Meridian now supports, and in fact requires, department-specific Email Signatures for Academic Reference solicitation emails in both Hiring and Promotion. This allows each department to specify their own department head's signature information when sending out reference letters, instead of the Senior Assistant Dean for Faculty's information (which was used for all departments prior to April 2022).

This means that each Department (and Division) will need to initially add both a signature image and signature text to Meridian (once to the Hiring area and once to the Promotion area) in order to send academic reference emails within those areas. This Help document explains how to do this.

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Note: this signature management feature is not where you go to send reference emails, it is just for you to supply a department-wide signature; emails will continue to be sent within Hiring or Promotions workflows.

Adding a Department-Specific Signature for the First Time

To access the "Manage Department Signature" functionality, click the blue squiggle-pencil button in the top right corner of the Hiring List (or Promotion List) page.

Note: users with read-only access will not see this button.

Clicking that blue button will open a window on top of the List page where you can add the signature: 

Within this window you must do two things to produce a valid email signature within Meridian:

1.  Upload a Signature Image
2.  Add Signature Text

Note that both image and text are required. This is to ensure all users, even those with images turned off in their email programs, can see the information.

Adding an image and text will make them both immediately appear in the Preview area (#3) so you can see what the signature will look like with the content you added. If something doesn't look right, try adjusting your image and/or text, and see how it looks again in the Preview area. (The Preview area automatically updates as you change text or upload other images.)

Tips for adding signature images:

• Common image file types are supported: PNG, JPG/JPEG, and GIF. 
• Max file size is 25 MB.
• The signature image is automatically resized to be appropriate to the email message, so the specific image dimensions do not really matter, though an image that is approximately 500-1000 pixels wide is recommended.
• Avoid extra details in the image, such as title, email address, phone, etc. These will most likely be unreadable due to the image resizing, and are instead intended to be typed into the text box area.

Here is what the window will look like once you've added the signature image (#1) and text (#2):

Once you are satisfied with your department's signature, simply close the window. Everything auto-saves as you enter it, and the 'last updated' date and who made the change will appear within the window as well (#4). 

Meridian will then use whatever signature content you add into this window for all academic reference solicitation emails you now send, for every candidate/faculty workflow in your department. Note that you only need to do this once ever for Hiring, and once ever for Promotion (but they must be added separately).

Remember that this tool is for your whole department/division*, and if your department has multiple users, Meridian will use whatever signature content was most recently saved by anyone who has Meridian access for your department.

Changing (Editing) a Department-Specific Signature

If your department head's information changes (or perhaps a different person is now leading your department), simply return to the "Manage Department Signature" window using the blue squiggle-pencil button on the Hiring List (or Promotion List) page and update the Signature Image and/or Signature Text using the same steps as you did to initially add the signature. 

What happens if I don't add a signature for my department?

Meridian requires a department signature in order to send out academic reference solicitation emails. Prior to April 2022, there was only one default signature used across all departments, but this has since been removed in order to support department-specific signatures. Therefore, if you try to send out reference emails before adding a signature for your department, you will see this error message (even for candidate/faculty workflows where reference emails were previously sent):

This means that you must first add your department's signature to Meridian, following the instructions above. Then you can return to your Hiring or Promotion workflow and continue sending reference emails. (Remember, this only needs to be done once ever for Hiring and once ever for Promotion.)