Handle prospective student enquiries with automated replies

Higher education institutions whose degree programmes are listed in the HRK’s HSK database can receive enquiries from prospective international students about these programmes via the Study Guide contact form. To help higher education institutions manage enquiries more efficiently, Study Guide offers a free service providing automated, AI-supported replies. This allows you to store prepared information for general enquiries from prospective students, which are automatically answered around the clock.

If you have already activated your secure section for institution-specific data, please go directly to “First steps for higher education institutions: setting up and managing automated, AI-supported replies on Study Guide.”

Getting Started: A guide for higher education institutions on how to activate the secure section for institution-specific data for the use of AI-supported automated replies

If the secure section for institution-specific data has not yet been activated on Study Guide for your institution, please first set it up free of charge for the AI-supported automated replies service. To do this, go to the registration page for automated replies and click on the „Start the service now“ button at the top of the page.

In the next step, you will be shown a list of German higher education institutions accredited by the HSK. Select your institution from the list. If your institution is not listed, click on „Read more in our FAQ“ below the drop-down field.

You will then be asked whether your higher education institution already receives enquiries from prospective students via Study Guide. If this is the case, please answer this question with “Yes”. This query is used to determine whether your e-mail address is already stored in our database. If this is not the case, you will be directed to our FAQ and informed that an e-mail address stored in the HSK is required to use the service.

In the next step, enter your higher education institution’s e-mail address in the relevant field. You will then receive an e-mail containing a one-time confirmation code. This e-mail also includes a link to the page where you can enter the code. You will then be directed to the secure section for higher education institutions for managing automated replies on Study Guide. There, you can set up, activate and manage your own response templates or text modules for eleven subject areas.

If you encounter any technical issues when logging in or using the secure section for institution-specific data, please feel free to contact us at study-guide@daad.de.

First steps for higher education institutions: setting up and managing automated, AI-supported replies on Study Guide

In the secure section for institution-specific data of Study Guide, you will see the subject areas from the Study Guide contact form (e.g. admission requirements) that are linked to your e-mail address for activation or editing. Each topic has its own editing area with a text block field for free editing. In this area, you can store standardised replies which prospective international students will automatically receive in response to specific enquiries via the Study Guide contact form. You can find further details on setting up and managing automated replies in your secure section for institution-specific data after logging in successfully.

Each answer consists of a block of text and a heading. To improve readability, formatting options such as bold text and bullet points are available. You can also insert links into the text. An image is required for each topic. If you do not upload your own image, you can select a file from the DAAD image library.

In addition to the relevant topic-related information, you can also fill in a marketing section to showcase your higher education institution. Here, too, you can upload an image or choose one from a library, as well as create one or more text blocks. In terms of content, this is a good place to share information about your institution or its location that is of particular interest to an international audience or that sets your degree programmes apart from the rest.

All texts are provided in two language versions (German and English).

If you need help with maintenance, you can use the Guided Tour. Once you have logged in to edit the automated replies, you can access the Guided Tour at any time by clicking the question mark icon. It provides a clear and concise explanation of how to edit, enable or disable the automated replies.

To simplify the initial setup of an automated reply, the DAAD has integrated ChatGPT’s language model. The AI uses the higher education institution’s website to generate a suggested text for each subject area. Once you have logged in, you can review and edit this suggested text and activate the automated reply. Content is always maintained and updated by the higher education institutions themselves, not by the AI. The AI only supports the initial setup.

For certain topics, the AI may be unable to find any information on the higher education institution’s website. In such cases, no text suggestion can be generated. If you select such a topic for editing, you will be notified accordingly.

You can save a standardised response for each subject area, using the relevant authorised e-mail address for your higher education institution.

If you encounter any technical issues whilst using the secure section for institution-specific data, please feel free to contact us at study-guide@daad.de.

By default, the contact e-mail addresses authorised to receive automated replies from Study Guide are those stored in the HSK. This is usually the e-mail address of the International Office. There are three types of contact addresses from the HSK: those of the International Office, the general student advisory services, and programme-specific contacts. Programme-specific e-mail addresses do not have access authorisation and therefore cannot manage automated replies.

If you would like to provide different e-mail addresses for Study Guide, please contact study-guide@daad.de. For each of the eleven subject areas in the secure section for institution-specific data or in the Study Guide contact form, an authorised e-mail address for the higher education institution can be set up. Existing texts will neither be deleted nor deactivated if the e-mail address(es) are changed; only the access permissions will change.

Higher education institutions can update the contact details stored in the HSK themselves. To do so, please log in to the HSK page for higher education institutions using your login details. The login details for maintaining degree programme information are held by the higher education institutions and are usually managed by the degree programme advisory service or the marketing department. If you cannot find the login details, please contact hochschulkompass@hrk.de.

When an automated reply is active and can be sent to prospective students, the system checks daily whether the links used in the automated reply are still valid. If a link is not accessible, the higher education institution’s registered e-mail address is notified and the automated reply on that topic is deactivated as a precaution. Enquiries on the subject are therefore no longer answered automatically, but are sent directly to the e-mail address on file. In addition to the prospective student’s question, the message also points out that the stored reply currently contains links that are inaccessible. The direct link to the automated replies is also included, so that the authorised person can easily edit and reactivate the reply. If the automated reply is not revised, the higher education institution is notified again after two weeks. In this way, the DAAD aims to prevent prospective students from receiving outdated or no longer valid information. No content review takes place.