Answers to common questions about Experiences in Handshake for students and career service users.
What is an Experience in Handshake?
An Experience in Handshake is a way to submit an internship for approval. Once you submit an Experience, you can manage it through Handshake and create learning objectives to track your progress.
I don’t have an internship for credit program, can I still use Experiences?
Yes! We recommend adding an Experience template that includes “Not for Credit” in the title. Most institutions configure this without any approvers attached.
How do I understand the Experience process from a students perspective as a career services staff member?
Sign in with your student account and submit to Request an Experience. If you don't already have a student account, you can Create a Student Account Associated with Your Career Services Account.
Can a student see the status of approvers on an Experience?
Yes! Students can keep track of where their experience is in the approval process by viewing the status of each approver. 
Can I enter a job that is not in Handshake?
Yes, you can enter a job that is not in Handshake simply by typing it into the Job field on the Experience request form.
Can we restrict certain students from using specific templates?
Yes! You can set qualifications when creating or editing an Experiences template so that the template is only available for specific students. For instructions, please refer to the Qualifications section of the following article Creating an Experiences Template
Can we import any date into Experiences in Handshake?
This feature is not available right now.
I deleted my Experience - can I get that info back?
When an experience is deleted, we are not able to retrieve that information.
How do I send an approver (supervisor) an evaluation, but not an approval link?
The approval process seems to be running out of order - is this a bug?
No, it's not a bug, it's probably related to the timelines that are configured for your offset days in the approval process. Check out Troubleshooting: Experience Approvals Running Out of Order to learn more.
You will only see the approver fields after you have selected a Template type from the dropdown.
How do I download Experience data with approvers included?
Check out this article that explores How to Generate Reports on Experiences.
Why are the Supervisor fields empty in my quick download reports?
The 'supervisor' field is actually an item from the legacy configuration of Experiences (prior to August 2017) With these product updates, those supervisors are now encompassed under Approvers. In quick download reports, the supervisor fields will only populate data for Experiences that were submitted prior to August 2017.
Is the student information pulled from the reports a "timestamp" at the time of the Experience?
No, this reporting download is not like Appointments, which capture information at the time of the event. Experiences information will auto update based on the information that is updated on the student's profile. As a result, we recommend pulling those CSV downloads at the midpoints and end of your semester.
After an Experience is first approved, how long should it take until the next approver receives the request ?
There isn't an exact time-frame for this happen. We typically say to wait at least 24 hours between each approver.
Do supervisors have access to previously submitted evaluations for student interns?
At this time supervisors do not have access to Experiences from their account. Experiences can only be retrieved directly from the link that is provided through email.
What if we do not want to receive anymore Experience requests for a particular term?
If you no longer want students to request an Experience for a particular term, you will want to archive the term itself. This will not delete the data previously connected to the term, as the experience will still hold the dates that it was once associated with.
Helpful Steps for Students and Supervisors Completing the Evaluation Survey:
- Please answer all fields / questions within the survey link.
- Once questions are complete, click the green Submit Evaluation button at the bottom of the screen.
- You will then be directed back to the general Handshake site. A green message bar will appear that indicates "Evaluation was successfully created." This confirms you have submitted your survey!