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.)