Application Form Countersigning adds the school's signature to an Application Form contract after the family has signed it, as the (Re) Enrollment Contract Signature does for the (Re) Enrollment Contract. The business office countersigns each household's signed contract in Campus: the school's signature and the date are added to the contract's signature section, after the parents' signatures, and the student receives the form's countersign action.
Note: Countersigning is optional. A form without it treats the contract as executed once the families have signed. Consult your legal representative to decide which approach works best for your school.
Setting up the countersign
The countersign is set on Application Form Details, which requires the Website Full role.
- Under Office countersign: signature image, choose the school's signature file and click Upload image. The image is a PNG or JPG file of 1 MB at most, and it is saved immediately, without Save. It is printed in the same space as a parent's signature, which is about five times as wide as it is tall, so a signature cropped close on a white or transparent background prints best.
- Choose the student action the countersign records as Office countersign: action type, for example a Contract Countersigned action for the form's year. It must differ from the form's Signed (PDF) Action Type and On decline: action type.
- Enter the Office countersign: signer name, for example the Head of School's name. Optionally, enter the signer title, printed under the name, and a disclosure, printed above the school's signature. A blank title prints School Representative.
- Click Save.
Set up the countersign before families start signing. From then on, the contract PDF shows a school signature block after the parents' signatures, with the signer name and title, an empty signature line, and an empty date, and the countersign fills it in. A contract completed before the countersign was set up has no school signature block; countersigning it adds a School Countersignature page, in the style of the contract, at the end.
Countersigning contracts
Countersigning requires the Contract Full role.
1. Navigate to Finance > Application Forms > Student Application Forms.
2. Choose the form in the form list. On a form with an office countersign, each row has a check box and the list has a Countersigned column.
3. Set the status list to Signed to list the households that have signed, then check the households to countersign. The check box in the header selects every household that the form, the status, and the search show, on every page.
4. Select Countersign from the Select Multi Action... list.
5. The Countersign Contracts page lists each selected household as Ready or with the reason it will be skipped, and states what will be done: the signer, today's date, the action added to the student, and the form's Academic Year.
6. Click the button, for example Countersign 12 contracts. Each row then shows Countersigned or the reason it was not countersigned.
Up to 200 households can be countersigned at a time, all from one form. The selection is cleared after the countersign, when the page is opened again, and when another form is chosen.
What the countersign does
For each household, the countersign does the following.
- Adds the school's signature image and the date and time to the school signature block of the household's stored contract PDF. The rest of the contract, including the parents' signatures, is unchanged.
- Stores the countersigned copy, whose file name ends in Countersigned.pdf, with the household's contract and on the student's countersign action, where it is listed on the student's Actions tab. The copy the family signed is kept.
- Records the Office countersign: action type on the student, dated today and filed under the form's Academic Year, and recalculates the student's status. When the student already has that action for the year, no second action is recorded and the copy is attached to the existing one.
- Marks the household Countersigned on Student Application Forms, with the date and the user who countersigned.
Countersigning sends no email. The family's invitation keeps the Complete status, and the Download link of the CMS Widget - Application Invitations widget opens the countersigned copy.
Split households
Each household of a split family has its own contract, with its own amounts, and is countersigned separately. A household can be countersigned once every household of the student has signed. Each countersigned copy is stored with its own household, and a family can open only its own copy. The student receives one countersign action, and each household's copy is attached to it.
Households that are skipped
Nothing is written for a household that the Countersign Contracts page skips. The reasons are the following.
- Not signed yet. Nobody in the household has signed.
- Waiting for the second parent to sign. The household needs two signatures and has one.
- Waiting for the other household to sign. The household has signed, and another household of the student has not.
- Declined by this household. or Another household declined this contract. A declined contract is not countersigned.
- Already countersigned on a date by a user. The household's copy has already been countersigned.
- No stored contract PDF for this household. No signed contract PDF was stored when the contract was completed, so there is nothing to countersign. Contact PCR Educator support.
When the Countersign Contracts page shows This form has no school signature image. Upload one on the form's Details tab., upload the image on Application Form Details. When the check boxes or the Countersign option do not appear, review FAQ: Why is Countersign missing from Student Application Forms?
Undoing a countersign
A countersign has no separate undo. Reset Contract on Application Form Invitation returns the whole contract to Not started, and it also removes the countersign action recorded from Campus and the countersigned copies. A countersign action entered by hand on the student is kept. The family then signs again, and the office countersigns the new contract.
Copying the form
Copying Application Form carries the countersign settings to the new form, including the action type, with its own copy of the signature image. When the school's countersign action is named for a year, choose the new year's action on Application Form Details of the new form.
Note: With the Contract Read role, Student Application Forms shows the Countersigned column without the check boxes and the Countersign option.