For Counselors: Manage Documents

Corey Weaver Updated by Corey Weaver

Manage Documents is where you track application-document status across your senior class — one row per student, with a column for every document. Each cell shows whether a document is missing and, just as important, whether any of the student’s colleges actually require it, so you can prioritize the work that matters.

Reading the table

By default, the Manage tab shows every student in your school’s current senior class — it isn’t filtered to your own caseload automatically. If you only want to see your students, apply the Counselor Assignment filter (see Filtering, columns, and saved views below).

Most document cells show a single Tag:

Tag

Meaning

Available

The document has been created, uploaded or signed.

Needed

Missing, and at least one college on the student’s list requires it.

Optional

Missing, and not required by any colleges on the student's list.

Any blank or empty cell means the document is missing and there are no requirements to check it against — either the student doesn't have any colleges in Applying or Applied status yet, or none of the colleges they do have accept this document.

The Application Status control

Above the table, on the action bar, you’ll find an icon with a document showing a check mark. Click it to open a menu titled Show requirements for, with three options:

  • Applying & Applied: The default selection, which surfaces requirements for all active applications.
  • Applying Only: Narrows to colleges the student is currently working on, excluding ones they’ve already applied to. This will not include Queued applications that do not have a round selected yet.
  • Applied Only: Limits the requirement set to applications that have been submitted.

This isn’t a row filter — it doesn’t hide or show students, and the row count never changes. What it does is change the calculation behind every cell in every row, using each student’s own set of colleges. The selected value will save and be included in any custom views.

Filtering, columns, and saved views

Document columns and filters are organized into six groups that follow the shape of the school year — Student Details, Initial Materials, Teacher & Other Recommendations, Midyear Materials, Final Materials, and Miscellaneous. Views key off these same groups to help you focus on where you are in the year.

Jump to a season with Views

You don’t have to set anything up to get started; three views come built in: Initial Materials, Midyear Materials, and Final Materials. Pick one from the options on the action bar and the table focuses on that group’s columns automatically, so you’re not rebuilding the same setup every time the calendar moves you into a new phase of the cycle.

Show only what you’re working on with Columns

Click Columns to add or remove anything from your view. If you have Additional or Transfer Transcripts, Senior Courses or Grade Report documents, add them to your Initial Materials so it aligns with your school's workflow.

Narrow the list with Filters

Click Filters to cut the table down to a specific set of students. Use Counselor Assignment any time you want to work your own caseload instead of the whole senior class. Below that, the filters break into the same six groups as Columns, so you can filter on exactly the document or status you’re chasing.

Needs any Initial Materials, surfaces every student missing any required initial material. All needed states for Teacher Rec Status and Other Rec Status are included when applying this filter.

The Teacher & Other Recommendations group also has numeric range filters — Outstanding Teacher Recommendations, Available Teacher Recommendations, Declined Teacher Recommendations, Available Other Recommendations, and Ranked Recommendations — for when you want to filter by count instead of status. The count of Ranked Recommendations includes Teacher and Other recs.

Save your View

Once your columns and filters are dialed in save it as a custom view. It’ll sit alongside the three built-in views so you can get back to that exact setup anytime without rebuilding it. Set the view as your default so it shows each time you log in and visit the Manage Documents page.

The Export button sits on the action bar next to the view selector if you need to save a copy of what you’re currently looking at.

Teacher & Other Recommendations

This is the most nuanced part of the table. The Teacher Rec Status and Other Rec Status columns use a similar set of states. Each state tells you not just that something’s outstanding, but exactly what to do next. A student can have applications sitting in more than one of these states at once. The Tag shown reflects whichever state is highest priority until that specific action is resolved, in this order:

Tag

Meaning

Next step

Needed: Request Recs

The student does not have enough requests to meet the maximum number required by a college.

Request a teacher rec

Needed: Assign Recs

Requests have been sent but an application has a required rec that isn't assigned yet.

Assign either manually or through ranking

Needed: Teacher Completion

Requested and assigned, but the rec is required and the teacher hasn’t completed it.

Follow up with the teacher

Optional: Teacher Completion

Requested and assigned, but the rec is optional and the teacher hasn’t completed it.

Optional — follow up if useful

Optional: Assign Recs

Requests have been sent but an application has an optional rec available that isn't assigned yet.

Optional — assign if useful

Optional: Request Recs

An optional recommendation opportunity exists but hasn’t been requested.

Optional — request if useful

Available

All recommendation spots are requested, assigned and completed by the teacher.

Nothing to do

The Assign Recs states are mainly relevant if your school has the “Require assignment of recommendations to specific colleges” setting turned on. If that setting is off, recommendations assign automatically once completed. There’s no separate assignment step, so this will only show on applications where a manual assignment occurred and additional recommendations didn't automatically assign.
Other Rec Status uses similar vocabulary, with one difference: there’s no request or completion step for other recommenders, so Needed: Request Recs and Optional: Request Recs will show as "Needed" and "Optional". This means uploading an additional Other Recommendation will satisfy the open spot at that college

Taking action on a document

The Manage tab tells you what needs attention. To work on a specific document for a specific student, click the student’s name to open their profile.

Selecting rows in the table gives you one bulk action: applying labels. Pull up that same label on the Student Roster or the Applications data table to work with the same group of students elsewhere.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where can I see FERPA status or Common App connection status?

Neither is tracked on the Manage tab. You’ll find both on the Student Roster.

When do Midyear and Final Materials show as Needed?

The same way any other column does — if any college on the student’s list requires that document, it shows Needed; if none require it but at least one recommends it, it shows Optional. This is separate from your Send settings for “send midyear/final transcript for applications that are…”, which control when an application shows Needs Attention on the Send tab. The Manage tab’s Needed/Optional status is based purely on what colleges require, regardless of those settings.

Is the table filtered to my own students automatically?

No. By default it shows the whole senior class. Apply the Counselor Assignment filter if you only want to see your own caseload.

How did we do?

Understanding FERPA - Frequently asked questions

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