Send Emails to Communicate Evaluation Decisions to Students and Stakeholders

This article provides an overview of how to send emails of evaluation decisions from the Evaluation Tracker workflow.

In this article:

Overview
Email Options
- Embedded HTML
- PDF Attachment
Send Emails of Evaluation Decisions
- Video Demonstration
Email Responses

Overview

Institution staff can email students and other stakeholders evaluation decisions directly from the Evaluation Tracker workflow before closing or creating equivalencies from evaluations. Communicating evaluation decisions this way helps institutions keep necessary parties informed about the status of transfer evaluations and saves institutions time by not having to navigate to external systems.

Email notifications can be sent from the My Evaluations and All Open Evaluations queues of the Evaluation Tracker workflow. Users are required to have the SERVICE EVAL and (MANAGE EVAL or CREATE EQ) user rights to send emails from My Evaluations. To send emails from All Open Evaluations, the SERVICE EVAL and MANAGE EVAL user rights are required.

The email notification functionality is only available within the Evaluation Tracker workflow while the evaluation is open or pending. If an evaluation task has been closed (either via the actions of Create Equivalency and Close or Close), users with the CREATE EQ user right can instead send a notification email through the Equivalency Manager.

Email Options

Users will have the option to email evaluation decisions in one of two formats:

As embedded HTML; or
As a PDF attachment.

Equivalency information contained in the email notification or attached PDF will include the transfer and home course information as displayed within the course data set(s) selected from TES®.

Comments and notes from the EVALUATION LOG will not be included in the email or PDF. Any additional information or context needed to understand an evaluation decision will need to be supplied in the email body.

Important

While users can opt to send students an email notification at any stage in the evaluation process, it is recommended that institutions wait to do so until the evaluation decision has been completely finalized and the evaluation task is ready to be closed or an equivalency created from it.

Institutions should be mindful to not email students proposed equivalencies that have not been fully evaluated, as without context, students may misinterpret the proposed equivalency as how the course will transfer.

Institutions should also be careful if ever emailing a student an evaluation that was denied or one in which more information was requested. Since EVALUATION LOG details are not visible, students could develop the impression that a proposed equivalency is the final evaluation decision. Where no equivalency has been proposed or selected, the student will see a message under the transfer institution name noting, "There are no receive courses found."

Embedded HTML

Below is an example of an email sent to a student as embedded HTML. This format inserts the evaluation decision as HTML text within the email body. Both the individual who generated the email and the originator of the evaluation task were included in the email.

A report timestamp will appear in the body of the email, noting:

The username of the individual who sent the report;
The report was generated via TES at http://www.tes.collegesource.com; and
The date and time the report was generated.
- Format: MM/DD/YY HH:MM:SS AM/PM PT

Sample email containing evaluation decision. Email reads - subject Evaluation Decision CollegeSource Community College's BIOL 2210. Susan - Professor Carson has reviewed how CollegeSource Community College's BIOL 2210 Genetics will transfer to CollegeSource University SH. Please let me or your advisor know if you have any questions. Sincerely, Sarah. — Select to see a larger version

PDF Attachment

Below is an example of an email sent to a student in which the evaluation decision is attached as a PDF. Both the individual who generated the email and the originator of the evaluation task were included in the email.

Contained within the PDF will be:

The email address and institution name from which the email was sent.
The day of the week, date, and time the email was sent.
- Format: Name of Day, Month, DD, YYYY HH:MM:SS AM/PM PT.
The email address of all recipients.
The subject and body of the email.
The evaluation decision.
The report timestamp, containing:

The username of the individual who sent the report;
The report was generated via TES at http://www.tes.collegesource.com; and
The date and time the report was generated (Format: MM/DD/YY HH:MM:SS AM/PM PT).

Sample PDF attachment containing evaluation decision, as described above. The same email subject and body of the email contained within the email attachment are contained within the PDF.

Send Emails of Evaluation Decisions

To email an evaluation decision from the Evaluation Tracker workflow:

Go to the Track menu.
Select My Evaluations to be taken to evaluations currently assigned to the user.
- Or, if the appropriate permissions have been granted, select All Open Evaluations to be taken to evaluations currently assigned to all users at the institution.
Locate the evaluation task for which a decision needs communication.
1. Select the arrow to the left of the institution's name ("Select an Institution").
2. Within the EVALUATION LIST, select the arrow to the left of the SEND COURSE(S) ("Select a course").
Under SELECT AN ACTION, use the drop-down to choose Send Email.
The SEND EMAIL pop-up will appear.

SEND EMAIL pop-up as described below.

Select and fill in the following information:

Field	Description/Instructions	Required
Format	Toggle the radio button to select the format in which to send the equivalency: Embed HTML Inserts the evaluation decision as HTML text within the email body Attach PDF The evaluation decision is attached within a PDF file	Required Embed HTML selected by default
From	Address to appear in the From field in the email and PDF attachment	Pre-populated: (Institution Name), tes@collegesource.com
To	Address to appear in the To field in the email and PDF attachment Enter the email address(es) of the recipient(s); separate multiple emails with a comma or semi-colon	Optional if either the Email me checkbox or Email Evaluation Task Creator checkbox is marked The user can send an email to themself or the Evaluation Task Creator without having to populate this field; otherwise, if neither checkbox is marked, an address must be entered into this field
Subject	Text to appear in the Subject field in the email and PDF attachment	Optional
Body	Text to appear within the body of the email and within the PDF attachment This can be used to communicate additional information or context behind the evaluation decision	Optional
Email me	If the checkbox is marked, the individual initiating the email will be included in the email recipients	Optional Marked by default
Email Evaluation Task Creator	If the checkbox is marked, the individual who initiated the evaluation task will be included in the email recipients	Optional Unmarked by default

Comments and notes from the EVALUATION LOG will not be included in the email. When sending an email, users will need to share additional relevant information and context with the student/stakeholder in the body of the email.

Select Send.

The EVALUATION LOG will be updated to indicate that an email was sent to the email address(es) noted.

EVALUATION LOG entry reads - send eval alert email to, and lists the three email addresses to which the alert was sent.

Video Demonstration

Email Responses

When a student or stakeholder responds to an email sent from the Evaluation Tracker workflow:

If the individual responds only to the sender, the response will be sent to the TES account email of the user who initiated the email.
If the individual responds to all recipients ("Reply All"), each recipient will be included in the email.

Embed HTML Format

If the email was formatted as embedded HTML, within the response will be a copy of the email body, evaluation decision, and report timestamp.

Attach PDF Format

If the evaluation decision was sent as an attached PDF, the email response will include the email body and report timestamp but not the evaluation decision.