating your report for use in the Review Audit, select the field of Reviewer Forms > then your desired form > then this specific question item. This question item will then appear as a column on your report so that you can view the responses to this question item from each Reviewer Role.
5) How can I prevent the system message of Reviewers are currently disabled. You may enable Reviewers in System Settings > System Features by checking the “Reviewers” checkbox from appearing to my reviewers?
The message of Reviewers are currently disabled. You may enable Reviewers in System Settings > System Features by checking the “Reviewers” checkbox. would only appear to a reviewer if 1) the Reviewers system setting was disabled and 2) the reviewer was still a member of the classic Reviewers staff group. If you remove the reviewer from the classic Reviewers staff group and add them to a custom group, such as NEW REVIEWERS, with no permissions, then the reviewer will no longer see that message when they view they log in.
6) How can I ensure that my reviewers can easily locate the Reviewer Console after logging into our site? Can I set the Admin Console as their landing page for them?
When your reviewer receives the notification email that they have an application ready to review, the email will contain a unique "Complete Review" link. Clicking on this link prompts the reviewer to log in and then navigates them directly to the review page for which they need to take action on.
You can set the default landing page for users to the Admin Console by navigating to Settings > System Features > Interface Settings. However, any user can change their default landing page from the Admin Settings menu, and this option will always override any system-level setting. You might also consider adding instructions on how to perform the default landing page configuration action in the notification email that your reviewers receive.
The Reviewer Console is not a default landing page option.
Finally, even after the Admin Console is set as the landing page for a reviewer, they will only see the "Applications" card in the Admin Console if they have the "Application Admin: Applicant Search" permission. Then, after they have at least one review, the Reviewer Console link will appear in the "Applications" card. Otherwise, without this permission, the reviewer would need to log into their site, click on the navigation menu, and select "Reviewer Console".
7) If an application is withdrawn after it has been marked as "Ready for Review", does it continue to appear to a reviewer in their Reviewer Console?
Yes. If an application is submitted, marked as "Ready for Review", and an Application in Review Trigger is kicked off, then a reviewer is going to see the pending review for the application in their Reviewer Console. If the application is subsequently withdrawn, then the reviewer will continue to see the application and be able to complete the review. In this way, the review remains associated with the application in the event that the applicant changes their mind and requests for the application to be reinstated.
If your office wants to remove the withdrawn application from the reviewer's "Pending Reviews" tab in the Reviewer Console, then here are actions that you can take:
- Delete the full review workflow for the application from the "Review" tab in Application Admin Manager. This is a permanent change that will delete all previously submitted reviews that are part of the same in-progress workflow. Keep in mind that unmarking an application as "Ready for Review" is not a delete action. This simply changes the review status of the application. If a review workflow has already been kicked off, then it must be deleted to remove the application from the reviewer's "Pending Reviews" tab. Most offices prefer to use this option.
- Ask the reviewer to complete the review. This action would move the application to the "Submitted Reviews" tab of the reviewer's Reviewer Console.
- Scrub the application. Though this is a maintenance permission to which you may have access (and therefore might consider in this scenario), it is not recommended to scrub applications from your site. This option was designed to be a maintenance tool used to remove test data. Scrubbing an application permanently deletes it from your site and will impact your ability to access desired data and related reports that were once associated with the application.
8) What causes the "Actions" section of my Application in Review Trigger to become locked? Can the trigger be unlocked?
A workflow, whether it be sequential, simple, or a combination of the two, is created for an Application in Review Trigger in the "Actions" section of that trigger. When the Application in Review Trigger runs, then the trigger's workflow is considered to be in use - and the system locks the "Actions" section of the trigger. This is done for data integrity purposes.
A trigger is unlocked and editable only if the following conditions are met:
- No full review workflows have been completed for an application using that trigger.
- After a full review workflow has been completed, it cannot be deleted from the application.
- No review workflows are in progress using that trigger.
- A review workflow that is in progress can be deleted by the admin from the "Reviews" tab in Application Admin Manager.
- Unmarking an application as "Ready for Review" only modifies that status for the application and does not stop an in-progress review workflow.
The trigger will always remain locked if there is at least one full review workflow that has been completed for an application.
If updates need to be made to a locked Application in Review Trigger, then a new trigger should be created which reflects those changes. Then the previous trigger should be deactivated.
9) If I use the minimum number of reviews option for a staff group, what happens after the minimum number of reviews is met?
After the minimum number of reviews is met, then any remaining staff in the group who have yet to take action on the review will not have any action to take. Because the minimum that you set has been met, then the application will no longer appear as pending to these reviewers.
Here's an example:
You assign a reviewer role to a staff group that contains five people, and you set the minimum number of required reviews to three. After three people take action and review the application, then there is nothing further that the staff group is required to do. This means that the two people who did not review the application will experience the following:
- After they click on the Complete Review link and log into the site, they will see a blank page. The application to review will no longer exist for them.
- Unless they have previous pending or completed reviews for other applications, they will not see a Reviewer Console option in the Admin Console or their Navigation Menu.
If you need everyone in the staff group to take action, then it is recommended not to set a minimum number of reviews.
If you use the minimum number of reviews option, consider using the reviewer role notification email to provide a description of how the process works.
10) Do the Application Submitted and Application in Review Triggers work retroactively?
No, they do not as none of the Application Triggers work retroactively. If you want action to be taken on an application when the conditions of a trigger are met, then your trigger must first be fully configured and set to active.
If your goal is to kick off a review workflow using the Application Submitted and Application in Review Triggers, then the following steps must first occur:
1. Set up an active Application Submitted Trigger with your desired conditions and notifications, making sure that for the "Actions" step, you select the option to "Mark Applications as Ready for Review".
2. Set up an active Application in Review Trigger with your desired conditions and notifications, making sure that for the "Actions step, you create your review workflows. All reviewer roles, reviewer forms, staff groups, and/or program contacts must be created prior to this step.
After these two steps have been completed, then future applications that are submitted which meet the conditions of your Application Submitted Trigger will be automatically marked as "Ready for Review" by the system. This action will then set your review workflow into action automatically for those applications meeting the conditions of your Application in Review Trigger.
Any applications submitted prior to these two steps will not be marked as "Ready for Review" automatically by the system. You can manually mark applications as "Ready for Review" in the Admin Console's Application Finder. To do this, select your desired applications. From the "Batch" menu, select "Review Status" and click "Update".
11) Which reviewer notification contains the link to the application to be reviewed?
The Reviewer Role notification contains the link from which the reviewer in this role will access the applications to review.
The notification configured in step 3 of your Application in Review Trigger will be deployed to the selected recipient after the full review workflow has been completed.