Overview
Whether a prospective student is discovering what makes your institution unique or an applicant ready to take the next step, the Application Site facilitates a smooth transition from interest to Application. Here's how it benefits both prospective students and applicants:
Engage Prospects: Use the Application Site to showcase your institution's accolades, programs, and campus life through compelling content and visuals.
Application Hosting: Whether you're managing a single or multiple applications, the Application Site can be tailored to meet your institution's specific needs. You can create individual Sites for each Application or a single Site that hosts them all.
Application Dashboard: When starting an application, students will create an account to manage their applications, upload necessary documents, and check their application status—all in one place.
Custom Domain: Customize your Site with a unique domain, such as apply.fireuniversity.edu, aligning the application process with your brand.
Encourage frequent visits to the application dashboard, reinforcing its role as a central hub for application management and engagement with your institution.
In this article, we'll walk you through the steps of creating an Application Site and detail each configuration option to ensure you can fully customize and optimize the experience for your applicants.
Accessing Application Sites
To access your Application Sites, navigate to Applications > Applications > Sites.
Creating an Application Site
Navigate to Applications > Applications > Sites.
Click the plus sign icon in the bottom right corner.
A dialogue box will open, prompting you to give your Site a name. This name is for internal reference only. For example, you could use something like "Fire University Main Application Site." Input the name and click Add.
Your new Site will be added to the list of Sites, and you can now configure the settings. Those details are provided in the next section of this article.
Editing/Configuring an Application Site
Whether you've just successfully created your Application Site or you need to make changes to an existing Application Site, here is how to tailor it to your needs:
Navigate to Applications > Applications > Sites.
Click on either the name of your Site or the pencil icon at the end of its row to open the Site editor.
General
General
Setup:
Page Title: Add a name for your Site for internal reference.
Page Description: Add a description of your site for internal reference.
Google Tag Manager: Add your Container ID
Primary/Secondary/Link Color: Your branding colors (General Settings) are automatically added here, but you can modify them if needed.
Favicons: Upload your favicons in ICO (16x16px or 36x36px) and PNG formats (180x180px).
Enable Edit Profile: Grants students access to edit their profile information.
Activate Element Messenger: Enable Live Chat on this Application Site.
Messenger Launcher Icon Color: If you enable Live Chat, you can modify the launcher icon's colors.
The following configurations for the footer, privacy policy link, and help link all display when a student is logged into their application dashboard. See screenshot below:
Footer: Edit the text at the bottom of the application dashboard under your institution's name.
Privacy Policy: Hyperlink in the footer that opens a dialogue window with the content you enter here.
Help: Hyperlink in the footer that opens a dialogue window with the content you enter here. You can provide a brief message to applicants who need help with the Application. Include contact information (e.g., email and phone number).
Home Page
Home Page
Students and visitors land on the home page when navigating to your Application Site URL before signing in. See example below:
Edit Page
Click on the Edit Page button to manage the look and feel of your Application Site's home page.
Use Copilot to create your entire home page. Click the "Edit with Copilot" button to use generative AI to create a branded page in minutes.
To start creating your page, use the blue plus sign button in the screen's bottom left corner.
Content is added in the form of blocks, and you have the following block options to select from:
Billboard with App (required to provide access to your Application)
Smart Teaser
Feature Teaser
Teaser
CTA
Intro
Image
Video
Quote
Maps
Divider
Footer
Once you add a block, you can click an element inside the block to customize it further.
Check out editing the home page in action 👇
Preview Page
Use the Preview Page button to preview what your home page will look like from a visitor's point of view.
Social Media
Social Media
Footer Icons: Add your social media links to display in the footer of the application dashboard.
Application
Application
Application
Applications: Manage the Applications accessible from the Site.
To add an Application, click the plus sign in the bottom right corner of the page.
Logos
School Logo: Appears in the top left corner of the Application Dashboard for all Applications added to this Site (PNG file, transparent background, all white or with white typography)
Email Logo: Appears in autoresponder emails sent for all Applications on this Site (PNG file, transparent background, goes on the light background)
Header Design: Configure the dashboard header background for all your Applications within this Site. You can choose from a solid color, gradient, or an uploaded image. You can also choose the gradient angle if the gradient option is selected.
Domains
Domains
Primary Domain
Element451 automatically assigns Your Application Site a primary domain and can not be edited. It will look something like this: fire.app451.sites.451.io. To find your primary domain:
External Domain
While the primary domain URL is functional, it doesn't share the same institutional brand identity and trust as a URL ending in .edu. To that end, you can configure an external domain to mask or hide the primary domain and use a URL ending in your school name or abbreviation. You'll likely need to work with your IT or website team for this process.
Add External Domain
Step 1: Create a CNAME to point to the primary domain URL
Determine the custom URL (CNAME) you wish to use. Consider working with your marketing department to decide what would work best for your campus. For example, Fire University may use
apply.fire.eduorstart.fire.edu.Then, your IT or web team will need to point the chosen CNAME to your primary domain, which, in our example, is
app451.sites.451.io.
Step 2: Add Your CNAME To Application Site Settings
Navigate to Applications > Applications > Sites.
Open the editor for the Site.
Click on the Domains tab.
Click the Add Host button.
Type your CNAME into the field and click Save.
Deleting and Duplicating Application Sites
Navigate to Applications > Applications > Sites.
Locate the Site you wish to manage from the list.
To edit, click the pencil icon.
To duplicate, click the duplicate icon.
To delete, click the trash can icon.
