Transcripts on checklists

Donna Orr

We are just starting to use the internal application in addition to SAO and have learned there is no format of the parent to send a transcript request to schools other than using Recommendation as the format. Does anyone have suggestions or input on how you set this up? Did you create a Recommendation form specific to this? Thank you!

Coco Parham

We have a transcript step that is published and I attached a transcript release form to it. The parent downloads the form to sign it and bring it to their child's school. The school then sends us the transcript, either by email, fax or snail mail. The step also can accept a SAO transcript submitted electronically.

Donna Orr

Thank you, Coco. I was told by support the workaround in the checklist setup is to use the Online Recommendation option and name it Transcripts to allow the parent to request transcripts through the application, but as I was setting it up it did not appear to work. Hoping the program developers are working on this! Having used SAO exclusively up until now, their file submission is much easier.


Thanks again for you help.

Donna

Coco Parham

Donna,

That is interesting, never thought to try that. But don't want to change what I have for SAO submissions. I even kept our letter of recommendation steps to use for SAO (unpublished). For the SAO LOR's we get, I can process them using the unpublished steps and then manually mark the online recommendations complete.


Workarounds, gotta love it!.


Thanks,


Coco

Vanessa Noe

I have used a work around using the “recommendation” step in the checklist.

1. this set up had the parent put the registrars email address in and then it sends an email to the registrar with the instructions and a link so they can do a direct upload straight back to the checklist after it is processed through by the admission staff. I did a presentation on this at the last in person conference. here are my slides https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JqW-wPjBzB9TYKUK-0Wl62Xwg4tavmVyaxRoacwF9go/edit?usp=sharing

The slides show how I set up the teacher recs but there is a slide that shows the wording I used for the School Records step.

• downside to the method above is that the registrar has to combine all of the docs into one document in order to use the upload link so we changed to using the “School” step in the checklist and I just had a link to a document that the parent had to download, fill out, and then send to their current school. The document had all the instructions on it for how the registrar should return the records - highly encouraging them to email them.
• Now I am using a program called Jot Form. I created a form that the parent fills out. it requires them to fill in their current school's registrar/record keeper (along with student name, grade, entering year, etc.) and then when the parent submits the form it automatically generates an email to that registrar. I could also do this using a google form and an add on called “form publisher” but I thought I would try out jot form. I am using the free version which gives you 100 submissions a month. I am still using the “School” step in the checklist and I just put the link to the form in the checklist step.

and just FYI, we switched to using the “online recommendation” step for teacher recs once blackbaud released that after the summer of 2019. It is really nice!

Vanessa

Bryan Lorenzo

@Vanessa Noe - can you share the link to the Jot Form? Love that idea!

Vanessa Noe

sure, it is www. jotform.com. I will attach what the form looks like…for some reason the logo is duplicating but i won't use it as a downloadable PDF so I am not going to fret too much about it. Records Request Release for admission (1).pdf

Jess Moxsky

We have been using the recommendation step type to allow families to directly request those records as well. It seems really odd that the default for transcripts would be self-upload for families since I don't know of any schools that would allow an official transcript to be submitted directly by a family.

Jess Moxsky

Donna Orr:
Thank you, Coco. I was told by support the workaround in the checklist setup is to use the Online Recommendation option and name it Transcripts to allow the parent to request transcripts through the application, but as I was setting it up it did not appear to work. Hoping the program developers are working on this! Having used SAO exclusively up until now, their file submission is much easier.

Thanks again for you help.
Donna

Donna - the only hiccup we have found using the recommendation step type is that the files are labeled as a Transcript but do not appear in the School record transcript area. If we want the files in the technically correct place, our admissions team has to manually download and then reupload those files to the correct spot. This does cause some potential issues for our Committee Reviewers as we want them to have some access to submitted files but not necessarily all, and having the transcripts grouped together with recommendations makes that difficult in some cases.

All it would really take would be BB duplicating the recommendation step and renaming it + remapping that file to the transcript area - hopefully that is something that could be implemented soon.

Coco Parham

It would work if the parent can request the transcript electronically and give instructions for the school to send the information directly to us. Is that in the idea bank? I would vote for it!

Donna Orr

Thanks, everyone for all the great input! Jess, the self-upload issue for transcripts concerned us also. Hoping the developers are working on creating the file mapping to eliminate the workarounds we are all using.