Interfolio Instructions for School/College Staff
Interfolio is a software system that assists Boston University faculty and administrators in the submission of tenure and promotion applications, the collection of external evaluation letters, and the assembly/review of candidates’ dossiers.
Access Interfolio
1. Adding Users & External Candidates
- Find “Users & Groups” on the sidebar
- Click on the blue “+ Add User” button at the top
- To add existing BU staff & faculty, fill in their information and make sure to select “Internal” under “User Type.” Keep the “If checked, this user will need to sign on using their institutional credentials” box checked
- To add an external candidate, select “External” under “User Type” and fill in their information. “Unit” should be filled with their proposed BU unit selected from the options provided. Uncheck the “If checked, this user will need to sign on using their institutional credentials” box
- You can choose to send a welcome message or not and hit save
- To give a staff user administrative access, you will need to search for their user, click the pencil on the right side to edit the user, click “Units & Roles” and add the Administrator role under “Role in Unit”
2. Refining School/College Template
- BEFORE you create any cases using a given template, on the “Templates” page, click on the template you wish to refine
- If your school/college has any specific candidate requirements beyond those requested centrally, you may configure those with “Candidate Requirements”
- Committees, Chairs, and Deans may be assigned within “Case Review Steps”
- Click on “Edit” next to a given step
- Committees/reviewers may be added and managed here; this is necessary in order to ensure the correct faculty have access to a cases at the correct levels of review
3. Create Case
- On the “Cases” page, click the “Create Case” button in the top-right corner
- Select the candidate from the list of users
- Click “Continue”
- Select the Unit for the case (should be the faculty’s department)
- Select the type of case
- “Tenure” for tenure cases
- “Promotion” for promotions without tenure review
- Select template (should be the correct year, case type, and school/college) and click “Continue”
- Select a soft deadline for candidate’s materials submission, if applicable
- Under Settings, indicate that that candidate will be involved during the case. This will allow them to upload their own materials (e.g. Part II, supporting materials, etc.)
- You can choose to either notify the candidate now or later that the case has been created; candidates will be unable to upload materials until they are notified
- Click “Create 1 Case”
4. Managing Committees and Reviewers
- Go to Users & Groups (sidebar), click on Committees (top tab)
- Either find committee in list to edit or click blue “+ Add Committee” button
- For a new committee, give it a name specific to the unit and review level (e.g. COM FTV or QST APT), select the unit and department if applicable, and save
- Click the pencil button besides the committee to add/change members and roles. Search and add committee members to existing or new committee
- Change committee managers by clicking on the star next to their name (this is the person who will be responsible for submitting the forms at the review level). Click the “update” button and x out when done editing the committee.
- Return to cases and select candidate case. Find the blue “Case Options v” dropdown button at the top of the case and click “Edit Case”
- Click on “Case Review Steps” in the box on the side and scroll down to the review level you would like to add the committee to
- At that level, click the Edit button. In Edit Details, if the committee isn’t there already under Reviewers, click on “Options v” and “Replace Committee”
- Select “a Standing Committee…” and search or scroll for the committee you edited/created earlier to replace whatever committee was there previously. You can also edit Committee Managers here with the star button
- Make sure the appropriate form is attached to the committee in the “Required Forms” tab. Add it if not. Each step should have an associated form (except for Department if there is also a separate Chair review step)
- Then you can click “Return to Case Review Steps” to either repeat for other review levels or return to the case
5. Upload Candidate Documents
- Once notified that a case has been created for them, a candidate may upload the required materials
- You may also upload materials on a candidate’s behalf, if necessary
- On the “Cases” page, click the candidate’s name to open their case page
- Click “Add File” to add required documents (Part II form and CV), as well as any supporting materials
6. Upload External Letters
- From a candidate’s case page scroll down to “External Evaluations” within “Internal Sections” and click “Request Evaluation”
- Fill out the first/last name and email address for evaluators you would like to solicit letters from
- Complete the Message to Evaluator section; Provost’s Office templates for evaluation requests may be found here
- Select which of the candidate’s files should be made available to the evaluators
- Set a response deadline for the evaluators (the system will automatically send them reminders)
- Access should be set to “Administrators & Entire Committee”
- Click “Send Request”
- You may also upload letters on behalf of external evaluators
- From a candidate’s case page scroll down to “Internal Sections” and click “Add File” to add each external evaluator letter
- Make sure the file names are consistent and clearly labeled with the evaluators’ names because they will be used to automatically create bookmarks for those reading the case
7. Initial Administrative Review
- At the top of the candidate’s case page click “Send Case” and send it to Initial Administrative Review
- Within the candidate’s case page click the “Case Details” tab click the “Case Details” tab
- Under “Required Items” click “Add” to upload the completed external evaluator worksheet and sample external evaluator solicitation letter to the “External Evaluations” section
- Scroll down to the “Committee Members” section and click “Edit”
- Add yourself as a committee member and make yourself the Committee Manager
- The page will refresh and you will now be able to click “Fill Out Form” to submit the Narrative Summary in the forms section
- At the appropriate time click “Send Case” and send it to Department Review
8. Department Review
- Departmental faculty will review and vote cases according to their standard practices
- At the appropriate time click “Send Case” and send it to Chair’s Report
9. Chair's Report
- Once a Chair has reviewed a case, they will upload their report and fill out their recommendation
- You may also complete these steps on the Chair’s behalf, as needed
- Within the candidate’s case page click the “Case Details” tab
- Under “Required Items” click “Add” to upload the Chair’s Report
- If this is an Ad Hoc committee, scroll down to the “Committee Members” section and click “Edit”
- Add yourself as a committee member and make yourself the Committee Manager
- If this is a standing committee, add yourself to the committee in “Users & Groups” and make yourself the Committee Manager
- The page will refresh and you will now be able to click “Fill Out Form” to submit the Department Vote and Chair’s Recommendation form
- Type the Chair’s name in the digital signature section; Interfolio will record that you did this on their behalf
- At the appropriate time, click “Send Case” and send it to APT Report
10. APT Report
- Once the APT has reviewed a case, the APT Chair or committee manager will upload their report
- You may also complete these steps on the APT Chair’s behalf, as needed
- Within the candidate’s case page click the “Case Details” tab
- Under “Required Items” click “Add” to upload the APT Report
- If this is an Ad Hoc committee, scroll down to the “Committee Members” section and click “Edit”
- Add yourself as a committee member and make yourself the Committee Manager
- If this is a standing committee, add yourself to the committee in “Users & Groups” and make yourself the Committee Manager
- The page will refresh and you will now be able to click “Fill Out Form” to submit the APT Vote form
- Type the APT Chair’s name in the digital signature section; Interfolio will record that you did this on their behalf
- At the appropriate time click “Send Case” and send it to Dean’s Report
11. Dean's Report
- Once a Dean has reviewed a case, they will upload their report and fill out their recommendation
- You may also complete these steps on the Dean’s behalf, as needed
- Within the candidate’s case page click the “Case Details” tab
- Under “Required Items” click “Add” to upload the Dean’s Report
- If this is an Ad Hoc committee, scroll down to the “Committee Members” section and click “Edit”
- Add yourself as a committee member and make yourself the Committee Manager
- If this is a standing committee, add yourself to the committee in “Users & Groups” and make yourself the Committee Manager
- The page will refresh and you will now be able to click “Fill Out Form” to submit the Dean’s Recommendation form
- Type the Dean’s name in the digital signature section; Interfolio will record that you did this on their behalf
- You will not be able to access the case once it moves on to UAPT review; to save a case for school/college records, within the candidate’s case page click the “Case Materials” tab and then click “Read Case”
- This will pull together the candidates’ materials, evaluator letters, and various reports into a single dossier, which you can download to save for school/college records.
- Inform Faculty Affairs that the case is ready for UAPT review
FAQs
- Do we involve the candidate in the process?
- This is completely up to the schools, just keep in mind that when the candidate uploads their own materials, those materials are unable to be deleted from the packet.
- Should we add Standing Committees or Ad Hoc committees to the case review steps?
- Standing committees are good to have if you are going to add them to multiple cases for review steps that don’t change. We recommend creating Standing Committees for the APT and Dean level review steps the most. You can use Ad Hoc for Department level review steps but you will need to add all members each time. The Ad Hoc committee is good for the Initial Administrative review step where it’s just the administrators involved.
- Do you prefer we upload individual pdfs or pdf packet?
- Individual pdfs are better for the sake of the system creating its bookmarks but some things can be grouped together. For example, you can upload all grants or all course evaluations as one pdf. However, external evaluator letters (if not requested in the system) are better uploaded individually.
- What due dates should we enter for each review step?
- Case review step due dates are up to the schools. They aren’t required and do not prevent uploads past the dates unlike deadlines for the external evaluators. The deadlines for the external evaluators send the evaluators automatic reminders and it prevents them from uploading/responding past the date. Again, it is up to the schools to use due dates for review steps and for evaluators. You can edit due dates in “Edit Case.”
- Can I edit/add materials to my request to an evaluator?
- Yes, but if you want to edit multiple requests, you can only do so one at a time. To do so, in the External Evaluations section, Find the target evaluator and click “Edit”
- Click “Edit & Resend Request”
- Here, you can edit the message or add and remove files from the request
- If you want to add files to the request, you have to add them to the case first to find them in the evaluation request
- Save your changes and scroll to the bottom to find and click the “Send” button
- When should we add our committees to cases?
- You should create your committees and add them all to the case before it moves to the Initial Administrative review step. This is recommended by Interfolio support and it may help you catch any mistakes early
- Why can’t I move the case forward?
- This is most likely because one of the required items is missing. Check the Case Details page to see if all the required items have been submitted. For most review steps, it’s a report and a vote form. If you can’t submit these, that is probably because they need to be submitted by the Case Manager so make yourself the Case Manager first to submit the required items.
Interfolio Support
Scholar Services Support:
Phone: (877) 997-8807
Email: help@interfolio.com
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