Demonstrating a Streamlined and Effective Application Process
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Eastern Michigan University aimed to streamline its graduate school application process using the ApplyYourself platform, facilitating better data integration and communication. The process involved multiple strategies, such as daily data synchronization between ApplyYourself and their student information system, and automating application-related tasks to enhance efficiency. Best practices included standardizing procedures across departments, utilizing data integration to maintain data accuracy, and creating customized notifications for application reviews.
Demonstrating a Streamlined and Effective Application Process
- 2. Demonstrating a Streamlined and Effective Application Process Bill Jones Director, Instructional Technology Eastern Michigan University
- 3. 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
- 4. 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
- 5. The ApplyYourself System Submitted Application (awaiting test scores, transcripts) Complete Application (with all data & documents) Recommendation AppReview Faculty reviewers ApplyYourself Applicant Website Grad Applicants AY Data ApplyYourself Admin Interface Admissions Staff
- 6. 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?
- 7. 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
- 8. • 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 ApplyYourself Admin Interface Banner Data Banner/AppXtender Indexing Process Admissions Staff Transcripts, test scores, certifications Axiom Bridge EP SQL Server Bridge New application export Transcript, test data import
- 9. 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 Axiom Bridge New application export
- 10. 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 Server Bridge Transcript, test data import
- 11. 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 Server Bridge Transcript, test data import AY transcript order data export
- 12. 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
- 13. AY Setup Data Catalog • Dynamic sections • Internal Sections
- 14. AY Setup Business workflows • Approaches • Query-based • Status field-based • Avoid orphans ADMIN 00 - Incomplete Apps ADMIN 01 - International Rvw ADMIN 02 - Admissions Rvw ADMIN 03 - Crim/Disc Rvw ADMIN 04 - Grad Sch Rvw ADMIN 05 - Ready for AppReview ADMIN 06 - In AppReview ADMIN 07 - Other AppReview ADMIN 08 - Process Dept Decision ADMIN 09 - Publish Decision ADMIN 10 - Decision Published
- 15. 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
- 16. Best Practices Identify 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 Banner SARCHKB ApplyYourself Recs, Transcripts, OSDs
- 17. 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 Practices Label Choice Value (Code) Choice Order Please Select XX 1 Graduate Studies - University -- Guest/Self Improvement (No Degree) GRST/GUES/NDEG-AA-GR 2 Graduate Studies - University -- Undeclared (No Degree) GRST/0000/NDEG-AA-GR 3 Africology and African Amer Studie -- African American Studies (Certificate African Am Studies) AAAS/AAS/CAAS-AS 4 Art -- Studio Art - MA (Master of Arts) ART/SAR/MA-AS 5 Art -- Studio Art - MFA (Master of Fine Arts) ART/SARF/MFA-AS 6 Art -- Visual Arts Education (Master of Arts) ART/VAED/MA-AS 7 Biology -- Biology General (Master of Science) BIOL/BIOG/MS-AS 8 Biology -- Ecology Evolution and Organ Bio (Master of Science) BIOL/EEOB/MS-AS 9 Biology -- Molecular/Cellular Biology (Master of Science) BIOL/MCBI/MS-AS 10 Biology -- Water Resources - Biology (Certificate in Water Resources) BIOL/WTRB/CWR-AS 11 Chemistry -- Chemistry (Master of Science) CHEM/CHM/MS-AS 12 Comm Media and Theatre Arts -- Applied Drama/Theatre Young (Master of Fine Arts) CMTA/ADTY/MFA-AS 13 Comm Media and Theatre Arts -- Communication (Master of Arts) CMTA/COMM/MA-AS 14 Comm Media and Theatre Arts -- Interp/Performance Studies (Master of Arts) CMTA/INPS/MA-AS 15 Comm Media and Theatre Arts -- Theatre Arts - Arts Admin (Master of Arts) CMTA/TAAD/MA-AS 16 Comm Media and Theatre Arts -- Theatre Arts - Drama/Theat/Yng (Master of Arts) CMTA/TADT/MA-AS 17 Comm Media and Theatre Arts -- Theatre Arts - General (Master of Arts) CMTA/TAG/MA-AS 18 Comm Media and Theatre Arts -- Theatre Arts - Interp/Perform (Master of Arts) CMTA/TAIP/MA-AS 19 Computer Science -- Computer Science (Master of Science) COSC/CSC/MS-AS 20 Label Choice Value (Code) Choice Order Header Please Select XX 1 1 Winter 2015 201520 2 Summer 2015 201550 3 Fall 2015 201610 4 Winter 2016 201620 5 Winter 2015 201520 6 Summer 2015 201550 7 Fall 2015 201610 8 Winter 2016 201620 9 Winter 2015 201520 10 Summer 2015 201550 11 Fall 2015 201610 12 Winter 2016 201620 13 Winter 2015 201520 14 Summer 2015 201550 15
- 18. Best Practices Create 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.
- 19. 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.
- 20. Best Practices Create 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
- 21. 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
- 22. Best Practices Use 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.)
- 23. Best Practices Master, 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.)
Editor's Notes
- #5: I’m here to tell you the story of EMU’s AY implementation. We really pushed the envelope of what the system could do, and we produced a very sophisticated integration with Banner, our student information system. Along the way we learned a lot of lessons that I think could be valuable to other institutions. But first lets get the backstory… Setting… Scope… Goal…This goal only hints at what we were trying to solve. The two biggest problems were 1) our existing process had a web-based application, but it required having staff re-key the data into Banner—very labor intensive, and 2) when applications went out to departments there was no way to track them; we regularly lost applicants to schools that could generate decisions faster. Approach…We turned to AY as a tool to help us solve these problems. Most importantly, we wanted to utilize the portal tools to communicate actively with applicants to encourage them to complete the process. And then we wanted to build out the system so we could monitor the health and timeliness of the process at every step. Here’s how we built that.
- #6: Quickly, for those of you that aren’t familiar with ApplyYourself, here’s a quick diagram of how it’s structured…
- #7: As we started with the project we faced a really significant decision that needed to be made at the start. Many of these applicants will eventually end up being students in your SIS—when will they actually make that jump so that they exist there? From talking to other AY users and our consultant we saw to main approaches to that question: Serial… Concurrent… How to decide?...
- #8: So what did we do? The first thing we did was to analyze the business process for what Admissions was doing already. You can see a basic outline of the process here. Process Analysis… What did we learn from this? First, the process was set up to create a permanent archive of all these documents and data. These were things we needed to access throughout a student’s career at the university. Second, the process was set up to deal with the reality that students regularly send us transcripts and test scores before they ever apply to the university. We open accounts for those people in Banner and run deduping routines in lots of different processes.
- #13: As we started with the project we faced a really significant decision that needed to be made at the start. Many of these applicants will eventually end up being students in your SIS—when will they actually make that jump so that they exist there? From talking to other AY users and our consultant we saw to main approaches to that question: Serial… Concurrent… How to decide?...