Asia Presentations

The Division of Continuing Studies (DCS) at University of Wisconsin-Madison serves as the admitting office for the University’s nondegree-seeking/special students. DCS recently identified a growing problem for its applicants, as well as its application processing staff--it was offering too many application options in an effort to accommodate individual program needs. At the peak, DCS offered six different admission applications, with about 20% of incoming apps requiring manual entry into the Campus Solutions SIS. This medley of options created confusion for students, but also proved troublesome and time-consuming for the application processing staff. It was important to keep the specialized content and questions, but the big question was “How to consolidate and streamline?”

As a solution, DCS decided to become an AAWS pioneer for admitting offices at UW-Madison. DCS purchased a Campus Solutions bolt-on admission application product, iApply, from Deloitte that uses AAWS to directly integrate the applicant data into the Campus Solutions SIS. The DCS project began with a limited budget, but had two very determined functional staff members on board. Although challenging at times, the “bootstrap” nature of the project allowed it to develop in phases (beginning with the ever-important pilot group) which provided space to work out both technical and functional issues.

DCS faced a variety of the inevitable hurdles in getting the solution to work with UW’s unique processes and system. One of the project requirements involved integrating the vendor application with an internal bolt-on residency application that collects residency information based on state statute directives. This particular challenge led to some interesting discoveries about our development and test environments! DCS staff also tackled Search/Match challenges, a requirement to PDF incoming applications and communication needs throughout the application process.

The result? DCS currently has ONE main admission application (while keeping one other application option as our safety net). The current application is customizable and, thanks to AAWS, the data enters our SIS at the point of submission. DCS is able to process applications quickly, with fewer errors, while still meeting the program-specific needs. Although very successful, the project has also taught important lessons about prioritizing program requests, and introduced the slippery slope of accommodating customization requests. Nonetheless, with universal positive feedback, the project has a green light to move on to Phase Two--using Campus Solutions delivered functionality to load attachments collected with the application. DCS is also developing an application status and communication portal within the vendor product.

DCS is excited to share their journey and lessons learned with other who may be interested in a similar project!