What is RefNow Respond?
RefNow Respond is an automated solution for your organisation to manage incoming reference requests (employment and job title confirmation) for your current and ex employees.
Watch a Full Demo of RefNow Respond
How it works?
Simply upload a CSV file to RefNow Respond which contains the following details for your employees:
-First name
-Last name
-Personal email (optional)
-Personal phone (optional)
-NI number / Tax ID (We hash this data so it cannot be read even by us)
-DOB (We hash this data so it cannot be read even by us)
-Start date
-End date
-Job title
-Salary (optional)
-Notes (optional)
Our system will generate a unique form url which can be used by external companies to request references from your organisation. Simply direct people to your form url either by adding the link to your website or by setting up an email inbox with an auto-reply message.
Our system is employee-consent driven
When the form is completed we will contact the employee using the email you provided in the CSV file and request their consent to provide details to the reference requestor. We will then generate a reference report and send it to the requestor. There is no input required from your companies HR Team, other than updating the file with new staff every few months. Our system handles all of the manual work.
Example Scenario
We have explained the automated RefNow Respond flow using a common scenario below:
Security
At RefNow we take our responsibility on security seriously and all data is encrypted at both rest and in transit. Furthermore, the most sensitive data uploaded by your company (NI, Tax ID and DOB) will be stored in a way that it cannot be read - even by us. This ensures the privacy of the data and means we go above and beyond our legislative requirements in protecting your company data.
How Data Hashing Protects Your Privacy
We never store National Insurance numbers (NI), Tax ID's or dates of birth (DOB) in plain text - neither you nor our staff can read them once uploaded. Instead, we use a one-way hashing process. For example, the NI “AB1020B” becomes a seemingly random string likewjoi24hfrofgb6o45gnfowfbg4uo5b34
and only that hash is kept in our database. Because hashing is irreversible, it’s mathematically impossible to recover “AB1020B” from its hash alone.
You might ask: if we can’t convert the hash back, how do we verify your data?
When someone requests an employee reference, they enter the NI and DOB into our form. We hash those inputs again - so “AB1020B” always yieldswjoi24hfrofgb6o45gnfowfbg4uo5b34 - and check whether it matches the stored hash. A match confirms the information without ever exposing the original NI, Tax ID or DOB. This approach delivers strong security and preserves your employees privacy.
Even in the unlikely event that our database were breached and attackers gained access to the stored hashes, they still would not be able to recover your original NI or DOB values. Because hashing is a one-way process, with each input producing a fixed, irreversible output - there is no method to “decrypt” or reverse-engineer the hash back into the original information. Your sensitive data remains protected even in a hack scenario.
Automatic vs Manual send mode
There are 2 send modes available in RefNow Respond, you can use either Automatic Send or Manual Send.
Automatic Send - This means when a reference is requested for an employee, once we have collected consent from the employee we will automatically generate and send the reference out.
Manual Send - When using manual send, when a reference is requested for an employee, we will first ask your HR team if they are happy with the reference to be sent and allow them to add any notes etc to the reference (if there were concerns raised during their employment etc), only once approved by HR will we ask the employee to provide their consent, and once approved send the reference out.
Manual Send mode is typically used when you would like more control over the references which are going out for specific employees. Most companies use Automatic Send as it significantly reduces the administrative time references usually take for internal teams.
Respond Ticketing
Turn RefNow Respond into a helpdesk-style system for your reference requests. Simply direct all requesters to your customised Respond form, and each submission becomes a ticket in the Respond dashboard. You can assign tickets to team members, reply directly within the system, and instantly see which requests are open and which have been completed. This keeps reference inquiries out of your email inbox and gives you a clean, intuitive interface to manage and track every request.
If you don't have a record of an employee, you can simply click a button to respond to say that you don't have a record of them and then the ticket is closed automatically - like magic.
How do I get started?
Get started by following 4 simple steps:
1. Login to your RefNow account (https://app.refnow.co) and click Respond -> Manager (Super Admin permission required).
2. Download the sample CSV file and update with your own employee details.
3. Upload the CSV file.
4. Publish your unique form link (found at the top of the inbound manager page) on your website, or setup an email inbox (references@yourcompany.com) with an auto response message to direct companies requesting a reference to fill in your form.
An example auto response message could be setup as follows for people emailing references@yourcompany.com
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Thank you for contacting [Your Company Name here] to request a reference for a current or ex-employee. We have partnered with RefNow to provide references in a faster and easier way using an automated self-service referencing system. To request a reference, please complete the form here: [Your RefNow Respond Unique Link here]
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RefNow Respond will now be activated and your incoming reference requests will be actioned automatically. Set a reminder to upload new staff to the system every 1 or 2 months.
Dealing with Current staff in the import
If you are importing staff who are still employed then you have a number of options. If the system detects a Date in the end date then it will display this as a formatted date of DD-MM-YYYY. If you leave the end date blank, then it will display the end date as "Current" to indicate they are still employed. If you wish to show a specific message for the end date you can enter any text you wish in the import csv such as "Present" or "ABCD" and it will be displayed as text.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us on support@refnow.co.uk.