As an administrator you may find yourself receiving emails from Recommenders (or applicants) with questions in regards to the recommendation process. This article will walk through the most common issues that recommenders can run into when completing the recommendation. You can also refer to our Recommender FAQ article that can be shared with your recommenders to help them resolve commonly reported issues on their own.
If a recommender contacts you because they have recently received a recommendation request, but are unable to see the recommendations within their panel, refer to the few potential reasons below.
The application has been moved to the next stage of the application process
In order for the recommender to be able to complete the recommendation task, the application will need to be within the stage that the recommender task exists.
Confirm that the recommender contacting you has a current invite to recommend the application.
The recommendation task is a form and not an attachment
If the recommender experiences difficulty attaching a recommendation letter:
SurveyMonkey Apply will not accept encrypted files. You will need to instruct them that in order to attach their file the encryption must be removed.
The deadline has passed for the stage/task
If the recommender has reached out to you that they can't edit a task, first check to see if the deadline has passed for the task/ stage the application is in.
If the recommender has reached out to you that they can't edit a task, you can also check to ensure that if there are any Open dates on the stage/tasks, that it has already passed.
Based on the settings of your site it is possible that the recommender is unable to edit the task after already completing it.
Once the recommender has completed the recommendation task for the application they will need to Submit the task. Until the recommendation is submitted the request will appear "In Progress." Once the recommendation has been completed the In Progress status will appear as "Completed" with the date and time it was completed at. This will allow you to ensure that the recommendation was submitted and was appended to the application.
As an administrator, if you wish to confirm this for the recommender:
By default, applicants will not be able to view the recommendation that was completed for them. They will simply be able to see that it has been completed. However, there is a setting to enable applicants to view the recommendation.
To confirm if this is the setup in your site: