Customer Support – Hour Republic FAQs

A Student is Missing When Creating Forms

If you are having trouble locating a student when creating a form, then please read below for possible reasons.

A) The student is being filtered out

Remember to check your filters! This is one of the most common reasons a student cannot be located when creating forms. It’s possible that students are being filtered out by one or more of the following filters:

The most common culprit is the Semester filter.

Students who were previously enrolled in co-op may still be associated with their previous semester.
The student may be associated with a different semester in the file that your IT department shares with us.
Our semester filter defaults to the current semester (i.e. around Feb 1st, the semester filter switches to Sem 2). There is a time period, close to semester change, where you may want to locate students for an upcoming semester. Students may be associated with the upcoming semester.

You can remove filters by clicking on them and setting them to All or by clicking on the x located inside the drop-down:

TIP: You can update a student's semester by going to their profile and updating their Semester field:

B) Student data has not been shared with us yet

If the student is still not showing up after the filters have been cleared, this means that they probably are not in our database.

If the student has just joined your co-op/ class, it can take up to 24 hours for their data to become available in our system. It depends on when the data is captured by your IT department and when it is subsequently shared with us.

If 24 hours have passed and the student is not accessible when creating a form, then we recommend reaching out to our customer service team at info[@]charityrepublic.com. Please share the full name of the student and their OEN.

How do students generate a Student Workplace Preferences form?

Below are instructions for students on how to generate the Student Workplace Preferences form.

Register for an Hour Republic account

From here, click on the Hour Republic icon (bottom-right) and register as a student
– The OEN field is not required (optional)
– Your teacher may provide you with a signup code. If so, add that code to the Signup Code field.

Please only register once. After registering, when you click on the Hour Republic icon in the future, it automatically logs you in.

Search for Placement Opportunities

Click on the Opportunities section in the left panel.
Here, you can view placement opportunities by Organization, Position, Location, and Sector.

Click on a specific placement to review any details associated with the placement – this includes the placement description, qualifications and contact information.

Create a Student Workplace Preferences form

*Reminder to only create one Student Workplace Preferences form.

#1: Click on the Forms tab in Hour Republic

#2: Select the Student Workplace Preferences Form by clicking the checkbox on the left-hand side, under the Recent Forms heading

#3: Click the Create Forms button in the top-right corner

#4: Begin filling out or editing your form

NOTE: 
If you don't have a semester or teacher selected at the top of your form, then you can set it by clicking the Edit button next to appropriate field.

Note: There are 5 employer options listed (see example below for “Employer 1”). Select your Top 5 employers by completing the following fields for each:

– Rank

– Employer (i.e. Company name)

– Position (i.e. Job Title)

– Sector

#5: Once the form is complete, click Save or Finish
– Click Cancel if you do not want to save your form or any revisions
– Click Export to view your form in PDF format.

– You can download or print your form after it is exported:

EDIT YOUR FORM

All new Student Workplace Preferences form(s) that you or your teacher create will appear under Recent Forms on the right-side of your screen. Click on the form that you just created to Edit.

OYAP: How to Export / Print Forms, Letters, Certificates and Cards

Export and print OYAP forms for one student

After creating an OYAP form for a student, click the Export button in the
top-right corner of the form. You can choose to export the following OYAP forms:

OYAP Participant Application Form, sections 1 & 2 (“Form PDF”)
```
The OYAP card appears on page 4 of this document.
```
OYAP Letter

OYAP Certificate

This OYAP certificate is meant to be printed on the Ministry's OYAP paper template that is used for certificates

Export and print OYAP forms for multiple students

In the main Form section, under Recent Forms, (i) select the OYAP Form under the Recent Forms section and then, (ii) select the student forms that you wish to export
Click on the Export Forms icon. You can choose to export the Form PDF, OYAP Certificate or the OYAP Letter. Once exported, the forms are collated into one PDF document that teachers can download or print.

Comments & Attachments

Teachers can add comments and attachments to forms. These sections are located at the bottom of each form.

Attachments

Click to expand the Attachment section, and Choose File.

Select the file you wish to attach, and the file will automatically be attached to the bottom of your form, as follows:

Comments

Click to expand the Comment section. Add a comment and click Post.

By default, comments are “private’. If you want the student that is associated with the form to view your comment, then click the Public checkbox.

Each comment can be edited or deleted (by teachers only).

Indicators – Recent Form Section

In the Recent Forms section, each form shows comment, attachment and e-signature indicators as follows:

You can hover over each indicator. For example, if you hover over the attachment icon, it will show you how many attachments have been added to a particular form.

Overview of E-signature Features in Hour Republic

Below is a summary of e-signature features in Hour Republic

Who can e-sign documents?

Students, Parents, Employers and Teachers can e-sign forms (FAQ)

Do the names and email addresses of signees auto-populate?

Yes! For example, the employer’s First Name, Last Name and Email address auto-populate e-signatures (if that information has been added to the form or employer database in Hour Republic). The same is true for Students, Parents and Teachers.

How do teachers know if an e-signature request has been sent?

An indication of when an e-signature request was sent is shown to teachers on a form (e.g. Email sent to info@charityrepublic.com on Nov 7, 2022 9:31am)

E-signature requests can also be re-sent as well (i.e. if a teacher needs to send out an e-signature reminder).

Can teachers send a message with an e-signature request?

Teachers can add messages to their e-signature requests and these messages will appear in the email (i.e. an employer will see the teacher’s message in the body of the email).

Can teachers save their e-signatures in Hour Republic?

Teachers can save their e-signatures and then easily append their e-signature to subsequent forms (FAQ).

How do students e-sign documents?

Students can e-sign forms directly from their accounts, or via email.

How do Employers and Parents e-sign documents?

Our FAQ explains how Employers and Parents can e-sign documents.

Teachers can also copy an e-signature url and share it with any signee (e.g. employer, parent, student). In the signature section of a form, simply click on the “Copy e-signature link” and paste that link into any message. That will take an employer, for instance, directly to a form that they can proceed to e-sign. This is a helpful alternative when employers have not received an e-signature request via email. Or, when you need someone else to sign off on a form (e.g. supervisor who is covering for a colleague).

Can teachers send multiple e-signature requests at the same time?

Yes, you can send multiple e-signature requests (e.g. e-signature request sent to an employer, parent and student at the same time) for a particular form. Just click the Email All option at the bottom of a form.

Does the e-signature export to a document PDF? How will the e-signature appear in a PDF?

Yes, the e-signature will export to any form PDF. Here is an example:

How do I know if an e-signature has been added to a form?

When viewing a form, all e-signatures will appear at the bottom of each form, as follows:

In the Recent Forms section, each form shows comment, attachment and e-signature indicators as follows:

If you hover over the the e-signature progress bar, it will show you how many e-signatures have been added to a particular form.

Also, in the Report section, the WEA, OYAP and SCELP reports have columns which show if an e-signature has been added to a student’s form.

Re-autofill

When you create a form for the first time, the form is automatically autofilled. If employer, student and school data have later been revised outside of a form (e.g. in the employer database) and you want to go back and update a previously created form (without having to manually type out that information), then use the Re-autofill button.

At the top of each form, you will notice 3-dots:

Click on the 3-dots in the top-right and then click Re-autofill to proceed. This will autofill your form to include the new updates.

NOTE: As mentioned, when you create a form for the first time, the form is automatically autofilled. If you revised this original autofilled data and then click the Re-autofill button, the form will autofill those modified fields back to their original state. For example, we autofill the schedule in the WEA as "Monday to Friday". If you modified the schedule, then clicked Re-autofill, the schedule would be returned to the original state of "Monday to Friday".

Adding employer expectations

Adding new expectations to an employer’s profile

1. In the Organizations / Employers section, select an employer and click on the Position section under an employer’s profile.

2. Click on the listed position (e.g. Warehouse Sorter)

3. Select the Expectations section

4. Add Expectations, modify existing expectations or delete expectations

5. Click Save to save any updates.

Any new, existing or revised employer expectations will be accessible via a student’s learning plan.

Adding employer expectations to a learning plan

1. Click the Choose employer expectations button

2. Select the Employer / Position section

3. Click to Choose an employer. Use this as a search field to locate an employer/position (e.g. type “Food” to locate Food Bank).

Note: Soon, this will only default to the employer already selected for the student.

4. Once an employer (and related position) are selected, employer expectations will appear. Select the relevant expectations, and click Done.

These expectations will now appear in your learning plan.

How do I prevent students from adding Employers, Positions, and Contacts for hour tracking?

How to Activate the Feature

1. Click on the Main Administrative tab by clicking on your high school’s name.

2. Click on the Settings tab.

3. There will be an option titled Employer Setting. Check off this box.

4. Select .

How do Students Select Employers?

1. First, teachers will need to add all of the students’ employers. This can be done by following the steps in this FAQ.

2. Now, when students add hours, they can find their employer by typing the first few letters of their employer’s name into the Organization field and selecting that employer.

How do Employers/Organizations add our Email to a Safe List and Check Their Spam/Junk Folders?

Checking Spam/Junk Folders

When Using Gmail

1. Go to your Gmail account.

2. Along the left side of the page is a list of labels. If you keep scrolling you will reach an option that says More. Click on it to reveal more labels.

3. Once you click More, scroll down until you find the Spam label, click on it.

4. Check the box next to the Hour Verification email, then select Not Spam.

When Using Hotmail/Outlook

1. Go to your Hotmail/Outlook account.

2. Along the left side of the page is a list of labels, click Junk Email.

3. Check the box next to the Hour Verification email, then select Not Junk.

If the email was not there, please follow the steps below to add our email to your safelist and request the student to submit the hour verification.

Adding an our Email to your Safe List

If you cannot locate the hour verification email in your spam/junk folder, then please see the steps below regarding how to add our email to a Safe List in Gmail and Hotmail/Outlook.

When using Gmail

#1. Click on the gear icon in the top-right corner. Once the menu pops up, select See all settings

#2. Go to the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab and click Create a new filter

#3. Enter noreply@charityrepublic.com into the From field then click Create Filter

#4. A menu will pop-up, select Never Send it to Spam then click Create Filter

5. If the email was being blocked, request that the student resends the hour verification email to you.

When using Hotmail / Outlook

#1. Click on the gear icon in the top-right corner and then click View all Outlook settings

#2. Click on the Junk email tab then scroll down to the Safe senders and Domains section to select Add

#3. Type in noreply@charityrepublic.com, press the enter key, and then Save your changes

4. If the email was being blocked, request that the student resends the hour verification email to you.

Alternative: Teachers/Coordinators can share a direct link to an hour log with an Organization/Employer or Parent/Guardian
Teachers can share a direct link with an Organization/Employer (or with Parents/Guardians specifically as it relates to volunteer hours) to verify  hours. Simply click on the "Copy hour verification link" and paste that link into any message. That will take an employer directly to an hour summary web page where they can verify hours. This is a helpful alternative when employers have not received an hour submission via email. Or, when you need someone else to verify an hour log (e.g. supervisor who is covering off for a colleague).