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Initiate Faculty (Activity) Input Workflow

Faculty Activity Reporting (FAR, Faculty180) provides an activity input workflow process for faculty to input and manage their information and activities, enhancing data completeness and accuracy. Faculty can log in and update their data anytime. The workflow typically starts after official enrollment numbers are finalized, with administrators uploading courses taught, verifying employment status, and notifying faculty that the input process has begun. Faculty members will then have access to their courses taught data where they can upload course-related supporting documents, such as syllabi, student evaluations, peer evaluations, and other documents that support their teaching. This article reviews how users with appropriate permissions can Initiate Faculty (activity) Input Workflows for faculty at their unit level and below.

 

New: Best Practice Webinar Recording

Check out our Initiating Activity Input Periods and Reviewing Submitted Forms for Approval August 2024 Best Practice Webinar. In this webinar we explored when and why to use initiated activity input periods, how to review and approve submitted forms, and what the input period looks like from the faculty perspective.

 

Create Workflow and Initiate the Activity Input Process

  1. Navigate to the Administration page and click Initiate Faculty Input Workflow under the Activity Input section.
  2. Filter the view by selecting the desired Start/End Date and Workflow Form to display in the list below. Click Refresh Report once you have selected the filters.
  3. Click the Pencil (Edit) icon to modify or click Add at the bottom of the page to create a new Faculty Input Workflow. The Initiate Faculty Input Workflow page will display.

    Setting a due date does not lock the Activity Input Form after that date; faculty can still make changes, so approvers might see different activities at different times. Forms are locked only after full approval, and are then moved to Prior Activity Input Forms under Reports. Faculty can view their locked forms under Forms & Reports on the navigation bar.

     
  4. Fill out the form. The table below contains information on each section on this page.
Section Details
Input Workflow Details

  • Title: The name of the Approval Process. When creating custom input forms be sure each custom input form has its own unique Title.
  • Dashboard Message: This will appear on the faculty member's dashboard. At first, it will automatically match the Title, but it can be edited to display a different title for faculty.

    Use a descriptive name for the process, with action terms to indicate what faculty should do, such as "Click here to enter/review activities for Annual Review."

     
  • Faculty Input Opens/Is Due: After the due date, faculty members will no longer have access to the form. You can also select and Ongoing instead.
Faculty Input Settings

  • Available Forms: Shows all created Activity Input Forms.
  • Start/End Semester: Select the desired academic term(s) to be included in the activity input approval process. 
  • Vita Template For Preview: Select the vita template for the faculty input workflow. Administrators can choose from New or Old Templates and save the workflow. The Preview feature will show the selected template, with New Templates displaying institutional ones and Old Templates showing legacy ones.
Workflow Steps

The Activity Input approval Workflow allows multiple levels of approval. The default first step is faculty self-submission of the Activity Input Form. If an institution doesn't use the workflow steps, faculty still submit the form for approval. 

 

The form is only available to faculty at Step One; subsequent steps are for Administrators only. 

 

Click Add Step to include more approval levels for administrators. You can customize the Submit and Reject Button Labels and add instructions to the workflow.

  • Selecting Reject sends the workflow back a step, notifying the relevant individual(s), but does not change the due date. 

    If the input period has closed, the due date must be extended or a new input period created.

     
  • Scroll to the right and click the “X” (Delete) icon under the Actions column to remove a step.
Participating Faculty

Click Select Faculty to choose faculty for the input workflow using the Faculty Selector Tool. To add a new faculty member after the workflow is created, they must be added manually; there is no dynamic process for this.

Notification messages for participating faculty will appear in their dashboard's To Do section.

 

5. Scroll to the bottom and click Save when finished. This will initiate the faculty input workflow and send an action message to faculty under the To Do section on their dashboard.

An automatic email is not sent to faculty members notifying them that the workflow was initiated. If you would like to send a message to faculty, you can do so from the Communications page or the Approve Faculty Input page.

 

FAQs

What Happens if a Faculty Member Misses a Deadline?

It is recommended to create a new Initiated Activity Input that includes all the faculty members who missed the deadline. Be sure to give the Initiated Activity Input the same name as before with “Late Submission” added so faculty members can see the difference.

Do not extend the deadline because doing so will extend the deadline for everyone within the Initiated Activity Input, not just a specified group.

 
 
 

Is there a report that shows who has completed/not completed the Activity Input form?

The full list of faculty members required to complete the form and their completion status can be found on the Approve Faculty Input page.

 
 
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