Best Practices for Creating and Managing E-Forms for Student and Scholar Services Micah Cooper – University of Georgia Jeevan Devassy – Georgia Tech Stephanie Roberts – Emory University

Outline Organizing E-forms – Macro/Micro Level Case Study #1: E-groups at University of Georgia Athens Case Study #2: Emory University Scholar Request Process

Organizing E-forms at the Macro-Level 1. Developing an E-form Inventory

Organizing E-forms at the Macro-Level 2. Organizing e-forms in E-form Management (E-form Archive vs. Live E-forms)

Organizing E-forms at the Macro-Level 3. Creating a “Cheat Sheet” for e-forms creation

Organizing E-forms at the Macro-Level 4. E-form Manager staff member involved in centralizing the e-form process ensures a consistency of design and structure duties would include assisting in e-form creation, placement, deletion, naming update inventory spread sheet

Organizing E-forms at the Micro-Level Structuring your individual E-forms SECTION I: Text Section- introduction (for who, what, why) SECTION II: Question Section (identifying type of student) SECTION III: Consent Section

SECTION I: Text

SECTION II: Questions SECTION III: Consent

Organizing E-forms at the Micro-Level Readable and Visually appealing Not a paper form: Use of conditionals (streamlined, less clunky) Use of 2nd Approver function Tailor Approval/Deny/Follow-up e-mails

Organizing E-forms at the Micro-Level

What not to do

Overview at UGA UGA is transitioning from formsite.com, which has a user friendly interface and an extensive tool set, for processing requests. Its disadvantage is its disconnect from our in-house systems. Data still needs to be manually re-entered. Sunapsis e-form options are not as great but the centralization of information will save a significant amount of staff time. We went live with 3.0 in May and are just now rolling out our first e-forms and e-groups starting with our I-20 request.

Tips Organizing the E-Forms Make sure the order of e-forms make sense The progression should not be erratic. You can closely follow existing processes. For each e-form, be sure to give information about the form before launching into questions Who needs to see the form? Utilize extension filters when you can. Filters can be used for J1, F1, H visa types or new admits etc…

UGA Example I-20 Request E-Group I-20 Request for Admitted Students What information do we need to collect? Biographical Information Academic Program and Related Expenses Dependents Currently in US? Transferring? UGA broke up the previous process from one long online form into smaller individual e-forms. Limited to new admits only.

UGA Example A Simple Student E-Group Second approver email sent to the current advisor Submission creates an alert

UGA Example Instructions on Each E-Form General Instructions Notification of uploads

Example I-20 Funding Information We have 14 different program expense tables. These are conditionally displayed based on academic level.

Second Approvers and Alerts We have an external second approver to confirm the transfers are indeed transferring. Once the last keystone e-form has been submitted, an alert is generated at the guarded level. A template email will be sent to the applicant once the e-group has been approved.

Setup Templates and Extract E-Form Data Based on the academic and funding information e-from, we utilize one of 30 unique templates to pull and customize I-20 financial and program information. This information is maintained by one advisor. We have one template for the dependents e-form and this could be easily automated.

Overview All scholar requests at Emory are done electronically through ISSS Link (Sunapsis) Current requests include H-1B, J-1, and TN scholars O-1, E-3, and Permanent Resident will be added Paperless process Require input from department admin, scholar, supervisor, chair, and dean (some schools)

Previous Process Scholar requests done through a bolt-on custom module in PeopleSoft HR All information submitted by department administrators Nearly non-existent case management tools Compliance certification and all supporting documentation were submitted in paper form.

Sunapsis Process Requests submitted through multiple e-form groups in Sunapsis Information input by both admins and scholars; compliance form(s) signed by supervisor, etc. Documentation submitted electronically Compliance process now fully electronic in 3.0

Planning for More Complex E-Form Groups Map out your ideal workflow Flow charts may be beneficial Be prepared to make adjustments based on system functionality Use a top-down approach What information do you need? Keep it general – no need to define individual fields yet Who should it come from? At what point in the process should it be submitted? Do this before you start developing e-forms!

H-1B Request – Department Process General flow chart here

Designing the E-Forms Use your planning notes to define data elements, then review to logically divide them into e-forms. Remember to consider the required source of each piece of information Don’t be afraid to use multiple forms Easier for individuals to complete multiple shorter forms than one long form Consider the “client as second approver” extension

Client as Second Approver This is a major component of Emory’s process Used to allow scholars to submit information in multiple forms Scholars don’t have to locate the form in the web app; they receive the direct link via email Drawback: admins can’t see what the scholar has submitted

Client (Scholar) View

Client Second Approver Setup

E-Form Groups in 3.0 Lots of new features! Multiple keystone e-forms Can require forms to be completed in a specific order Used at Emory for multiple approvers Group View Displays all e-forms from a group together Includes associated documents, notes, emails, templates, etc. One of the best parts of 3.0 

E-Form Chaining

H-1B Department Process - Detail

H-1B Request – ISSS Office Emory’s Process Details with forms, etc.

Templates For complex groups, keep a list of templates and their fields Ease of update/re-creation later Learned this the hard way!

Related Documents Department user training Scholar guides Internal manuals