Overview
The Applications dashboard helps you see your application and decision process at a high level, and provides a convenient status report to share with your institution. Perfect for your next admissions or enrollment team meeting, use this dashboard to report important metrics, visualize the flow of your application process, and catch bottlenecks.
Accessing the Dashboard
The Applications dashboard can be found via the Insights sub-menu. The Insights module can be accessed from the Data + Automations dropdown in the top navigation.
Dashboard Walk-through
Dashboard Features
The Applications dashboard provides current counts and performance rates of your applications, and key information about your student populations.
Global Controls
The Applications dashboard can be filtered and controlled in several ways. Find the global controls at the top of each tab. These global controls affect each tab. Filters applied on one tab will carry over to the others.
Global controls feature filters for Application Type, Application Term, Application Student Type, Application School, Application Degree, Application Campus, Application Major, Segment, and Cohort. Select one or many from the control categories. Segments and Cohorts only support one selection at a time.
Segment Filters
The Applications report can only be filtered by certain dimensions by default. The segment filter is a great way to filter the report by dimensions that matter to you. Create a Segment in the People module, and set it as a calculated segment.
Please allow 24 hours for new calculated segments to appear and filter correctly in Insights.
More on using segments and Insights together.
Visualizations Sections
Applications
Applications
The Applications section of the dashboard is located at the top. It provides key metrics, and show the current status of applications by status and stage.
Big blue number show:
Total number of applications
Total number of students applying
Average number of applications per student
Total number of applications with incomplete information requests
Average decisions with complete checklist
Average decision score
A funnel chart shows the number of applications by their current status.
A sankey diagram shows the flow of applications through the different statuses.
A line chart shows the number of applications submissions over time, grouped by various dimensions.
A bar chart shows the number of application submissions by various dimensions.
Evaluations
Evaluations
The Evaluations section is located in the middle of the dashboard. It shows a distribution of key evaluation scores across your applications.
The first histogram shows the distribution of each student's best GPA. The second histogram shows the distribution of each student's best ACT score. The third histogram shows the distribution of each student's best SAT score.
Demographics
Demographics
The Demographics sections is located in the middle of the dashboard. It shows a breakdown of applications by key demographics of the student's applying.
Processing
Processing
The Processing section is located at the bottom of the dashboard. It shows two box plots showing the distribution of days between key stages.
Distribution of Days between Application Started, Submitted and Decision Released is the first box plot. It's first box shows the distribution of days between application started and application submitted. The second box shows days between application submitted and decision released.
Distribution of Days In Status is the second box plot and will have a varying number of boxes depending on the number of decision statuses (link) you've defined in your settings. Each box will show the distribution of days spent in each status.
Note: Box plots shows the variance in values for a particular field. In this example, taller a box, the more variance in days. For example, one student might only spend one day in the status, another might spend 30.
Dashboard Data
The Applications dashboard is structured as a table with one row per student per application. Applications are created when students register for an application on the Element451 application site, or via Import. Students may have multiple applications associated with their record, so they may appear in multiple rows of the dashboard dataset.
Dataset Fields
Name | Description | Corresponding Field |
Element ID | Unique identifier of the contact. |
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Application Position | The position the application in the applications array. Usually denotes the order in which the contact's applications were created with 1 being the earliest. |
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Application Created At | Date and time the application was created. |
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Application Completed At | Date and time that all required fields of the application were completed by the contact. |
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Application Submitted At | Date and time the application was submitted for review in the Decisions module. |
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Application Registration ID | Unique identifier for the application. |
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Application Status | The current status of the application. |
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Application Progress Percentage | The percentage completion of the application toward all required fields being populated. |
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Previously Applied | Flag provided by the contact indicating that they previously applied. |
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Application Type | Name of the application type. |
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Application Term | Term for which the application is submitted. | user-applications-term |
Application Major | Contact's primary major or program for this application. | user-applications-major |
Application Second Major | Contact's secondary major or program for this application. | user-applications-major-second |
Application Major Third | Contact's third major or program for this application. | user-applications-major-third |
Application Minor | Contact's minor for this application. | user-applications-minor |
Application Concentration | Contact's concentration for this application. | user-applications-concentration |
Application Degree | Contact's degree for this application. | user-applications-degree |
Application Campus | Contact's campus, or location of academic delivery, for this application. | user-applications-campus |
Application School | Contact's academic school for this application. | user-applications-school |
Application Student Type | Contact's type for this application. | user-applications-student-type |
Application Housing | Contact's housing selection for this application. | user-applications-housing |
Decision Score | Numeric score associated with the decision. |
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Decision Stage | Name of the stage of the decision process the unique decision is currently in. |
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Decision Status | Status of the decision record. |
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Decision Checklist Complete | Boolean indicating if all checklist items related to the decision have been completed. |
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Decision Cohorts | Comma-separated list of identifiers for the cohorts the decision record applies to. |
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Information Requests Complete | Boolean indicating if all information request items related to the application have been submitted. |
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Information Request Types | Comma-separated list of identifiers for the information request types made by the contact during application. |
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Territory | Contact's territory assignment. |
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Assignee | Coalesce first checking assignee for decision, then contact's staff assignee for recruitment or student success. |
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Highschool | Contact's latest highschool attended. |
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Sport | Contact's latest sport participated in. |
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Max SAT Score | Contact's highest SAT composite score. |
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Max ACT Score | Contact's highest ACT composite score. |
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Max GPA | Contact's higher GPA. |
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Segments | Segment identifiers that contact appears in. |
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Data Best Practices
The Applications dashboard relies on Application fields. When creating your application, use fields beginning with "user-applications-.." as much as possible. These fields are used in the dashboard dataset.
For example, applications should always use "user-applications-term" field when asking for term. If configured in this way, applications in the dashboard dataset will have values for the Application Term column (listed above). If an application is configured to use the "user-education-term" field, or a custom field, the Application Term column in this dataset will be "null" and the dashboard will not show terms. Use the "Corresponding Field" column of the table above to identify necessary fields when applicable.
Troubleshooting & FAQ
What should this dashboard be used for?
This dashboard is designed to show the current status of applicants in your process. Use this dashboard to report important metrics, visualize the flow of your application process, and catch bottlenecks. Drill down into specific demographics, such as race, high school or territory to ensure no cohorts are falling behind.
Applications Dashboard vs Funnel Dashboard
The Funnel dashboard also features metrics related to applications and admission. Which dashboard should I use?
This depends on the types of questions you're asking. If you want to know the current metrics for term, use the Applications dashboard. If you want to observe trends over several terms, use the Funnel dashboard.
Broadly, the Applications dashboard will focus on current reporting while the Funnel dashboard will focus on trend analysis.
My Applications Dashboard and Funnel Dashboard Don't Match
This can happen. Either dashboard counts different different data. The Applications dashboard counts Applications, the Funnel dashboard counts Milestones. Applications and Milestones are separate attributes of the Contact record that are not synchronized with each other. Application Milestones are created by Applications, but the Application does not manage the Milestones after creation.
Consider some common ways that Applications and Milestones might not match:
Applications were imported through the Imports + Exports module or via the API, but Milestones were not created during that import process.
An Application was deleted from a Contact's record, but the Milestones created by that Application were not.
My Application Data Needs Fixed. How Can I Clean it Up?
Changes in Application configuration or errors during imports can cause the bad data on Contact records. Use the Data Hygiene dashboard to observe and fix Application Campus, Application Degree, Application Major, Application Status, Application Student Type, and Application Term.
How often does the Applications dashboard update?
The dashboard currently refreshes twice a day at 6:00 am and 12:00 pm Eastern. Depending on the size of the dataset, the refresh can take up to 30 minutes. You will see changes to the dashboard shortly after the refresh times.