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Petitions

This module allows you to create petitions to be hosted on your Students’ Union’s website.

Petitions can be created by staff via SUMS, and you can also allow your members to submit potential petitions for consideration via the Student Dashboard.

How can I create a petition?

Navigate to the Petitions module and select ‘Create Petition’ to build a new petition:

  1. Enter the Name of your petition
  2. Enter a description - this will be the information displayed on your website to potential signatories
  3. Select whether you wish to allow Guest Signatures - this will allow non-members to sign the petition without needing to be logged into the website
  4. Confirm the start and end dates of your petition
  5. Click ‘Submit’ to save your petition.

When you have created a new petition, this will appear on the page. Within the Type column, any petition created by a SUMS user will be marked as 'Staff'.

The status of the petition will also be shown:

  • Future - the petition is due to go live in the future
  • Live - the petition is currently active
  • Complete - the petition has ended

Petitions created by members

Members can create petitions for approval via the Student Dashboard. Guidance for members can be found here.

Members will be able to track the status of their petitions and view the details and statuses of all petitions they have submitted via the Student Dashboard.

To allow members to submit petitions, you will need to enable this on the Student Dashboard:

  1. Navigate to Settings held under the System Configuration module
  2. Scroll down to the Student Dashboard dropdown
  3. Under Available Settings, select Petitions to move it to Chosen Settings

Click the 'Save' button at the bottom of the dropdown menu - petitions will then be made available to your members on the Student Dashboard.

How do I review petitions submitted via the Student Dashboard?

Within the Petitions table there is a ‘Pending’ option available. Select this option to view a list of submitted petitions awaiting approval.

From here you can view the details of any submitted petitions - when viewing a pending petition, an ‘Approve’ and ‘Decline’ option will be available for you to make a decision.

Once you have approved or declined a pending petition, this will then appear within the main petitions table.

Within the Type column, any petition submitted by a student will be marked as 'Student'.

The status of the petition will also be shown dependant on the dates of the petition.

Alternatively, any declined petitions will hold a status of 'Declined'.

Below shows some example petitions and their statuses:

Updated on 1st July 2025