Configure and Use Vita Templates in FAR
Vita templates in Faculty Activity Reporting (FAR) allow institutions and faculty to generate structured, professional curricula vitae (CVs) using recorded faculty activity and profile data. These templates ensure that vita content is consistent, accurate, and aligned with institutional standards.
FAR includes two types of vita templates:
- Institutional Templates: Created and managed by administrators and can be shared with faculty
- Personal Templates: Faculty can create and customize for their individual needs
Administrators configure templates to define how data is organized and displayed, including section structure, grouping, and formatting. Faculty can then use these templates, or create their own, to generate vitas that reflect their academic activities. This article is primarily intended for administrators configuring institutional templates, with additional guidance for faculty using generated vitas.
Types of Vita Templates and Where to Access
FAR supports two types of vita templates, each designed to meet different needs for administrators and faculty.
Institutional Templates
Institutional templates are created and managed by administrators and are typically used to support standardized reporting and consistent presentation of faculty information across the institution. These templates reflect institutional standards or accreditation requirements and can be shared with faculty and automatically generated based on available data.
Use institutional templates when:
- You need consistent formatting across departments or programs
- Vitas must align with institutional or reporting standards
- Faculty should have access to preconfigured, ready-to-use templates
Administrators can access institutional vita templates under Administration > Setup > Institutional Vita Templates. Use this area when creating or updating institutional templates to share with faculty.
Personal Templates
Personal templates are created and managed by individual faculty members and provide flexibility for customizing how their academic work is presented. These templates allow faculty to select and organize content based on personal preference and can be customized independently of institutional templates.
Use personal templates when:
- Faculty need flexibility in structure or formatting
- Different audiences require different versions of a vita
- Individual customization is preferred over standardized formatting
Faculty and administrators can access personal vita templates from the My Templates area. Use this area when creating new or updating existing personal templates.
Choosing the Right Template
In most cases, institutions use **institutional templates** to establish a standard structure, while faculty may create **personal templates** to adapt that structure for specific use cases. For best results:
- Start with an institutional template when available
- Use personal templates to customize content or formatting as needed
Configure Template Settings
Template settings control how a vita is displayed, what content is included, and how templates are shared with faculty. These settings are applied at the template level and affect all sections within the template.
Template-level settings apply across all sections in the template. If a setting is also configured at the section level (such as styling or visibility), the section-level configuration will override the template-level setting. Review display settings carefully before sharing templates with faculty, as these directly impact how vita content appears in generated outputs.
To update template settings:
- Open a personal or institutional template and select Edit Template > Edit Template Settings.
- Use this section to define basic identifying details for the template.
Show ALL activities, even if "Publicly Displayed" option is set to “No” should only be on if the institution has opted for Publicly Displayed activity classification for faculty web profiles. This toggle allows faculty to exclude activities from their public profile while including them in their vita.
New Autogeneration FeatureInstitutional Administrators in FAR now have the ability to indicate whether to share vitas with faculty! This feature allows administrators to do all of the work necessary to set up a new template before making it faculty-facing. If “Show to faculty” is selected, the vita will automatically appear as a link on the list of institutional vitas to which the faculty have access. |
 |
Configure Template Styling
Template styling controls the overall appearance of vitas generated from a template, including formatting for titles, headings, and activity records. Styling can be applied at both the template level and the section level.
Template-level styling defines the default appearance for all sections within the template. These settings are applied across the entire vita unless overridden at the section level. You can configure styling for titles, headings, paragraphs, and text including font family, size, color, text alignment, spacing, and citation style.
To update template styling:
- Open a personal or institutional template and select Edit Template > Edit Template Styling.
- On the 'Edit Template Styling' window you can edit the Citation Style and formatting for Titles, Headings, and Paragraphs. These changes will be applied to the template and will define the styles for all vitas created with it.
How Headings Are Applied
Heading levels are automatically assigned based on how vita sections are structured:
- Heading 1: Section name
- Heading 2 - 5: Determined by Section Grouping
Configure Template Sections
Section-level styling overrides template-level styling for that section only. Use section-level overrides when a section requires different formatting than the rest of the template. Changes made at the template level will not apply to sections with existing overrides. For best results, configure template-level styling first, then apply section-level overrides only where needed.
To update section-level styling open a personal or institutional template and click Edit next to the desired vita section.
Click View Editing History (if available) to see a log of changes within a specified date range. The ‘Edit History Report’ includes the Date & Time the change was made, which User made the change, and the number of edits that were made. You can also expand the section to see a detailed list of the changes made.
Vita sections determine how faculty data is organized, grouped, and displayed within a template. Each section represents a specific type of data (such as teaching, publications, or grants) and can be configured independently. While some configurations are made at the template-level, and apply across all sections, others can be made to a specific section.
Settings and Styling are available across all sections, while activity classification and section grouping are available for all activity sections, but may be excluded from some profile sections.
Each section includes multiple configuration areas, allowing you to control structure, content, and formatting. Check out the accordions below for details on each section configuration option.
Settings
Section settings control how the section appears and behaves within the vita. Common options include section name, description, and display styles.
Section Grouping
Sections can include up to four levels of grouping. Grouping determines how headings are generated in the vita:
- Heading 1: Section name
- Heading 2–5: Based on grouping levels
This grouping is what determines “Heading” settings in Styling.
Section grouping allows you to organize records within a section by specific fields or classifications, creating a structured hierarchy. You can group content using activity classifications or fields (such as date, organization, and discipline).
 |
 |
Grants have the added ability to group activities by Status, while Scholarly Contributions and Creative Productions can also be grouped by Subtype and Status.
Multiple groupings creates essentially a categorical hierarchy of data within a section. For example, we might set our first grouping to be the field Start Term. We could then select to group next by the field Organization. This will create new groupings within our existing grouping of Start Term, categorized by matching Organizations.
| Setting Configuration | Vita Display |
|---|---|
 |
 |
This could be done up to twice more (for a total of four groupings). Use multiple grouping levels when data sets are large or complex, you need to support reporting requirements, or you want to show both chronology and category
Activity Classification Ordering in Existing Templates
For existing Vita Builder templates, Activity Classification metadata is refreshed when the affected template section is opened for editing. If Activity Classification values or their order were changed in FAR, edit the affected section in each relevant template, then refresh/ regenerate the vita. Activity Classification grouping order is intended to follow the FAR-defined value order across display styles.
Common Grouping Strategies
- By Date (E.g. year or term): Highlights timelines and progression. Common for teaching or service activities.
- By Organization or Institution: Groups related experiences together. Useful for appointments, affiliations, or collaborations.
- By Classification or Type: Categorizes records (e.g., publication types, activity classifications).
For best results use 1–2 levels of grouping for most sections. Use deeper grouping only when necessary. Avoid overly complex hierarchies that fragment content.
Activity Classification
Activity Classifications determine which classifications are displayed alongside activity records. This setting controls which classifications appear and the order in which they are displayed. Use this setting to provide context for activities without changing section structure.
Activity classifications do not group content, but rather are appended to records as additional information.
The Activity Classification configuration option is only available for activity records (not profile records).
| Example of Activity Classification (shown in Traditional-Date format) |
Example of Activity Classification (with ACs shown) |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Styling
Each section includes its own styling options, which can override template-level styling. Styling options are the same as template-level settings and changes apply only to the selected section.
Use section-level styling when a section requires different formatting or when you want to highlight specific types of content.
Special Section Configuration Options
Some sections include additional configuration options specific to the type of data they contain. These may include:
- Subtypes: Determines which activities are shown on the vita based on Subtype (available for Scholarly Contributions & Creative Productions)
- Publication Status: Controls which publication statuses are included. Certain statuses (e.g., In Progress, Submitted, Accepted) are always included.
- Content to Display: Determines which faculty classifications are shown.
- Contact Information: Controls which contact details appear in the vita
These options are available only in relevant sections and may vary depending on the data type.
FAQs
Is there a ‘best way’ to preview an Institutional Vita?
Yes and no, it really depends on how you want to view the changes made. We recommend
two different ways depending on the changes you make:
- The “Preview” button from Administration > Setup > Institutional Vita Templates > click
into any vita template. - While emulating a faculty member.
Preview Changes Made to a Vita
This is the best choice when making stylistic format changes to a vita. Whether you’re adding italics, borderlines, or curious about how a display type (e.g. tabular) might look at a high-level, “Preview" makes reviewing these choices simple and easy.
- Navigate to Institutional Vita Templates under Administration > Setup > Configuration: Institutional Vita Templates.
- Select the vita you wish to edit.
- Make any stylistic format changes, as needed. Click Preview to review the changes with the pre-filled sample text.
Emulate Tool to Explore the Faculty View
This is the best choice when making configuration changes to a vita. This includes section changes, changes to hidden/shown options, or even high-level changes (e.g. chronological sorting).
Prerequisite: The Vita template must be published and visible to faculty at time of emulation.
- Navigate to the Emulate Tool under Administration > Administration
- Select the faculty member you wish to emulate.
- From the left-hand menu, go to Vitas under the ‘Vitas & Biosketches’ section.
- If visible to faculty, go to the auto-generated Vita of the template you wish to review. If not visible to faculty, create a new Institutional Vita using a published Institutional vita in the faculty member's profile.
 |
 |
Vitas created via auto-gen will show ‘Administrator (view-only)’ as the source.
Recommendations
- We find that using two browser windows (not tabs), one normal and the other ‘incognito,’ allows for the best ‘edit-and-preview’ experience. This way you can edit the vita from the Setup and then quickly refresh the faculty view in your other browser window to see. your updates in real time.
- Refresh the vita (via emulation) often!
Why can’t I edit a generated vita?
Generated vitas, especially those created from institutional templates with auto-generation enabled, may be view-only. To make changes to a vita’s content or name:
- Open the generated vita.
- Select the option to Copy the vita.
- Edit the copied version as needed.
Once copied the new vita can be renamed and sections or formatting can be adjusted (if applicable).
What does “Administrator (view-only)” mean?
Some vitas are generated from institutional templates and are managed at the template level. For these vitas:
- The source is listed as Administrator (view-only)
- Direct edits to the vita are not allowed
- Changes must be made either in the template configuration, or by creating and editing a copy of the vita
Changes made to a copied vita do not affect the original template or other users.
Do I need to regenerate a vita after making changes?
Yes. In most cases, you should regenerate a vita after updating faculty data, modifying template settings, changing section configuration or grouping. This ensures that the vita reflects the most recent information.