Paperless Admissions

[lmrogers]

Good Morning,

 

I have been asked to look at Applicaa as a solution to paperless admissions/applications. Is anyone using this or have any alternatives that they are using which link directly into SIMS?

 

Cheers

[Ditto]

Not sure this will help much but... I'm aware SIMS have a registration/admissions module - does that not let you paperless? I once looked for a third party app to use to feed in to Progresso. I struggled to find anything at all, so will be interested to see what this thread brings to light. However, we did have a paperless solution. For main admissions rounds, we received electronic data from county central admissions. We internally ranked using a Google sheet with a some internal GScripting to generate a ranking number to allow a sort into the correct order. For in-year applications, we used the same sheet concept, but all data from parents was collected via Google Forms, so all entirely paperless. It was a little clunky but overall worked fine. Pupil data was only moved in to the MIS once an offer was accepted and we had used progresso's import functionality to get a lot of the data in. Of course, often we'd get a lot of data input by processing a CTF.

[Ditto]

Just had a look at the Applicaa and it apparently links to progresso. Unfortunately, I left the school over a year ago but I might forward to their admissions officer/data manager as it could be a time-saver. any idea on costs - doesn't seem to be on the website.

[CHiLL]

We bought into Applicaa earlier this year and used it for this year's enrollment. It was a difficult pitch to management because they didn't understand why we needed it. However when the work load involved of admin staff was explained to them, where the forms had to be manually typed into SIMS, handwriting decrypted, etc...we finally won them over.

 

We had a couple of parent's induction days/evenings in May where the parents came in and were split into groups and taken to IT suites, where we had pre-logged on the computers and had the website ready to go. We had pre-enrolled all of the pupils into Applicca from our council applications, including the email address provided by the parents, so that they had accounts created. If no email was provided, we created fake accounts named like "studentname@sjw"...it doesn't have to be a real or even valid email address format. As long as something was in the field and was unique to the student. We also created generic passwords for the accounts (which they have to change when they log in). The parents took seats and signed in using their email address and the provided password. For those with no email addresses, we found the students names and entered the fake email address we assigned. Once in, the parents can complete the online forms. Of course you'll have parents that don't know all the information, such as the address of the GP, etc...but they can be provided at a later stage. Once the parent had completed the form, one of us admins in Applicca had to print off the completed application form (which can take 30 seconds to generate the PDF) so that the parents can sign it to confirm all the details are correct and it can be hard-filed (a legal requirement I believe). Once that group finished, they swapped for the second group. We are a school with 40+ languages spoken and we had our Year 10/11 prefects and helpers around to help translate for the parents when they had issues. We also had some of the admin staff come and stay in the classroom with us, so they could provide assistance.

 

What type of institution are you? We are a small secondary school and have noticed that Applicca appears to be mainly geared towards sixth forms/colleges and we had to make requests for changes to the way some data was entered into SIMS, writing to certain fields, etc.

Edited November 29, 2019 by CHiLL

[lmrogers]

We bought into Applicaa earlier this year and used it for this year's enrollment. It was a difficult pitch to management because they didn't understand why we needed it. However when the work load involved of admin staff was explained to them, where the forms had to be manually typed into SIMS, handwriting decrypted, etc...we finally won them over.

 

We had a couple of parent's induction days/evenings in May where the parents came in and were split into groups and taken to IT suites, where we had pre-logged on the computers and had the website ready to go. We had pre-enrolled all of the pupils into Applicca from our council applications, including the email address provided by the parents, so that they had accounts created. If no email was provided, we created fake accounts named like "studentname@sjw"...it doesn't have to be a real or even valid email address format. As long as something was in the field and was unique to the student. We also created generic passwords for the accounts (which they have to change when they log in). The parents took seats and signed in using their email address and the provided password. For those with no email addresses, we found the students names and entered the fake email address we assigned. Once in, the parents can complete the online forms. Of course you'll have parents that don't know all the information, such as the address of the GP, etc...but they can be provided at a later stage. Once the parent had completed the form, one of us admins in Applicca had to print off the completed application form (which can take 30 seconds to generate the PDF) so that the parents can sign it to confirm all the details are correct and it can be hard-filed (a legal requirement I believe). Once that group finished, they swapped for the second group. We are a school with 40+ languages spoken and we had our Year 10/11 prefects and helpers around to help translate for the parents when they had issues. We also had some of the admin staff come and stay in the classroom with us, so they could provide assistance.

 

What type of institution are you? We are a small secondary school and have noticed that Applicca appears to be mainly geared towards sixth forms/colleges and we had to make requests for changes to the way some data was entered into SIMS, writing to certain fields, etc.

We are a secondary school of around 1200 users. It would be great to try and save the admin time and reduce the amount spent on postage and any unnecessary printing. Would hopefully avoid any data entry errors from the admin staff.

 

What was the cost? or the their Pricing strategy? I can't seem to find that on their website at all.

[CHiLL]

We are a secondary school of around 1200 users. It would be great to try and save the admin time and reduce the amount spent on postage and any unnecessary printing. Would hopefully avoid any data entry errors from the admin staff.

 

What was the cost? or the their Pricing strategy? I can't seem to find that on their website at all.

Unfortunately I don't have the cost as it was all purchased by my manager. I think he managed to get a promo or discount, but unfortunately I don't even have a ballpark figure.