The New Routing Step Experience provides more flexibility and control over how applications move through the review process. With new options and streamlined tools, administrators can configure routing steps to better fit their organization’s review workflows.
In this article, we’ll share practical tips to help you get the most out of the new experience, including planning your routing steps, understanding the available settings, and avoiding common setup issues. Whether you’re creating a new review workflow or updating an existing one, these tips can help make the transition smoother and ensure applications are routed as intended.
Best Practice #1: Plan Before You Build
- Plan your review form before creating the Routing Step.
- Think in terms of functionality, not legacy step types. The new experience combines many legacy capabilities into configurable tools and question types.
- Use the Review option to create a reviewer experience with multiple question types.
- Identify an existing Routing Step that can serve as a starting point when creating a similar review stage.
With this best practice in mind, let’s take a closer look at three of the features available in the new Routing Step Experience. Understanding how these features work and when to use them can help you build and manage review workflows more efficiently. The following tips highlight specific tools and options that can simplify configuration, improve consistency, and help you get the most from the new experience.
1. Copy Routing Steps to Save Time
Before creating multiple similar review stages, take advantage of the Copy Routing Step feature to save time and maintain consistency. Rather than rebuilding each step from scratch, you can copy a fully configured Routing Step and then make the necessary updates for the new stage. This approach helps streamline setup while reducing the chance of missing important configuration details.
Recommended approach
- Configure the most complete version of the Routing Step first.
- Copy the configured step.
- Review the copied configuration carefully.
- Update step-specific instructions, questions, and settings.
- Save the copied step before proceeding.
Why copy instead of rebuild?
Copying similar Routing Steps can:
- Reduce configuration time.
- Maintain consistency between review forms.
- Preserve the same questions, wording, and rating scales.
- Reduce the risk of manual configuration errors.
Before making a copied step active, verify:
- Step instructions.
- Review questions.
- Required questions.
- Rating scales.
- Required fields.
- Reviewer assignments and settings.
- Any other step-specific configuration.
Tip: Do not assume the copied configuration is exactly what you need. Review and update it before using the new step.
2. Use Rating Scale Questions
Use Rating Scale questions instead of looking for a separate Ratings step.
Rating Scale tips
- Use clear minimum and maximum labels to explain what the ratings mean.
- Be consistent when creating multiple rating questions.
- Use the same scale across questions when reviewers are evaluating several criteria, when appropriate.
- Remember that visual ratings—such as numbers, stars, or smileys—are still numerical data used for calculations and reporting.
- Use Auto display mode unless you have a specific display preference. Auto allows the system to determine whether buttons or a dropdown best fit the available space.
3. Use the Approval Tool
Use the Approval Tool instead of looking for separate “Approve” or “Do Not Approve” options. The Approval Tool provides a simple way to collect a reviewer’s decision within a Routing Step. While it can be customized to fit your review process, it is important to understand what the tool does and what it does not do before adding it to a workflow. The following guidance explains how the Approval Tool works, its current limitations, and what administrators need to do after reviewers submit their decisions.
⚠️ Important: Approval does not automatically approve an application
The Approval tool collects a reviewer’s decision. It does not automatically:
- Approve or reject an application.
- Route an application.
- Change the application status.
- Trigger another action based on the response.
Administrators must review the responses and take appropriate action.
Before using the Approval tool
- One per Routing Step: Only one Approval tool can be added to each Routing Step.
- Required: Every reviewer must complete the Approval tool.
- No conditional logic: The Approval tool cannot currently be made optional.
- Manual follow-up: Administrators must review responses and act on the results.
- Customizable: You can change the wording and response choices to fit your process.
Best Practice #2: Review Converted Routing Steps
Although the system migrates your existing configuration, review each converted step before using it.
When converting existing routing steps to the new Routing Steps experience, it is important to verify that each step migrated as expected. The conversion preserves your existing configuration where possible, but some settings may need to be reviewed or adjusted to ensure the routing process works as intended.
Check more than just the questions, you should review the following:
- Step instructions.
- Review questions.
- Required questions and fields.
- Rating Scale questions and settings.
- Approval tool configuration, if applicable.
- Other step settings.
- Reviewer assignments and settings.
- The overall reviewer experience.
Test before assigning reviewers
If possible, review the Routing Step from the perspective of a reviewer before launching the competition or beginning the review process. Testing can help identify issues that may not be obvious from the administrator view.
Before assigning reviewers
- ✓ Review each converted Routing Step.
- ✓ Verify instructions.
- ✓ Verify questions and required fields.
- ✓ Check Rating Scale and Approval configurations.
- ✓ Review other step settings.
- ✓ Confirm the step behaves as intended.
- ✓ Assign reviewers only after the configuration has been verified.
Switching Experiences
Save your work by staying in the new experience. Once you begin configuring Routing Steps in the new experience, make sure you are ready to continue using it before completing your configuration.
⚠️ Important: Switching back to the Legacy Routing Steps experience will remove Routing Step configurations created in the new experience. If you have configured new Routing Steps, do not switch back to Legacy unless you are prepared to recreate your configuration again in the New Routing Step Experience should you decide to switch back and forth.
Have more questions about this topic? Go to the Community Forum to pose the question to other users or submit a support ticket to InfoReady.