Resource Automated Verification Settings

Resource Automated Verification Settings

What is Automated Verification?

Automated Verification is an optional upgrade in iCarol that dramatically reduces the time it takes for you to regularly check the accuracy of the information in your resource database. Using this tool, iCarol will send an email to the key contacts at Agencies in your resource database asking them to review and verify the information in your database. The contact simply clicks on a link found in the email to review the information on a web page, makes any needed changes and submits the response. Then your resource staff can review and modify those responses before accepting them into your database.

This method greatly reduces or eliminates approaches commonly used today that involve laborious games of “phone tag”, faxing documents back and forth and waiting for people to call you back. Instead the providers can make change requests in detail at their convenience. The following features and tools are included when Automated Verification is enabled:
  1. Use of email addresses from various contact fields in your resource records are used to send automated verification requests
  2. Create personalized email templates that you can re-use for multiple automated verification requests, including the ability to create and send reminder emails
  3. Allow people to submit new Agency records by placing a link on your public website, or including the link in an email
  4. Allow existing resources to submit new Program and Site records during AVR process
  5. If the Public Resource Directory feature is enabled in your system, you can also allow the public to request to update their information directly from their resource record on your website
Note, this feature may have an additional cost associated with it. If your organization is interested in enabling this feature, then a designated Support Contact from your organization can go to 'Help' in the left side menu and submit a ticket to request more information.

Automated Verification Settings Explained

Automatic Verification is a powerful tool used to update and maintain your Resource database. You can create any number of custom Verification Requests, to update large groups of Resources (up to 1000 records at a time), or only specific records that need to be reviewed. Your Admin Contacts, or Verifiers, receive an email with a link requesting them to review their information and submit any changes. They are able to work on the update over multiple sessions, and can submit their changes to you for approval when ready.

How to Create an Automatic Verification Request (AVR):

  1. Log on to iCarol, using an account with Resource Editor privileges.
  2. Click on Resources from the left menu, then to the right of the Geographic Filters choose "Verify" which will change the page to allow you to create a request.
  3. Choose which AVR Method (see explanation below) that best meets the needs of your AVR
  4. Create search query/find the records you wish to include in the AVR. Use examples:
    1. Find all Resources with a specific Taxonomy term. eg. "Suicide Issues", "General Counselling", "Homeless meals", "Homeless people", etc.
    2. Find all Resources with a specific Keyword/Category term eg. "Meals", "Income Tax", etc.
    3. Find all Resources that have a specific word in their Resource Name. eg. "Meal", "Counselling", "Mental Health", etc.
    4. Find all Resources that have a specific word or phrase in any field on the Resource Record. eg. "Low income", "form filling", etc.
    5. Find all Resources that have a Custom Field Value chosen. eg. "Update Quarter", "Update Month", etc. (For more information on how to create a custom resource field, see Help Article "Resource record - add a custom field")
  5. Apply any additional filters to the AVR, such as including only Agency or Program Records, Geographic Restrictions, including only 'Active' records, or Resources that have not been updated within a specific time frame.
    1. Note: if you wish to send AVRs to 'Active' resources only, click 'Filters' and ensure the check boxes for the following settings are deselected, depending on which statuses you wish to send: 'Include Inactive' and 'Include 'Active but do not refer''
  6. Deselect any resources from the AVR (as soon as one Resource record is deselected, Setup Method 2 will apply to the AVR)
  7. Click "Start a verification request with these search results" to configure specific AVR settings.
Notes:
  1. Only one query can be used per AVR. If you want to send a AVR to all Resources with "Meal", or "Food" in their name, you will have to create two separate AVR Requests, unless you can find a search query that will include records in both searches. This is an example of where Custom Fields may be an option.
  2. If you have already sent an AVR to a resource record and an Automated Verification Response is still awaiting a response, and you initiate another AVR with the same resource record included, another AVR will be sent to the resource record. 
  3. After you initiate sending the AVR within iCarol, it may take up to three hours before the email is received by the public resource verifier, due to the way emails are queued within iCarol

Setup Methods for the Automatic Verification Request:

Method 1: Perform a search, and create AV Request from ALL listed/found resources (as soon as you deselect any displayed Resource, you are now using Method 2). Important to note, the query you use to create a Method 1 AVR will be saved, and repeated at the time the AVR is sent. If any changes happen to your Resources between the initial creation of an AVR request, and when it it sent, all records that are found in the same query will be sent. 
Use example: On Monday, you decide to send an AV request to all resources that have a "Suicide Issue" term applied. However, you end up busy and unable to send the AVR that day, and decide to delay sending it until Friday. In the meantime, you or other team members have added a new service, and updated the taxonomy/category of other services, with the "Suicide Issue" term. When the AVR is sent on Friday, all records that match the initial query will be included, including those that were not included when the AVR was first created.
Method 2: Preform a search, and deselect/select only the specific resources that you want to contact.
Use example: Similar to the above method, but the only difference is you deselect any resources you don't wish to include.
Method 3: Initiate an AVR while editing an individual resource record.  To see specific instructions on how to send an AVR this way, see the article titled 'Automatic Verification Request and Responses'.
Use example: You receive a request from an organization to update their information and you only want to send the AVR to one resource.

Explaining the AVR Settings:

Setting 1, "From" email address to use: [drop down list]
Tells the AVR what email address to send the request "From". You can choose to use the iCarol default of noreply@icarol.com (which a verifier cannot reply too), or to setup your own "From" email address by contacting iCarol Support. Please note, verifiers are only able to reply to a verification request to you directly, if you setup your own "From" email address.

Setting 2, Select which email template you'd like to use: [drop down list]
Tells the AVR what template you want to use when sending the request. You can setup multiple templates with custom phrasing for your verification requests, see below for instructions.
  1. "Send out 1 email per Agency verification". This will allow you to use Email Templates that include Resource-specific Placeholders (please see below for more detail on this). Enable this setting to include AVR Email Templates that include Resource-specific templates (eg. Senior worker name, physical address, record name, etc.) When enabled, if the same Verifier email is found on records from multiple organizations, they will receive an AV Request email for each Organization.  For example, John Smith is a main contact at The Regional Food Pantry organization, and is also the senior worker at a local counseling service. If both records are included in the AV request, John Smith will receive two separate emails.
Setting 3, For each resource record to be verified, use the following sequence to find a recipient email address. Once a valid email address is found in a field for a resource, that is the one to which we will send the verification request.
Tells the AVR in what order to look for email addresses. The default is "Main Contact" first, "Senior Worker" second, "Last Verified By" third, and "General Email" fourth - however, you can customize this to any order that you prefer. When the AVR is sent, it will look into each of these fields, in the order you specify, to determine where to send the request.

Setting 4, For any Agency record, if it has any child records (Programs, Sites, ProgramAtSites), also send a verification request.
Tells the AVR what records to include in the request. This setting modifies the initial request creation method. 
  1. "To all the Agency's child records", no matter which setup method you choose for the AVR, ALL the agencies records will be included in the request. (Even if they do not match the initial query in method 1.)
  2. "To child records only that match the search criteria above", will expand the initial search, to include the resources that match the query in the first method of setting up the AVR.
Setting 5, If a record is a Program or Site belonging to an Agency, when should iCarol look into that parent Agency to find an email address to use?
Tells the AVR what emails to look at to send the request, and if one does not exist, which email to use instead.
  1. "Ignore the parent Agency, just use whatever email is found in each Program or Site", tells the AVR to ignore the Agency (Parent) record, and to use what is found on the Program or Site (Child records), in the order specified in Setting 3. If no email is found, the record will not be sent.
  2. "If no email address is found in a Program or Site, then try to find one in it's parent Agency", this is a good option for when Programs may or may not have their own contacts. The AVR will look for an email address, in the Program or Site (Child records) records, in the order specified in Setting 3.
  3. "Only use email addresses from the parent Agency, not from the Program or Site", tells the AVR to ignore any emails found on the Program or Site (Child records) records, and to send all records to the Agency (Parent) record, in the order specified in Setting 3.
Setting 6, If a record is a ProgramAtSite, send verification request to:
Tells the AVR how to include ProgramAtSite records, if they exist in the request (a combination of Setup Method, and Setting 4). 
  1. "Program Contacts" tells the AVR to merge ProgramAtSites with the attached Program. Verifiers can confirm/remove what sites are linked to the Program, and can provide general notes about the changes. Setting 5, and Setting 3 then determine what email to send the merged record too.
  2. "ProgramAtSite Contact if one exists, otherwise program contact" tells the AVR to include the ProgramAtSite records separately. The AVR then looks at Setting 5, and Setting 3 to determine what email to sent the separate record too. 
Note: Setting 5 does not apply to ProgramAtSite records. If you choose Setting 6 "ProgramatSite Contact if one exists, otherwise program contact", and Setting 5 "Only use email address from the parent Agency..." and your ProgramAtSite has a valid email address that is different than the Agencies, the ProgramAtSite record will be sent apart from the Agency's update.
Note: Setting 6 will only be respected when the Agency record is included in the Automated Verification Request. Said another way, if only a Program or Site record are selected to be included in the Request, then ProgramAtSite records will not be included in that Request; in order for the ProgramAtSite to be included, the Agency record must also be included in the Request.

Setting 7, Set a Due Date for these Verification Requests. This date will be available in your Email Templates as a placeholder (@RequestDueDate) to communicate in your email.
  1. Choose due date from date picker.

Automatic Verification Email Templates

Customize email template request to verify resources

Resource editors and administrators can create customized email templates that will be sent to verifiers instead of the default template iCarol has created.  This allows clients to include details about their agency, specific instructions on what information needs to be verified, where to call for assistance, etc.

Steps to create a customized email template:

  1. Click Resources in the left hand menu.
  2. Click the Verify radio button on the right hand side of the screen.
  3. Click the Requests link.
  4. Click the link that says "Create and edit email templates"
  5. Click "Add new template".
  6. Place the name of the template in the "Template Name" field.
  7. If you would like to use your own "From" name, enter your desired name now, or leave the field blank to use the default noreply@icarol.com. Refer to the article titled , 'Set ‘Reply To’ address and ‘From name’ for emails sent from iCarol', to learn the difference between the "Reply To" address and "From" name, and how to set your "Reply To" address, if you wish.
  8. Place a subject in the "Subject" field.
  9. Type your message in the message area.
  10. Be sure to include the required placeholder @EditURL in your message so the link to the verification request will be included in the message
  11. Click "Save"

Available Template Placeholders

There are three types of placeholders to take advantage of while creating AVR Email Templates, Required Placeholders, Optional Placeholders, and Resource Specific Placeholders. Placeholders, when used on your AVR Email Template pass information about the request to the email automatically.
Required Placeholders:
@EditURL will be replaced with the following phrase and the URL link on your email, allowing your verifier to access the webpage to review their information. For example: “Please open the following address in a web browser: http://webapp.icarol.com/pub/VerifyResourcePublic2.aspx?k=#####-#####-#####”
Optional Placeholders:
@ResourceNames will be replaced with a list of all the resource record names being sent to each recipient/verifier.
@CountOfReferrals will be replaced with the total number of referrals sent to all resource records in the past 12 months that are included in the verification request. Including this count may help responders see the importance of completing the request.
@RequestedDueDate will be replaced with the Due Date specified on the Verification Request. (Setting 7)
@RequestedOnDate will be replaced with the date the request was sent.
@RequestorOrgName will be replaced with the name of your organization.
Resource-specific Placeholders:
Resource-specific Placeholders allow you to pass information directly from the Resource record to be verified to the verifier within the email template. This can be used to create personalized AVR email requests and improve response rates. Available Resource-specific Placeholders include:
Organization name of Resource (If a program record has been sent in the AVR request, this will include the Organization's name who offers the program)
Parent Agency Name Official
Parent Agency Name Public (Default Resource Name field)
Parent Agency Physical Address 1
Parent Agency Physical Address 2
Parent Agency Physical City
Parent Agency Physical County
Parent Agency Physical State/Province
Parent Agency Physical Zip/Postal Code
Parent Agency Physical Country
Parent Agency Physical Senior Worker Name
Parent Agency Physical Senior Worker Title
To enable Resource-specific Placeholder:
  1. From the "View and modify your email templates" page
  2. Click on "Enable Resource-specific Placeholders" from the placeholders section.
  3. From the drop-down list, choose the placeholder to include, and click "Insert"
  4. When the template is complete, click "Save"

Steps to edit a customized email template:

  1. Click Resources in the left hand menu.
  2. Click the Verify radio button on the right hand side of the screen.
  3. Click the Requests link.
  4. Click the link that says "Create and edit email templates"
  5. Click the name of the email template you would like to edit in the list.

Add a Logo to Automatic Verification Request Emails

If your logo is available online, such as on your website, you can add that logo to your email templates.
  1. Click on the button to create a new AVR template
  2. In the New Template dialog box, enter the text you want to send in your AVR email.
  3. From the Tools menu at the top of the dialog box, click the '</>' button, also known at the 'Code view' button
  4. Paste the following code wherever you want your logo to be:
  5. <img alt="logo" height="63" src="http://www.domainname.com/images/logo-4.png" width="176" />  (Modify the URL after "src" to your URL, and edit the height and width dimensions as appropriate)
  6. Click the "Code View" button again, to go back to the non-code view, to get a nice preview of how your newly-branded letter will look.
Tip: The height and width figures can be adjusted to fit nicely in the email. Make sure to keep the same ratio as the original logo dimensions. You do not have to use the height and width numbers in the example. If you are not sure of your image URL or the logo dimensions, consider asking your webmaster: "What is the URL, or address, of the center's logo?"  and  "What are the pixel dimensions of that logo?"

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