Tech Tips: Sabbatical & Scholarly Leave

Introduction

Colleges and universities keep track of a wide range of faculty activities, from teaching loads to scholarly achievements and service work. Having reliable business processes in place helps everyone stay organized and prevents stakeholders from feeling overwhelmed. Sabbatical and scholarly leave requests are frequently managed in InfoReady.

Faculty simply submit their requests in InfoReady, where administrators handle approvals and reviews, share decisions with key stakeholders, and easily collect follow-up forms—all within the InfoReady platform.

Challenges

• Each request can have its own unique purpose, so the required documentation may differ depending on whether, for example, it’s for travel or writing.
• There are several approval steps along the way, and it’s important to share the reasoning behind each decision.
• After leave is approved, it’s important to keep everyone in the loop—so individuals are notified to help coordinate any follow-up tasks and collect any needed forms.

• It can be helpful to organize different types of requests separately.

• Set up a routing step for each approval stage and share feedback at every step along the way. InfoReady has multiple ways to automate the approval process.

• During the award process, copy any relevant stakeholders, such as Human Resources, Registrar, and Payroll representatives.

• You might find it helpful to set up an automatic data feed from InfoReady to your HR or faculty management system, so approval decisions are instantly updated across all systems.

• Use Progress Reports to collect follow-up forms from faculty who received approval.

• If many different documents are needed, ask faculty members to combine them into one PDF file for easy viewing.

• Or, if it makes things easier for reviewers, you can upload documents as separate files in the order you’d like them viewed on the Requirements page. This way, you can give clear instructions for each file upload.

• If reference letters are needed, then enabled the Reference Letter feature to help applicants and administrators automatically collect the letters.

• If your approvals follow the structure of your organization—like Department Chairs or Deans—you can streamline things using Department Driven Routing Steps. Or, let applicants help out by identifying their own reviewers with Applicant Driven Routing Steps.

• If a request isn’t approved, be sure to share helpful feedback with the faculty member for clarity. You can do this right from the decision screen, or send feedback to multiple requests at once if needed.

• Progress Reports make it easy to gather updates from faculty when they return, like new publications or other outcomes from their time away.

• Easily create a fresh version of your process for each cycle by copying your most recent process, or use a template, so requests stay organized and simple to compare over time. For example, administrators can quickly check how many requests from a given department were awarded in a particular semester.