Every Review Step has two types of reviewers, Specific and Third-party reviewers.
Depending on the type you pick, you can:
- Use Roles to set up several reviewers in Review Steps
- Respond to staff changes by swapping out users in Roles
- Allow a Third Party (contractors, landlord, etc.) to review a submission
Specific Reviewer
Choosing a Specific Reviewers Review Type will allow you to assign a particular user(s) or Role(s)(recommended). This is the most frequently used Review Type when adding a Review Step!
Choose whether Any or All reviewers need to complete the review action to move the submission forward.
The reviewer(s) will receive an email notification to begin the review when the applicant triggers a Review Step.
Using Roles for Specific Reviewers
Using Roles over adding an individual person allows you to:
- Add a new person to the Role after your form is already in use. That person will have access to all the submissions the Role does, even if they were started before that person was added to the system.
- You to easily swap people in and out of Review functions to respond to staffing changes. When a new staff person takes over for someone on leave or who has changed roles, the new person will need access to all pending submissions awaiting Review, including those that were started before any personnel changes were made.
- If someone leaves your organization or changes jobs and should no longer have the same access, you just remove them from the Role. Any pending Reviews will disappear from their dashboard and they'll stop getting email notifications.
In each Review step section, there is the option to add a Role:
- If you haven't set up any Roles yet, you'll have the opportunity to create a new Role.
- If you have already added one or more people to a Role who will be the review team for this section/ Step, just add the Role as a Reviewer.
Note: If there is more than one person in the Role, once one person reviews that review is deemed complete. If you must have multiple people complete the exact same review please add them to different Roles or add them as individuals (not recommended). That will automatically add in all the people who are in the Role as potential reviewers. Once a Role has been added, you can switch people out of the Role easily!
Third-Party Reviewers
What about a scenario where you don't know who the reviewer will be in advance?
Like:
- A business that is applying for a sign permit must show approval from the owner of the building, which will be different for each submission submitted
- A building permit applicant must show a signoff from an architect or licensed contractor, which will be different for each submission submitted
- An internal form for a large government, where an employee must route a request to their supervisor for approval, but there are too many divisions and teams to build a logic-driven Review map.
In any of these situations, you can use the Third-party review option to have the applicant send a review request to a person outside of ClearForms.
Setting Up a Third-party Review
- Select Add Step and choose the Review Step.
- From the Review Type dropdown select Third-Party.
- Customize messaging that you would like the reviewer to use.
- It is highly recommended to utilize the Applicant and Admin Instructions to detail how the users should fill out information for this review step. For example, the Applicant's instructions will appear to the person who started the submission. So if they need to enter a Property Owner's email to get their signoff, you may use the Applicant instructions section to make clear what they should do/ who they should enter. Then once the Third-Party reviewer receives the request and signs on to ClearForms to review, they'll see the Admin instructions. This is an excellent opportunity to give the reviewer more context on the submission of the review.
What the Applicant Sees
As the Applicant fills out the application, they will come to the Review step. Here the applicant will be required to input an email address, name, or ClearForms username. This will automatically send out an email to the Third-Party reviewer.
Note: Selecting the Undo icon will remove access to the review, but an email will still be sent out to the reviewer.
After the email has been sent, the submission will show as Pending Review to the applicant.
What the Third-Party Reviewer sees
The Third-Party reviewer will receive an email that informs them that they've been invited to Review a submission on ClearForms, along with some basic information on what they're being asked to do (Form name, who requested the review) along with a link to log in.
Once the Third Party Reviewer goes to the ClearForms site, they will be taken to the standard Review page.
Here the reviewer will be able to:
- Approve, Reject, or Request Changes
- Add a message to the applicant
- Use the Discussion tab to ask questions or leave a comment
Note: The reviewer will create a ClearForms account if it’s the first time using ClearForms, so they can sign back in if they need to Review in the future.
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