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How to route academic petitions to the right university office automatically in Formaloo

Learn how to automatically route academic petitions to the right university office in Formaloo, using a single petition type field, conditional Send email rules, and a fallback for anything else.

What you'll build

A petition form where a student doesn't need to know which office handles what. They just pick the type of petition they're filing, grade appeal, leave of absence, financial hardship, or course substitution, and Formaloo routes it automatically: the right office gets assigned, gets notified by email with a PDF record attached, and anything that doesn't fit those four categories falls through to a default office instead of getting lost.

When to use this

  • Students currently have to guess which office to email, or send everything to one inbox that then forwards it manually.

  • You have four or more offices that each own a different kind of decision, and none of them should be checking a shared queue for the ones that are actually theirs.

  • You want a rule that also catches the requests that don't fit any specific category, instead of silently dropping them.

  • You want proof that a request reached the right office, not just a submission sitting in a table.

Part 1 — Build the petition form

This is the form every petition starts from. It only needs one field to do the heavy lifting: the petition type, which decides who reviews it and what follow-up question shows up. The fastest way to build the rest is with Magic Create.

1. Open Magic Create: From your Formaloo homepage, click Magic Create, then describe the form: an academic petition form for students, with fields for their name, student email, student ID, a petition type dropdown (Grade appeal, Leave of absence, Financial hardship, Course substitution, Other), a course and term field shown only if the petition type is Grade appeal or Course substitution, a long text field to explain the petition, a long text field for the requested outcome, and an optional file upload for supporting documents. Also ask it to add three admin-only fields: a review status dropdown (Submitted, Under review, Approved, Denied, More info needed), an Assignee field for the assigned office, and an internal notes field.

2. Verify the fields: Your form should look like this: Magic Create will have generated most of it. Verify each field and field ID matches the table below exactly, since these IDs are what drive the routing logic and the PDF.

📖 Want internal fields, like status, assignee, and notes, invisible to the student filling out the form? That's exactly what admin-only fields are for.

3. Publish the form: Once the fields look right, click Publish in the island bar at the top of the editor.

Part 2 — Create the petition notification emails

You need two templates here, not five. One shared alert covers all four offices, since the content is pulled from the petition itself and only the recipient changes. The second is a short confirmation for the student who submitted it.

1. Open the email template editor: Click your profile icon, go to Apps and integrations, find Custom email templates, and click Add new template.

💡 How to create and send custom email templates: want to send branded, personalized emails instead of Formaloo's plain default notification? This is the foundational guide to building and sending custom email templates. Reference it any time a step involves creating or selecting an email template.

2. Name the office notification and write its subject line: Call it "New academic petition." For the subject, write something like "New @petition_type petition from @student_name needs review."

3. Write the office notification body: Clear the default body, add an AI block, and prompt it to write a brief, plain internal alert referencing the student's name, ID, petition type, course and term if relevant, the petition explanation, and the requested outcome. Keep it to 4 to 6 sentences, ending with a prompt to review the petition in Formaloo.

4. Save it: Click Save once you're happy with the preview.

5. Add a second template for the student: Click Add new template again and call this one "Petition received." For the subject, write "We've received your @petition_type petition."

6. Write the confirmation body: Add an AI block and prompt it to write a short, reassuring confirmation referencing the petition type, noting the assigned office typically responds within 5 to 7 business days. Keep it to 3 to 4 sentences.

7. Save it: Click Save.

📖 Every @field_id in both bodies is pulled straight from the form's answers. See how to use answer piping for the full syntax.

Part 3 — Build a PDF record of the petition

Every petition should leave a document behind, not just a row in a table. This turns each submission into a one-page case record with the student's details, the petition itself, and where it's been routed.

1. Open the PDF template editor: Click your profile icon, go to Apps and integrations, and open Custom PDF template, then click Add new template.

💡 How to create PDF templates to turn responses into documents: want every form submission to generate a polished, branded document automatically? This is the foundational guide to building a PDF template from a submission. Link it any time an article turns data into a contract, invoice, or certificate.

2. Switch to HTML and paste your design: Switch the editor to the HTML view and paste the ready-made "Academic petition record" template, which lays out the student's details, the petition itself, and the routing and review section.

3. Name it and save: Call it "Academic petition record" and click Save.

Part 4 — Route each petition to the right office

Now connect the petition type to an actual owner. This part sets up the course/term visibility rule and the automatic office assignment, all from one Magic Logic prompt.

1. Open Advanced logic: In the form settings panel on the right side of the editor, open Advanced logic and go to the Logic tab.

2. Open Magic Logic: Click Magic Logic in the top right corner.

3. Describe the rules: In plain text, describe all of it at once: if petition type is Grade appeal or Course substitution, show the course and term field and make it required, otherwise keep it hidden. Then, when the form is submitted, assign the "Assigned office" field based on petition type: Grade appeal to the Registrar's office team, Leave of absence to the Dean of Students team, Financial hardship to the Financial Aid team, Course substitution to the Academic Affairs team, and anything else to the Academic Advising team as a fallback.

4. Generate and review: Click Generate rules. Approve, redo, or cancel each one in the preview.

5. Save: Once approved, make any manual adjustments if needed, then click Save in the top right corner.

💡 How to automatically assign submissions to the right team member or team, and control what each assignee sees: want incoming submissions to land on the right person's desk automatically, and only theirs? This is the foundational guide to the Assignee field plus logic-based routing.

Part 5 — Send the notification to the right office

This is the part the whole article is about: one trigger, five conditions, and a fallback that catches everything else.

1. Add the first condition: Still in Advanced logic, on the On submit trigger, add a Send email rule: if "What type of petition are you submitting?" equals "Grade appeal," send the "New academic petition" template to [email protected].

2. Add the remaining conditions: Add three more Send email rules the same way: Leave of absence to [email protected], Financial hardship to [email protected], and Course substitution to [email protected].

3. Add the fallback rule: Add one more rule with no condition, or an "else" condition if your logic panel supports it, so anything that isn't one of the four categories still sends to [email protected]. This is what keeps a petition from getting lost just because it doesn't fit a named category.

4. Attach the PDF record: On each of these rules, attach the "Academic petition record" PDF template you built in Part 3, so every office gets both the email summary and the full case record.

5. Add the student confirmation: Add one more On submit rule that always fires regardless of petition type: a Send email action using the "Petition received" template you built in Part 2, sent to "What's your student email address?"

6. Save: Click Save once all the rules are in place.

💡 How to send and receive conditional email notifications: want different emails to go to different people depending on the answer? This guide covers routing email notifications with conditional rules, exactly what the five rules above are doing.

Note: If your logic panel doesn't support an explicit "else," set the fallback rule's condition to "is not Grade appeal, Leave of absence, Financial hardship, or Course substitution" so it only fires for Other.

Part 6 — Test each routing path

1. Submit one test petition per category: File a test petition for each of the five outcomes, Grade appeal, Leave of absence, Financial hardship, Course substitution, and Other.

2. Confirm the assignment: For each one, check that "Assigned office" was set to the right team.

3. Confirm the email and PDF: Confirm the correct office address received the notification, with the right values piped in and the PDF record attached.

What you now have

A petition workflow where the student only has to know what kind of petition they're filing, not who reviews it. Every submission gets assigned, notified, and documented automatically, and nothing falls through the cracks just because it doesn't match one of the four named categories.

What's next

  • Close the loop with a decision email Once an office reviews a petition, send the student a status update worded differently depending on whether it's approved, denied, or needs more information. → How to send and receive conditional email notifications

  • Give students a portal to track their own petitions Instead of emailing to ask for an update, let students log in and see their own petition's status directly. → How to create a portal and manage users' access

  • Visualize the routing rules if they grow more complex If you add more petition types or nested conditions later, this helps you debug the full rule set visually instead of reading them one at a time. → What is the logic map?

Ready-to-use templates

Don't build this from scratch, we've already put it together for you.

  • Employee request workflow — Routes internal requests by type and notifies the relevant team. The closest match to this article's exact mechanic, just for HR and ops requests instead of academic petitions.

  • Scholarship & grant application with scoring and approval — Multi-reviewer workflow with automated approval and rejection emails. A good reference for adding a decision-stage email on top of the routing this article covers.

  • Job applicant tracking workflow — Tracks applicants across stages with reviewer assignments. Shows the same Assignee-based routing pattern applied to hiring instead of petitions.

Don't have a form yet? Create one in seconds with Magic Create, describe what you need and Formaloo builds the form for you.

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