Demonstrating a Streamlined and Effective Application Process Presented by Bill Jones​ Hobsons University 2015

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.)