When you sign into Robinform, you will see the “At a Glance” section on the main dashboard.

The two columns with forms are:

• All Ready: this candidate has all forms completed. This person is “cleared” of this step in the onboarding process.

• No Activity: these forms have had no activity for 3+ days. Consider sending manual outreach, or update the email address if necessary (ie. it shows a “bounced” symbol)

At the top of the page you will find several key stats including the number of employees (applicants/candidates) added, number of organizations you’ve sent forms to, and the number of contacts you’ve added. All information on the dashboard is for the past 90 days.

At a Glance

You can click into a name and see the details for the forms, right from this view, like Roger Rabbit in the image below:

Messages

On the right hand side you will see all incoming messages to Robinform and any responses sent by RobinAI.

When you click on the message it will take you to the form it relates to, where you can respond directly from Robinform.

Filter by form

When you navigate to the “All Ready” section on the left hand menu, you can also filter by form:

The Latest

See a quick snapshot of the latest forms sent. All forms are organized by the employee’s name. You can quickly see the status of specific forms for employees, whether you are waiting on the employee to complete their information or waiting for a response from past employers.

Once all forms are complete, the color next to the employee’s name will turn green, indicating there are no outstanding forms.

If you click on an employee name, you can view the details about the forms that were sent (what employers have received forms, whether they have been signed yet, see the latest activity on the log).

If you click on a form for an employee, and select “Open”, you will go to the detailed form page to see the logs, edit contact information, schedule manual follow-ups, etc.

Search

To search for a specific employee name or organization, go to the search tab and type in the name you are looking for. You will see the topline information for that person and can drill down further by clicking on their name.

You can also access search if you’re viewing an employee’s record (without having to navigate back to the home screen):

Flagged

See all flagged forms.

Subs and temp/contractor

See employees that are marked as substitutes or temps/contractors. This is helpful for re-sending forms to subs each school year, as required by some states.

Incoming

If you are a signer, you can toggle to “incoming” to see the forms that your org needs to sign for past employees.

Stats

To drill down into your team’s workload, the stats tab shows key metrics including reach (how many orgs you’ve sent forms to); effort saved; and routing performance by Robinform (automated contacts vs. manual).

Customizing the emails in Robinform

Here’s how you can customize the emails.

First, navigate to the admin settings, by clicking “Admin” or “User” in the upper left hand corner of your dashboard.

Then, select the form you wish to customize the email for:

Once selected, you can edit the text in the “Employee Description”, which is what your candidates or employees see. You can also customize the “Signer Description”, which is what signers will see (i.e. past employers). Hit “Save” at the bottom to save the custom changes.

Important note: Once you save the changes, the email text is updated for all future emails sent.

To help automate this in Robinform, you can specify when you would like a form to be marked as “no response”. This keeps record keeping straightforward, without forms lingering in an incomplete state indefinitely.

How to set up in Robinform

First, navigate to the “admin” tab on the upper left hand corner of your dashboard:

Next, select the form you would like to edit the settings for:

Once you have selected the form, you will see the option to “close signing after X days” (see the highlighted box below). Specify the number of days and click “enable”. This is now live.

Note: for some forms like MD-HB486, there is an automated employer report created. You can also specify the number of days to wait before generating this report. The default is set to 20 days, which is the required length of time to provide past employers to respond.

Here’s an example:

Regardless of who created the form in Robinform, you will now be notified when:

• Any forms are completed by the applicant

• Any forms are completed by past employers

• Employer reports are ready (for relevant forms, like HB486)

From your HR system (Workday, Oracle, PowerSchool, etc.) you can view applicant status and create forms in Robinform, without having to hop between windows or tabs.

You can add the extension here.

Set up the Chrome extension

To set up the Chrome extension, first follow the link to download it from the Chrome store (it’s free for Robinform customers). *We have two extensions. Make sure you click on “Glue by Robinform”

Next, open the extension on your HR platform. Copy/paste your organization’s Robinform URL from the dashboard. Then, you’ll be asked to grant permission for the extension to operate on the webpage:

Now, select where the extension can find the name of the employee on the HR platform.

Refresh your page and close the extension’s set-up window.

You will now see the Robinform logo on the right hand of your HR platform, click to see the status of that employee’s forms. If there is no employee in Robinform that matches the name in your HR platform, you can create one directly from the extension.

Now you can do everything from within your HR platform!

If you have questions or feedback, please let us know. Reach out to help @ robinform.com

• Generate a cover letter to print

• Download the letter and the form

• Make a note on the log to show the action took place

Here’s how.

Step one: select “create letter”

Step two: select “download letter”

Note: You will also want to download the form at this time (select the “form” button to the left of “letter” shown above).

Navigate to your “downloads” folder to print the letter and form.

Why are there two steps to download the letter?

If you create the letter one day and then choose to download later, the timestamp on the back-end will be updated to the day it was downloaded. This ensures accuracy for future reference and logs.

However - if you make a manual note on the logs indicating you mailed a form, we will not update the time stamp. It will remain consistent with the date on the log.

For Maryland Schools

This will show up on the logs generated to send to MSDE, if an employer report is required after the 20 day response period.

Incomplete fields made obvious

If a field is incomplete and required, you will see exactly where the missing information is and won’t be able to submit until the information is added:

Preview forms before submitting

Forms can be previewed before filling out and before submitting:

Clear instructions for previous employers

The name of the applicant and description of the form is up front and center:

Video Demo

The following video (no sound) demonstrates the flow and user experience.

If you have any questions, please email help@robinform.com!

Metrics on the dashboard

You can now see detailed metrics about the number of forms you’ve sent, how many employees you’ve sent forms to, the routing performance (i.e. info your team had to manually correct vs. Robinform automatically routing), and how much time Robinform is saving your team each week.

The metrics are for the past 90 days (from the day you’re looking). It’s a great way to get a pulse on your team’s workload over the past 3 months.

Completed forms - email notifications

When all of an applicant’s forms have been signed by their past employers, the last email notification will alert you that they are “cleared” and are not waiting for any more signed forms. To keep your inbox uncluttered, this is included in the notification emails we send when a form is completed (see screenshot below).

If you send multiple forms via Robinform, you’ll get a “final” notification for each form type. For example: if an applicant has sent three references forms and three misconduct forms, you will get a notification when the last reference form is complete and another notification when the last misconduct form is complete.

Outreach timeline

To help you quickly get a sense of the notification attempts to past employers (and applicants), we built an outreach timeline graph on the form detail page. Here you can see the number of attempts (each blue dot) and the timing of each notification. When you hover over the dot, you’ll see a date, time and the outreach type (email, phone, or fax). Further detail is shown in the log below, if needed.

That’s a wrap! If you have any questions or would like a demo, please reach out to help@robinform.com.

I believe that if you’re trying to keep schools safe for children, you shouldn’t have to spend hours chasing down the right email address or phone number. When I first learned how much time and effort went into staying compliant with these state laws, I was blown away and immediately wanted to help. We built Robinform to address the top concerns we heard from HR teams:

1. Make it easy to track the forms from start to finish

2. Stay compliant with state requirements

3. Eliminate the tedious, manual work so staff can focus on more skilled tasks

It became clear as we talked with districts throughout Maryland and Washington that while most school districts had a process in place, it wasn’t really working for them. Here are some of the most common scenarios shared with us:

“We’re not tracking… anything.”
This happens at districts of all sizes. The misconduct forms are a to-do item on the onboarding list, but once the forms are sent out to the past employers and the state requirements are fulfilled, the team moves on. In some cases, there is no record of how many forms were sent or where they are sent to. They know this is a compliance risk but if they never get a form back, they wouldn’t know!

“It takes hours to find the right contact information and follow up.”
In some states, like Maryland, districts are required to show that they have tried to reach the past employer a specific number of times. Sometimes they even need to try different methods (i.e. you can’t just email them three times, you need to add a phone call or fax). Manually following up and tracking each attempt to contact a past employer is a huge burden on the HR team.

“We do everything manually.”
This is the most common scenario we see: every single step requires a person to complete it. The HR team takes on the burden of sending the forms to the applicants, correcting mistakes, tracking down the right contact information for the past employers, sending the forms, following up, and then filing a report if there was no response. Often this involves a complicated spreadsheet that only one or two people know how to read (a risk if that person moves jobs).

At Robinform, it is our mission to help school administrators simplify these processes. If you feel like your process isn’t working and you’re ready to try something new, let’s talk.

Email anna @ robinform.com if you’d like to learn more.

Let’s dive in!

Dashboard updates

When you first sign in, you will see all “completed” forms for your organization:

Why did we make this update?
Completed forms are the goal, so we made that the first thing you see.

The second tab on the dashboard will take you to forms with "No Activity” - i.e. any form where no action has been taken for 3 days in the last 90 days. These are forms that may require your attention for additional follow-ups or edits.

See counts on “No Activity” view

The “No Activity” tab will now display the number of records, and when you select the drop down to see the records created by other users, each user will have the specific count listed by their name

Why did we make this update?
To help your team stay on top of any forms with an “at a glance” way to quickly gauge how many forms need your attention.

Sort by “created by”

Previously only admins could sort by user, but now everyone will have that option. By default you will see “all forms”, but you can filter to see forms created by you or specify another user on the “No Activity” or “Latest” views by selecting their name from the drop-down menu.

Why did we make this update?
There are many scenarios where sorting by “created by” make sense, from seeing progress on what’s yours to managers needing to get a pulse on their team’s workload.

Access to completed forms locked-down

3 days after completing a form, the user will lose access to make edits. If any changes need to be made by the employee or signer, you can reopen the form and a new link will be sent for them to complete the form again.

Why did we make this update?

We took this measure to enhance security and data privacy.

That’s it for this month. If you have any questions, please reach out to anna @robinform.com

Let’s dive in!

Introducing: Robin AI

We noticed that many past employers and employees have repeat questions about the forms. To help address this, we launched Robin AI. At a high level, this is how it works:

• If anyone replies to an email from Robinform, Robin AI will respond (technical, basic form information, etc.) or redirect the question to you when it cannot. The response is captured on the dashboard (see below) for visibility.

• Read more about how this works in this detailed blog post.

View and send emails from Robinform

• View emails in Robinform: Email responses are now shown in the dashboard and on the logs. They display who emailed (email address) and the message, allowing you to stay on top of communication.
  Note: If you are a signer for your organization, you will see this in the column you would previously see your incoming forms. You can toggle to see the incoming forms via the options at the top of the column.

• Respond to emails from Robinform: When you see a response from an employee or employer, you can now respond directly from the dashboard. The email interaction will be captured in the logs for visibility:

  Emails captured on the log

  

  Send an email from the Robinform dashboard

  

Additional signing options for past employers

Our goal is to have all responses captured in Robinform, without adding more work for your team. Because some orgs are not able to open links from email or their firewalls block outside sites, we have added another option for them:

• All emails sent to past employers will include three options to sign:

  • The standard link to sign the form online

  • A URL they can type directly into their browser, with a code to access the form

  • A PDF attached to the email for them to download and sign, and then return via responding to the email. Robinform automatically receives the PDF and confirms receipt, marking it complete in the dashboard

Better employee experience

Building on the improvements for the employee experience we made last month, we made two big changes for employee experience:

• Progress on forms is now saved, so an employee can come back later to submit a form without losing the data they entered.

• Emails to employees now include more details about each form and clear instructions for how to fill them out.

Improved dashboard and admin experience

You may have noticed a slightly new look on the dashboard. We are working to make things easier to see at a glance, while keeping the dashboard simple and intuitive. With this in mind, we made two updates:

• You can now search by organization, not just employee name. On the search page, simply toggle to “search by organization”.

• The dashboard now collapses all records under the employee’s name. Click on the employee’s name to see all forms and navigate to the records.

Questions or comments? Send them to help @ robinform.com. If you’re interested in using our platform, please reach out to anna @ robinform.com

To make sure these didn’t get lost, we started pushing them into the logs for form records, and highlighting them as much as we could on the dashboard. We thought about forwarding these to you, but we realized we could respond to most of them with AI and take action on our platform based on the conversations to save you time. As a side note, AI over email is actually one of the first features we built when we started Robinform, so we’ve had it from day one and have learned from it since! But we originally focused our efforts on use cases for you, the administrator using our platform (creating forms, managing the organization, etc), instead of the end-user: your new employees, contractors, temps, and the people that can certify their past experiences. Doing this was really an aha moment for us as we realized we could help you more by helping them.

Over the weekend we released that capability, and added a second level of visibility to your dashboard home screen. Here’s an example of our AI (Robin AI) in action:

At 8:05 a person that we sent an email to replied that they did not know the person they were sent a reference for, and could not reasonably complete the form we sent. In under a minute, Robin AI responded to the person and marked the form as incomplete (“no response”) to close the form and stop sending follow up emails.

This is a very simple example of how we can use AI to automate flows. Right now our AI can currently make decisions and respond to the following types of end-user interactions:

• Emails like “I don’t know this person” - mark a form as incomplete / no response (example above) and reply to confirm

• Emails like “How do I do this” / “Tell me about HB486” - answer questions about forms they need to complete

• Emails like “I can’t open this link on my organization’s network” - help the responding organization upload a PDF to sign instead of using a link, and reply to confirm upload

• Emails like “This is annoying, stop emailing me” - stop email notifications to prevent spam, and reply to confirm

• Emails like “Can I speak to someone that can help me” - CC you on the email thread

• Emails like “I’m having trouble submitting the form” - CCs us so we can assist with technical issues

We also added more visibility into these incoming and outgoing emails on the dashboard to keep you informed of what’s coming in and going out.

If a Robin AI response in the logs does not show its actual reply, then our system replied with a pre-vetted, non-AI / canned response written by us. As it’s static, the actual text will not show up in logs. However, in situations where the AI response is sent back to the end-user, we show you the full text, as shown in the first item in the logs above.

We’d like to work with you all to start adding custom FAQ questions / responses you may have for your organization. Please reach out to Anna for that.

If we missed any scenarios you think would be useful, please reply directly to this email and I will see your response in my inbox!

Adam

You will see who responded, the date, and their message, allowing you the opportunity to follow up if necessary.

Tip: Check the logs periodically, looking for “[their email address] replied to email:”

If you have any questions, please reach out to help @ robinform.com

1. Click a link

2. Type a URL into their browser, enter the code provided

3. PDF attachment

Here is an example of the email that past employers receive:

If they fill out the form via PDF, they are instructed to respond back to the email with the signed PDF. This will automatically upload the form to Robinform, and mark their record “completed”.

Why this matters

Many organizations have strict firewalls or security protocols that prevent opening links from an email. We want to ensure they are able to access the form, and return it to you in the easiest way possible.

Filling out the form digitally is the easiest way for past employers to respond, but we recognize that this is not always possible. This provides an alternative that keeps the forms within the flow of Robinform so it is easier for you to manage and track.

Questions

What if the past employer sends the form back outside of responding to the email from Robinform (i.e. faxes the form back or sends a separate email)? You can upload the form to Robinform manually, which will mark the record as complete.

What if I want to send the form by fax or postal service? Can this be tracked in Robinform? You can send the form via fax directly from the dashboard! This will be tracked in Robinform. When you receive the signed form, just upload it into Robinform. If you send a form via postal service, make a note on the log that it was mailed so you can keep track of the attempt.

If you have questions, please email help @ robinform.com

1. Employee name

2. Organization name

The search function is found by clicking the magnifying glass icon in the dashboard menu:

By employee name

If you are looking for forms for a specific employee you can easily search by their name. Last name is required, but you can add first and middle names to narrow down the results. Here is what a search result using last name looks like:

By organization name

If you want to see all forms sent to a specific organization, you can select “search by organization name”:

Type in the name of the organization, and you will see all forms that have been sent:

If you have any questions, please email help@robinform.com

• Change your organization’s contact email

• Change your organization’s address, phone number, and fax

• Add new users

• Remove users

• Update permissions for users

• Filter forms on the Robinform dashboard by user

Not sure if you’re an admin? When you sign in, look at the top left hand corner of the dashboard - you’ll see the “Admin” badge if you have admin access.

Change your organization’s contact information / address / phone or fax number

If you are an admin, you can update the name, address, phone number, city, state, and zip code for your organization. Reply to the sign-in email and specify what you want to update.

For example, if you were to change the phone number you would say something like:

Add / remove users / edit permissions

As an admin, you can create and manage the permissions for different users in your organization by replying to your sign-in email. Permissions are as follows:

• admin (true / false) - can perform all functions

• signer (true / false) - can sign requests on behalf of your organization

• If not an admin or signer - can create and manage forms for new employees

Here are some templates you can copy/paste into the email reply to your Robinform sign-in email: to update users for your account:

• Adding new user, copy/paste:

  • Add new user to my organization:
    theirname@yourwebsite.com
    Admin: false/true
    Signer: false/true

• Removing a user, copy/paste:

  • Remove theirname@yourwebsite.com as a user from my organization

• Changing admin status, copy/paste:

  • Update users for my organization:
    theirname@yourwebsite.com
    admin: true/false
    signer: true/false

You will then get a reply with a list of the users and their permissions, as you can see in the screenshot below:

Filter the Robinform dashboard by user

Admins can see forms created by specific users to monitor their status. Select the drop down in the upper right hand corner:

And then select which creator’s forms you want to view:

This can be done for both applicants who do not fill out forms (and you do not move forward with hiring) or past employers who do not respond to requests.

How to mark a form as incomplete

On the form record in Robinform, scroll to the bottom and select “Mark No Response”

When you select this, it will turn the status color to “green”, indicating that this form is complete (i.e. not waiting for further action), a yellow icon will appear next to the name of the form (see below), and you will see the action taken in the log.

After you mark the form incomplete, you can add a note about anything you need to keep a record of. For example, if you have sent a report to the department of education (as required by your state):

From the dashboard, you can also see the indicator for when a form is marked as incomplete:

Scenarios when to use incomplete:

• Your state requires a report to be sent to filed when an employer has not responded within a specified time period. Mark the form as incomplete to indicate that you have sent the report to the state and done your due diligence

• An applicant does not fill out their forms and you decide to not move forward with hiring them

• A past employer has not responded (and your state does not require a report). Mark as incomplete to move them out of the incomplete column and indicate that you have done your due diligence

Improvements to the employee experience:

• The instructions to fill out the form are now more clear (and hard to miss)

• Auto-scroll + visual cues to indicate where information is being filled in on the form

• Employee tutorial is live - find it here

Send the form by fax, via Robinform

• You can send a form via Fax, from the Robinform dashboard. First, confirm you have the correct fax number. Then, select “send”. The fax will be sent and recorded in the log:

  

Admins: Sort forms by creator

• See forms created by specific users to monitor their status. Select the drop down in the upper right hand corner:

  

  And then select which creator’s forms you want to view:

  

Admins: Update your contact information

• You now can specify what email you want to list as your contact email. This email address is included in the email sent to both employees and their past employers when the form is sent. Specific instructions are found here.

Below is an example of the prompts and required information (the specific fields will vary depending on the form you are sent).

Step One: Access Robinform

Follow the link from your email. There is no login required, just click the link and you’ll be taken directly to the forms you are required to fill out.

Step Two: Fill out the assigned forms

Fill out the first section with the required personal information. Required fields will have a red “required” next to them, and turn green when complete.

Note: If you are assigned more than one form, you will see each listed on the top of the screen, and will be guided to fill out each one in succession.

Step Two (b): Enter your past employer information

For many forms you will be asked to add past employer information. You can add as many employers as you need to. Enter the name of the employer and their website, then hit “Add Employer”.

Note: If you have no relevant employers to add and have selected that option on the first page, you will select “Continue without adding employers”. ONLY use this option if you have no relevant past employment. If you aren’t sure if an employer is relevant, be sure to ask your HR point of contact.

Fill in all of the required details for the past employer. In some cases, Robinform will have pre-filled contact information. If this is filled in, you will simply need to fill out personal information such as employment dates, role, etc.

Step Three: Add more employers

When you’ve completed the required fields, select “Next”. If you have additional employers to add, you can do so on the next page and continue this process until are added. When all relevant employers are added, select “Continue”.

Step Four: Sign and submit

You must sign the form electronically before submitting. You can either use your mouse or type your name (select “type instead” on the bottom right of the signature box). If you are missing any information, you’ll see an alert in red at the bottom of the page. Go back to the section to add the required information before submitting the form.

After you submit, you will see confirmation that the form is complete. There is also an option to download the form for your records.

If there are additional forms for you to fill out, you will be taken to the next one until all are complete. When you have completed all assigned forms, you will see “All forms signed!”

That’s it! The forms have now been sent to the next step in the process to fill out (i.e. your past employers).

If you have questions about the forms and how to fill them out, please reach out to help @ robinform.com. If you have questions about employment specific information, please reach out to your point of contact at the organization you’re interviewing with.