demonstrating a streamlined and effective application process
TRANSCRIPT
Demonstrating a Streamlined and Effective
Application ProcessBill Jones
Director, Instructional TechnologyEastern Michigan University
Learning Objectives
• Participants in this session will learn:• How to evaluate existing business processes to integrate with the
ApplyYourself application platform• How to plan the data communication process between ApplyYourself and the
student information system• Best practices for planning AY data organization• How to enhance AY deployment with special features and data extensions
EMU Chooses ApplyYourself for Graduate School
• Setting – EMU – regional state university with 18,345 FTE enrollment• Scope – 220+ graduate programs of study; 7,000+ applications/year• Goal – maximize submitted applications and shorten decision time
while reducing overall staff hours to process• Approach – take full advantage of the AY portal to centralize
communication and application status, thus reducing phone-based servicing time to open applicants
The ApplyYourself System
Submitted Application
(awaiting test scores,
transcripts)
Complete Application
(with all data & documents)
Recommendation
AppReview
Faculty reviewers
ApplyYourselfApplicant Website
Grad Applicants
AY Data
ApplyYourselfAdmin Interface
Admissions Staff
Approaches to SIS Data Integration
• Serial – All activity happens in AY until application process is finished; application transfer to SIS to begin student record• Concurrent – Application is transferred to SIS on submission to begin
student record; application management continues on both systems• How to decide?• What current processes do you have to index transcripts and test scores with
applications? Can the process be easily shifted to AY?• What kind of application information needs to be available in the SIS for
archiving, reporting, access for student service?• How will you transfer, dedupe and clean-up the data?
Our Current Process
• Process Analysis• Admissions office had heavy
investment in document management system integrated with SIS (AppXtender + Banner) Application
• Transcripts and other official docs were saved in AppXtender; staff created indexes to Banner persons and applications
• Test scores were also reported electronically into Banner
• New Banner persons were created as necessary
Scanned document – transcripts, certificates
Digital Input –
test scores Banner
Xtender
Index file
• AY apps sent to Banner upon submission for deduping and student ID assignment• Transcripts and official docs stay
in Banner• AY transcripts and Other
Supporting Docs mirror Banner application checklist; each system updates the other every day
Approach - Concurrent
AY/Banner “Data Loop”
AY Data
ApplyYourselfAdmin Interface
Banner Data
Banner/AppXtenderIndexing Process
Admissions Staff
Transcripts, test scores,
certifications
AxiomBridge
EP SQL ServerBridge
New application
export
Transcript, test data import
The “Data Loop” – Upload to Banner
AY/Banner bridge application
• Developed by vendor (SSD) using Axiom data transformation tool • Newly submitted applications are
exported through bridge• Applications with updates are exported
too• AY ID acts as key field to trigger update
versus new application• (TIP: Reuse/repurpose existing tools –
Axiom already processes our UG application import)
AY Data Banner Data
AxiomBridge
New application
export
The “Data Loop” – Feedback
AY updates
• Banner SIS data (student ID, application term/number) and checklist updates are formatted for import to AY using a daily FTP file transfer to an import template
AY Data Banner Data
EP SQL ServerBridge
Transcript, test data import
The “Data Loop” – Feedback
AY transcript order export
• AY keeps track of transcripts in the order that they are listed in the application, Banner doesn’t• AY transcript order report
imported to SQL Server and used to organize the updates sent from Banner to AY
AY Data Banner Data
EP SQL ServerBridge
Transcript, test data import
AY transcript order data
export
Project Phases
• 2014• Winter – design/build data catalog• Spring/Summer – design/build Axiom bridge• Summer – Setup export/import templates, emails, FTP xfer• Summer/Fall – Axiom testing• Fall – Onsite faculty reviewer training, setup decision letters (34), Touchnet testing
• 2015• Winter – Rollout: Jan-COB, Feb-COE, Mar-CAS, Apr-CHHS, May-COT
• College rollout (3 month)• Department/program application acceptance• AR bundle setup• Degree/requirements audit, picklist generation
AY SetupData Catalog
• Dynamic sections• Internal Sections
AY SetupBusiness workflows
• Approaches• Query-based• Status field-based
• Avoid orphansADMIN 00 - Incomplete AppsADMIN 01 - International RvwADMIN 02 - Admissions RvwADMIN 03 - Crim/Disc RvwADMIN 04 - Grad Sch RvwADMIN 05 - Ready for AppReviewADMIN 06 - In AppReviewADMIN 07 - Other AppReviewADMIN 08 - Process Dept DecisionADMIN 09 - Publish DecisionADMIN 10 - Decision Published
How We Flexed AY Customized Emails
• Basic email data integration used tags to embed application data• Advanced emails utilized
rules to embed special instructions based on program applications
Best PracticesIdentify your official source for data (and respect it!)• Our university catalog is the official record of
what is required to apply for each program. • We initiated an audit of Banner checklist
requirements to make sure it was in sync with the catalog.
• Banner only required what was listed in the catalog, and AY only listed what was in Banner.
• If department websites and PDFs were out of line we asked them to update with the catalog.
• The whole initiative helped clean up our requirements and create buy-in from stakeholders who were (rightly) protective of their data.
Eastern Michigan University Catalog
Curriculum Input Process
BannerSARCHKB
ApplyYourselfRecs, Transcripts,
OSDs
Avoid maintaining duplicate data lists by hand
• Our program selection process ran to 5 academic goals x 5 colleges x 220+ programs of study x 4 application terms• The final application term
picklist had over 900 rows. • We wrote scripts to
automatically generate these picklists into tables that we handed to Hobsons to install.
Best PracticesLabel Choice Value (Code) Choice OrderPlease Select XX 1Graduate Studies - University -- Guest/Self Improvement (No Degree) GRST/GUES/NDEG-AA-GR 2Graduate Studies - University -- Undeclared (No Degree) GRST/0000/NDEG-AA-GR 3Africology and African Amer Studie -- African American Studies (Certificate African Am Studies) AAAS/AAS/CAAS-AS 4Art -- Studio Art - MA (Master of Arts) ART/SAR/MA-AS 5Art -- Studio Art - MFA (Master of Fine Arts) ART/SARF/MFA-AS 6Art -- Visual Arts Education (Master of Arts) ART/VAED/MA-AS 7Biology -- Biology General (Master of Science) BIOL/BIOG/MS-AS 8Biology -- Ecology Evolution and Organ Bio (Master of Science) BIOL/EEOB/MS-AS 9Biology -- Molecular/Cellular Biology (Master of Science) BIOL/MCBI/MS-AS 10Biology -- Water Resources - Biology (Certificate in Water Resources) BIOL/WTRB/CWR-AS 11Chemistry -- Chemistry (Master of Science) CHEM/CHM/MS-AS 12Comm Media and Theatre Arts -- Applied Drama/Theatre Young (Master of Fine Arts) CMTA/ADTY/MFA-AS 13Comm Media and Theatre Arts -- Communication (Master of Arts) CMTA/COMM/MA-AS 14Comm Media and Theatre Arts -- Interp/Performance Studies (Master of Arts) CMTA/INPS/MA-AS 15Comm Media and Theatre Arts -- Theatre Arts - Arts Admin (Master of Arts) CMTA/TAAD/MA-AS 16Comm Media and Theatre Arts -- Theatre Arts - Drama/Theat/Yng (Master of Arts) CMTA/TADT/MA-AS 17Comm Media and Theatre Arts -- Theatre Arts - General (Master of Arts) CMTA/TAG/MA-AS 18Comm Media and Theatre Arts -- Theatre Arts - Interp/Perform (Master of Arts) CMTA/TAIP/MA-AS 19Computer Science -- Computer Science (Master of Science) COSC/CSC/MS-AS 20
Label Choice Value (Code) Choice Order HeaderPlease Select XX 1 1Winter 2015 201520 2Summer 2015 201550 3Fall 2015 201610 4Winter 2016 201620 5Winter 2015 201520 6Summer 2015 201550 7Fall 2015 201610 8Winter 2016 201620 9Winter 2015 201520 10Summer 2015 201550 11Fall 2015 201610 12Winter 2016 201620 13Winter 2015 201520 14Summer 2015 201550 15
Best PracticesCreate standardization
• Use the implementation process to standardize divergent practices for admissions. • We created a common
reference questionnaire to replace numerous different reference questionnaires around the university.
Best Practices…And standardize customization
• Our application had dynamic fields with generic instructions for requirements like essays.• We embedded special
instructions at the bottom of the page to allow departments to customize their essay instructions.
Best PracticesCreate places to hold complex data
• Some departments had applications that would not fit into ApplyYourself• Solution – We used upload
document objects to accept PDF forms for department applications
How We Flexed AY Export Templates
• Banner bridge export• AY transcript order export• We ended up sending
additional status data to our database to produce additional reporting
Best PracticesUse data integration to help clean up data
• Since we had transcript order info coming from AY to our system, we used that data to create a daily worklist of 999999 codes that needed to be cleaned up
(999999 is the default code recorded when applicants
couldn’t find their college and entered the data by hand.)
Best PracticesMaster, then extend
• After creating the process to export AY transcript order to our database server, we added other fields to the export. • We use these to create
notifications of when applications need to be reviewed by administrators in WebCenter (ex. International review, criminal/disciplinary review.)