Endorsements are used to invite others to complete an online Form in support of something. For example, an endorsement request may ask someone to be a reference for an applicant or to endorse someone’s nomination for an award. The person being invited to provide support does not need to be affiliated with Texas A&M University. A unique coded link will be sent to their email address that will let them respond without having to log into the system.
Although the terms Endorsements and Endorsers are used for administration of the system, you may use different terms such as reference, appraiser or nominator for what is seen by non-administrative users such as applicants and nominators.
All endorsements are associated with two Forms that you can configure:
- Endorsement Form – A form that is used to identify endorsers and to configure the behavior of the Respondant Form. It should describe the requirements for endorsers such as “You must have at least two references including one faculty member.”
- Respondent Form – A form that is used by the endorser to provide their evaluation. The Description field for this form is required and will be used in communication with each endorser:
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- The subject line and text of the request message that is emailed to endorsers
- The title of the form to be completed by endorsers
As endorsers are added, they will be sent an email automatically that includes the Description specified for the second form that will be seen by them. It will be used in the following way: “…has asked that you submit a <Description> on their behalf.” Choose a noun form of Description that works in both of these contexts. For example a description of “Performance Appraisal” would be used in the email as “…has asked that you submit a Performance Appraisal on their behalf.”
Endorsement Settings
Relationship Types – Get Involved only ensures the right total number of endorsers are selected. It does not ensure the right kinds of endorsers are designated. You need to be precise in your configuration and clear in your endorsement instructions about what types of endorsers should be designated by an applicant. For example, if specify “You must have at least two references including one faculty member” and define relationship types of “Faculty” and “Friend”, a minimum of two endorsers, and a maximum of three endorsers, Get Involved will not prevent an applicant from designating three non-faculty friends as their endorsers.
- Minimum Number of Endorsers
- Maximum Number of Endorsers – If you want all applications to have precisely the same number of endorsements, set the maximum to the same value as the minimum.
Endorsement Form
- From Address – If not specified, “” will be used as the “from” email address.
- Agreement ID – Typically this should be set to ‘0’ (zero).
Redirect Details – These settings control what happens after the endorsement form is submitted. Typically, when this form is being used in a workflow, the following values should be used. Consult IT for proper configuration for other scenarios.
- Redirect URL – No value
- Pass data Field in Query String – Checked
- Query String – “result=Success”
Respondent Form Settings
Restrictions
- Identify Respondent By – Select ‘Email’ rather than ‘UIN’ since some endorsers will be validated by having a properly coded link sent to their email address and may be unaffiliated with the university (and thus not have a UIN that can be validated by CAS login).
Confirmation
- Confirmation Type – Three choices: None, Text, URL. Recommendation is to use either Text (which will require specifying the message that will be seen by an endorser after they submit their form) or URL (a web page the endorser will be directed to acknowledge their submission or to provide further instructions. For example, an endorser for an award nomination may be shown text or be redirected to a web page that thanks them for supporting a nomination and invites them to the award ceremony.