Admissions Application Updates Completed
The Admissions Application Enhancement cycle was completed for this year as of July 28th when we pushed
21 projects into the production environments, just in time to begin thinking about next year’s cycle. Each year in October, the admissions team is asked to start their wish list for enhancements that they would like to propose for their admissions eform applications
or for the backend processing configuration that manages 20 different undergraduate and graduate applications across the University of Nebraska and Nebraska State College institutions. We solicit campus feedback for any changes to the eforms, setup and backend
changes, operational dashboard modules, revisions/additions to accommodate any policy changes and any other enhancements. All of the enhancement requests or changes are due each year on January 15th.
Review of those requests begins immediately, determining the extent, size and effort for each change,
prioritization, as well as discussion and coordination of changes that affect all of the applications. All of the different campus applications share the backend module and therefore, all changes must be vetted through all of the campuses to come to agreement
on proposed changes and they must follow the same timeline. We then coordinate the building, revisions, development, backend setup changes, and progression of all of the changes to be moved together so that all campuses can validate and test the behavior of
the changes for all of the applications. January through May was devoted as time for collaborating ideas, communicating those ideas out, reviewing requirements, developing and reviewing the eforms, NeSIS development of new requirements, backend setup, rebuilding
views and campus development to hit the target of June 1st to begin full testing in the TST environments followed by testing in QA in July. The testing includes several joint and individual testing sessions for both NU and SC during the summer months. The
eform applications, NAUTH authentication process, front end dashboards, backend processes, data integration modules, application payment processing, operational dashboard modules is tested each year during this testing window.
This new admissions application cycle era began for NeSIS in 2015 with an initiative by the University
of Nebraska system to have one common admissions application that could be shared among four University of Nebraska campuses, including the University of Nebraska at Kearney, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Nebraska at Omaha and Nebraska College
of Technical Agriculture. The application would be utilized for incoming Nebraska freshmen and transfer undergraduate degree-seeking students to apply to multiple NU campuses at the same time within one application. After much planning, designing and collaborating,
the NU shared application went live August 1, 2016. The success story of that project instilled a desire by other campuses that eventually led to the end of the old OAA (online admissions application) days and into a new era for admissions applications and
processes. Since 2015, the admissions application annual enhancement cycle projects have expanded to accommodate applications for all University of Nebraska and Nebraska State College campuses that all have different needs and requirements and are supported
by the new backend processing configuration.
We had approximately 30 enhancements that were approved and implemented in this year’s Admissions Application
Cycle. A few highlights for enhancements include:
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Phone number and email are both being sent to Sailpoint to be included in the enhanced registry scoring to determine whether the overall data points sent will match, suspend or create.
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Add Text Opt-in checkbox and add it to the views to incorporate a response to CRM teams.
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Modify the collection of ACT test scores to align with the modified ACT test scores allowing science to be optional and adding the collection of the STEM score on the application.
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Require prospective applicants to verify their email address by entering it with a matching email address a second time during the NAUTH account creation.
These projects require a large commitment for all involved and many hours of work and dedication have
been spent planning, developing, testing and implementing the applications and yearly enhancements. Thank you to all involved for the time and collaboration on all of these projects!