We’re excited to be pushing out new versions of our Dossier and Letter Writer accounts on Sunday, June 9th. Based on a combination of our own research and direct user feedback, both products will be revamped to ensure a better, more streamlined user experience for each audience. All existing functionality that users already love about Interfolio will remain the same. Dossier users will still be collecting, storing, and delivering application materials. Letter Writer users will still have one central place to upload and manage their letters.

One change that will be part of the release of the new Dossier is how individual users affiliate themselves with an Interfolio partner institution when signing up for an account. In the past, we’ve had the individual user make this selection at signup, without providing a lot of context for the ramifications this has for their account.

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This was alternatively confusing, unclear, or nonsensical, depending on what information, if any, the (potential) user came armed with when hitting the registration page. Beyond not doing the best job of communicating what affiliation meant to you as a new user, we also made it a “required” field. Required in that you needed to put something there, but “No School Affiliation” and “My School is Not Listed” were acceptable options.

To clarify the process for all of our users, we’ll be removing this selection from the registration workflow. This change will not impact the affiliations associated with any existing Interfolio accounts. For users that are not at all associated with a university career center or academic department partnered with Interfolio to provide the Dossier service to their students or alumni, this should be a welcome, clarifying change.

However, many users are associated with one of our Dossier partners, and will need to have their account affiliated with an institution. There are two primary ways to have your account automatically associated with the proper institution:

    1. Signing up with a unique registration link that is provided by your institution.
    2. Signing up using a special offer code that your institution or department has set up to subsidize some or all of the costs of using Interfolio.

That link or code, depending on the partnership that your career center or department has with Interfolio, can be provided by the person administering Interfolio at your institution.

Of course, if all else fails, just get in touch with our support folks and they’re happy to help you add the appropriate affiliation to your existing account!

There have been a lot of exciting changes at Interfolio in the past few months, all in the service of our commitment to providing you with an easy way to submit confidential letters of recommendation for your students and colleagues. We know one of your favorite features of Letter Writer is the cost (FREE) and don’t worry, we haven’t changed a thing on that front! But just because Letter Writer is free doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve some user experience love! After June 9th, when the new version will be made live, all of our beloved letter writers will benefit from a new, clean interface and more efficient ways to complete your tasks.

Although we still require an email address and password to submit a letter (after all, we need some way to keep your letters safe, secure, and always owned by you, the writer), those of you who are new to our Letter Writer product will find a streamlined account creation experience that’s more efficient and easier to understand.

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We only require a little bit of information to get started.

Once logged in to the Letter Writer product, you’ll see clear displays of any and all pending letter requests. These requests will also include better displays of critical information, such as the due date or whether a signature is required. This comprehensive information is also found in your recommendation history, where you can also perform actions on recommendations already submitted, such as downloading the original document and replacing a letter if necessary.

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View all the recommendations you’ve written.

But our changes didn’t stop with aesthetics. We heard loud and clear that although “less is more” in terms of our interface design, the letter requests themselves would benefit from more information from the candidates. Context matters and it results in better letters. We’ve responded to this issue by making changes to the recommendation letter request process in the Dossier product, which you can see in our new Dossier sneak preview. We now prompt your students and colleagues to include the information that letter writers find most useful when writing letters of recommendation. Those initiating letter requests have the opportunity to attach their CV and/or cover letter, to link you to the opportunity they are applying for and to leave you a personal message. We’re hoping that this additional information makes it easier for you to fulfill any requests for letters that you receive.

Sometimes, writers are reluctant to call us if they need help. We know you like your questions answered quickly and efficiently, so we have embedded help content throughout the Letter Writer interface to answer your most frequently asked questions.

Of course if our embedded help doesn’t do the trick, once the new product rolls out (check back after June 9th!), our help documentation will include up-to-date instructions and screenshots to ensure that you get the answers you need. As always, our Customer Support Team will be standing by to answer your questions and listen to any concerns you might have.

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Help appears where you need it.

We think these enhancements will provide everyone with an easier path to uploading letters moving forward. As always, we want you to spend as little time as possible navigating our system, so that you are freed up to focus your time and energy on everything else—including writing great letters!

Whether you are applying to schools, preparing for the job market, or organizing your materials for the promotion and tenure process, you want a secure, easy to use service that allows you to manage your documents all in one place.

 

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A “less is more” design means efficient task completion.

We know from our conversations with many of you that you specifically choose to use Interfolio because we provide you with the ability to do all of those things, as well as request letters of recommendation and create a public portfolio to share your work with the world.

Your specific needs challenged us to redesign our Dossier product to give it a simple, clean interface and—most importantly—make it easier for you to take action with your documents.

Calls to action became the primary focus of our redesign, and our user testing indicates that adding documents to your Dossier, requesting letters of recommendation, and creating new deliveries will get a lot easier for you after June 9th when the new version will be made live.

As you probably know, requesting letters of recommendation saves your letter writers from having to manage multiple letters and from manually uploading letters into numerous confusing application systems.

At the same time, your letter writers have told us they wish you could include more information with your requests for letters from them. The new version of our Dossier product allows you to provide their desired information with your letter request; you will be able to add a personal message, provide them with a link to program or job information, attach your CV and cover letter or writing sample, indicate whether or not a signature is required, and (finally) let them know if you are operating under a deadline by providing a “due date”.

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Provide information to letter writers when making a request.

Delivering your documents safely and securely to the right place is easily one of the most important things we do for you. Our new design streamlines the delivery process regardless of delivery method, taking you step by step through the process, so you are confident your materials are on their way to the destination you have indicated.

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Moving through the delivery steps is a breeze.

From the time you enter a paper or email delivery address, through adding documents, confirming delivery details, and (finally) checking out and seeing that success notification, we’ve built in help along the way.

If you are applying to a ByCommittee position, or a position for which we already have all of the delivery data stored for you (such as everything in the MLA Job Information List), you can skip right ahead to completing any specific application forms and submitted required documents.

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Confirm your application details before delivery.

Supporting you and your academic pursuits continues to be our primary goal and that should shine through with the redesign of our Dossier product.

We have embedded help text throughout the new version of the product, so you get answers to your questions and tips on how to get the most out of Dossier when you’re right there in it.