How your admissions cycle really runs

• How many distinct application cycles or program cohorts do you actively manage each year? Options: One primary cycle, Two seasonal cycles, Rolling/continuous intake, Multiple program-specific cycles, Other
• Walk me through a typical application's journey in your current setup, from initial submission to final decision.
• On average, during peak review periods how long does a full review take from intake to decision? Options: Under 2 weeks, 2 to 4 weeks, 4 to 8 weeks, More than 8 weeks
• Which artifacts or tools does your team use to track an application's status today? Options: Spreadsheet/manual tracker, Institutional CRM, SIS admissions module, Paper files, Custom internal app, Other
• Who on your team is responsible for day-to-day intake triage and chasing missing materials? Options: Admissions director, Enrollment operations manager, Dedicated intake coordinator, IT support, Shared across team, Other
• What single processing failure in your current rhythm, if it recurred next term, would force you to change how you run admissions?

Where the pipeline chokes and why it matters

• If your application pipeline had one chokepoint that created almost all delays, which stage would it be and why?
• Which stage today creates the biggest bottleneck: intake, document collection, reader scoring, committee routing, or decision notification? Options: Intake and form issues, Document collection and verification, Reader scoring and calibration, Committee scheduling and routing, Decision release and notifications, Other
• Tell me about the last peak period where backlogs formed: how long did they last and what temporary fixes did you apply?
• How many total reviewer hours per week are required at your busiest point compared with off-peak periods? Options: Less than 50 hours, 50-150 hours, 150-300 hours, More than 300 hours
• Describe the downstream consequences when an application stalls, for example on yield, compliance, or staff overtime.
• If one of these failure modes repeated next cycle—missing documents, reviewer shortage, integration lag, or committee delay—which would force you to change admissions targets or pause a major intake? Options: Missing documents, Reviewer shortage, Integration failures, Committee delays, Other

Who breaks first when volumes spike

• Who becomes most overloaded during peak reading windows, and what core tasks break down for them?
• List the top three reviewer tasks that consume most of their time, for example essay scoring, document verification, or data entry.
• Describe how you currently calibrate reader scoring rubrics and how often you reassess inter-reader agreement.
• On average, what percentage of applications receive a second-reader review or committee escalation? Options: Under 5%, 5-15%, 15-35%, More than 35%
• Should reader inconsistency produce a 3 percentage point drop in yield, which approach would you prioritize to fix it: technology, retraining, or process redesign? Options: Technology and tooling, Reader retraining, Process redesign, Hybrid approach, Unsure
• Who on your leadership team would need to sign off to reallocate reviewer capacity during a busy cycle? Options: Admissions director, VP Enrollment/CIO, Dean or program lead, Operations manager, Other

Which applicant touchpoints are costing you admits

• Point to a specific applicant experience failure in the last cycle that you believe directly cost you admits, and briefly describe it.
• How quickly do applicants typically receive confirmation of received documents and missing-item prompts after submission? Options: Instant/automated, Within 24 hours, 1-3 days, More than 3 days
• Tell me about a recent applicant who disengaged because of confusion or delay—what happened and when did you lose them?
• Select the communication channels you use and indicate which get the fastest applicant response. Options: Email notifications, SMS/text messages, Applicant portal messages, Phone calls or call center, Physical mail, Other
• Would automating missing-document nudges to applicants fit inside your current compliance and privacy rules? Options: Yes, within current rules, Yes, with minor legal review, No, not currently, Unsure
• Name the stakeholders whose buy-in would be required if reducing time-to-decision by two weeks demonstrably cut yield losses.

Can your systems actually connect

• Point out the integration endpoints that, if unavailable, would halt deployment before work begins.
• Do you have documented APIs or scheduled file exports available for your SIS and application intake systems? Options: REST APIs with documentation, SFTP/CSV nightly exports, SOAP or legacy web services, Manual exports only, No automated endpoint available, Other
• Identify the team or role that owns those endpoints and can approve access and credentials on a deployment timeline. Options: Institutional IT, Registrar/records team, Admissions ops team, Third-party vendor, No clear owner, Other
• Provide the headcount or percentage of FTEs your IT or vendor team can dedicate to integrations during the initial deployment window. Options: <0.5 FTE, 0.5-1 FTE, 1-2 FTEs, More than 2 FTEs, Variable/depends on phase
• Select which constraints exist today: locked-down APIs, delayed approvals, required legal review, limited network access, or staffing limits. Options: Locked-down APIs, Delayed change approvals, Legal/compliance review required, Limited network or firewall access, Insufficient staff bandwidth, None of the above
• Assuming your IT team can only support one integration immediately, which integration would you insist be first to avoid jeopardizing go-live? Options: SIS student record sync, Common-app intake endpoint, Payment/fee processing, Document storage/verification, Reader scoring export, Other

Migration, data ownership, and compliance gates

• Imagine data quality problems appeared during migration, what outcome would force you to pause the project?
• List the applicant fields you expect to export for migration, note typical completeness, and indicate where records currently reside.
• Are there regulatory approvals, data-sharing agreements, or institutional policies that must sign off before any applicant data leaves your systems? Options: Yes, formal approvals required, Informal approvals but expected, No approvals required, Unsure
• Provide the audit logs and retention policies we must honor to meet your data governance and compliance needs.
• How long do internal approvals for data sharing and migration usually take, and which roles must sign? Options: Under 2 weeks, 2-4 weeks, 4-8 weeks, More than 8 weeks
• What single legal or compliance item, if not resolved, would stop your leadership from approving migration?

The other options you're seriously weighing

• Name any vendors, the incumbent system, or internal strategies you are seriously considering instead of an outside admissions platform.
• Identify what would have to be true about your current approach for you to remain with it rather than change vendors.
• Is there an internal proposal to build this functionality in-house, and if so who is leading that effort? Options: Yes, IT is leading, Yes, Admissions is leading, Yes, a third unit is leading, No internal proposal, Unsure
• Choose which reasons most influence your preference for each alternative: lower cost, easier integration, internal control, faster timeline, or staff preference. Options: Lower cost, Better integration, Internal control of data, Faster timeline to deploy, Staff familiarity or preference, Other
• Would you consider staying with the incumbent if they provided a credible roadmap that resolved two of your top three issues within six months? Options: Yes, likely, Maybe, need proof, No, we would still change, Unsure
• What budget or procurement constraints among the alternatives could immediately rule a vendor in or out?

What would make this decision signable right away

• When a pilot proves the numbers, what would still block you from signing the contract that week?
• Please indicate the measurable success signals you will require from a pilot to greenlight full deployment, for example time-to-decision reduction, reviewer throughput, data accuracy, or applicant response rates.
• On a scale of priority, which of these signals matters most for contracting: time-to-decision, yield impact, reviewer capacity, integration reliability, or audit/compliance readiness? Options: Time-to-decision, Yield impact, Reviewer capacity, Integration reliability, Audit and compliance readiness
• Estimate the shortest realistic pilot duration you would accept to validate success signals, and the longest you would tolerate before losing momentum. Options: 2-4 weeks, 4-8 weeks, 2-3 months, More than 3 months
• Confirm which roles must receive pilot results and provide final approval, for example Admissions director, CIO, Registrar, or CFO. Options: Admissions director, CIO/CTO, Registrar/records, VP Enrollment/Provost, CFO/Procurement, Other
• By when are you targeting a decision on a pilot and potential contract signing, and what deadline, if any, would accelerate that timeline? Options: Immediately (within 2 weeks), Within 1 month, 1-3 months, 3-6 months, No firm timeline

• Solution Experience Session

• Confirm the current state and its cost
• You confirm the demonstrated intake flow prevents incomplete applications from reaching reviewers.
• Provide a mapped walkthrough of two anonymized applicant records through intake, scoring, and committee routing for the follow-up POC run.
• You confirm the reader scoring and committee workflows produce consistent evaluations and reduce reviewer bottlenecks.
• Walk through intake and document collection with your scenario
• Provide two representative applicant scenarios and one week of sample application records that show typical incomplete-document patterns.
• Share SIS integration endpoint details and sample field mappings required for the POC.
• You confirm the applicant communications flow provides timely status to applicants and will reduce yield loss due to delayed decisions.
• Walk through reader scoring and committee workflows with your scenario
• Deliver a draft reader scoring rubric tailored to the identified programs prior to the POC.
• You agree the POC scope, success metrics, and the technical evidence required to validate reduced time-to-decision.
• Walk through applicant communications and status updates
• Validation checkpoint, confirm this maps to your needs
• Confirm the POC timeline and nominate technical and operational owners for the trial.
• Agree POC scope, success metrics, and next evidence

• Solution Experience Session
• Solution Experience Deck
• Solution Experience Brief

• meeting
• slides
• document

• Configure application form and submission workflow
• Deploy document intake and validation rules
• Migrate legacy applicant records and documents
• Integrate common application platform feeds
• Integrate with student information system (SIS)
• Configure reader scoring workflows and rubrics
• Provision committee review workflows and boards
• Configure decision notification and offer letters
• Set role-based permissions and user provisioning
• Deliver reader training and onboarding sessions
• Enable analytics dashboards and processing reports
• Run parallel processing cutover and reconciliation

Configure application form and submission workflow

• Which applicant types and program codes must be represented on your intake form (for example undergraduate domestic, international, transfer, graduate program codes)? Options: Undergraduate domestic, Undergraduate international, Transfer, Graduate, Non-degree/Continuing
• How many distinct required form fields include file uploads (for example official transcript PDF, letter of recommendation, portfolio file)? Options: None, 1-3, 4-6, 7+
• Who in your office will own content edits to the application form and approve changes during deployment?
• What submission deadlines and cycle windows must the workflow enforce (give example dates or named cycles such as early decision and regular decision)?
• When should automated reminders trigger for incomplete submissions and which documents should they mention by name (for example "transcript", "test score")? Options: After 3 days, After 7 days, After 14 days, Custom cadence
• Are there accessibility or multilingual requirements for the form (for example WCAG AA compliance, Spanish-language version)? Options: Yes, No

Deploy document intake and validation rules

• Which document types must be validated on intake (for example transcript PDF, school report, letters of recommendation, English proficiency certificate)? Options: Transcript, School report, Letter of recommendation, Test score report, Other
• How should the platform validate uploaded transcripts (for example file type check, required pages present, OCR extraction of school name and date)?
• Who will review and resolve intake validation exceptions (name or role and contact)?
• What automated rules must block submission versus flag for manual review (for example missing official transcript blocks complete application)? Options: Block submission, Flag for manual review, Custom by document type
• Identify any security or retention rules for applicant documents (for example retain PDFs for 7 years, restrict download to specific roles).
• Which verification integrations will you require during intake (for example third-party transcript verification endpoint or identity verification)?

Migrate legacy applicant records and documents

• How many legacy applicant records and associated documents must be migrated into the platform (provide a numeric estimate or range)? Options: Less than 5,000, 5,000-20,000, 20,000-100,000, More than 100,000
• Which legacy document formats and storage locations are in scope for migration (for example on-prem file share with transcript PDFs, legacy admissions database exports)?
• What mapping between legacy fields and platform fields is required for key attributes (for example legacy_applicant_id -> applicant ID, legacy_program_code -> program code)?
• How will you validate migration completeness and record fidelity (for example record count reconciliation, random sample of 200 migrated records with transcripts)?
• What acceptance criteria will confirm migration is successful (state measurable thresholds such as percent of records migrated, zero missing official transcripts for admitted cohort)?
• Are there any data cleansing steps required before migration (for example deduplicate by birthdate and name, normalize program codes)? Options: Yes, No

Integrate common application platform feeds

• Which common application endpoint(s) must feed into the platform (for example the admissions feed that supplies applicant profile, essays, and attachments)?
• What frequency and throughput do you expect from the feed during peak submission windows (for example records per hour or batch hourly file)? Options: Real-time API, Hourly batch, Daily batch, Custom schedule
• Which applicant fields from the incoming feed must map into your platform landing fields (for example applicant ID, program code, reported GPA, citizenship)?
• What error-handling behavior do you require when the feed returns malformed records (for example quarantine and notify team X, retry automatically)? Options: Quarantine and notify, Auto-retry then quarantine, Discard with log
• What acceptance criteria will validate the integration with the common application endpoint (for example successful ingest of N sample records, API error rate below X%)?
• Who is the technical contact at your institution for providing API credentials and endpoint details for the feed?

Integrate with student information system (SIS)

• Which SIS data flows are required at go-live (for example push admitted student records, pull program codes and term data)? Options: Push admits to SIS, Pull program and term lists, Two-way synchronization, Other
• How will you match applicant records to SIS student records (for example by applicant ID, email, or institutional ID mapping)?
• Which SIS endpoints or export formats will you provide (for example SFTP CSV export, REST API endpoints for student creation)?
• What data accuracy threshold do you require for SIS synchronization (for example 99% of admitted records match on student ID without manual correction)?
• Who will approve the list of fields sent to the SIS and who will sign off on data governance for transfers to the SIS?
• Are there blackout windows or peak SIS processing windows we must avoid when scheduling integration jobs (for example term rollover weekend)? Options: Yes, No

Configure reader scoring workflows and rubrics

• Which scoring rubric elements must be captured by readers (for example academic readiness 1-5, extracurricular strength 1-5, complete recommendation)?
• How many reader roles and lanes should be configured (for example initial readers, senior readers, international reader queue)? Options: 1-2, 3-5, 6+
• What routing rules should the system use to assign readers (for example program code, language of application, workload balancing by unread count)?
• What acceptance criteria will define correct rubric implementation and reader adoption (for example inter-rater agreement above a stated threshold on a sample of 200 applications)?
• Which validation or edit checks should the scoring interface enforce (for example required numeric score for each rubric element, prevent submit with missing overall recommendation)? Options: Enforce required fields, Warn but allow submit, No enforcement
• Who will lead rubric definition and who will approve score sheet changes during deployment?

Provision committee review workflows and boards

• Which decision committees and boards must be provisioned (for example honor college committee, graduate admissions committee, scholarship review board)?
• How should committee agendas and packet materials be assembled (for example auto-compile top 50 files per agenda by program and reviewer scores)?
• What voting and approval rules should a committee follow (for example majority vote, chair override, two-reader minimum)? Options: Majority vote, Chair override, Two-reader minimum, Custom rules
• Which audit trail and meeting minutes retention rules must be applied to committee decisions?
• Who will be the named owners for committee board configuration and who will approve final membership lists?
• When do committee workflows need to support offline packet review and what format should those packets be (PDF export, printed packet)? Options: PDF export, Printed packet, Online-only

Configure decision notification and offer letters

• Which decision types and templates do you need (for example admit with scholarship, waitlist, deny, conditional admit) and how many unique templates?
• What personalization tokens must be supported in offer letters (for example program name, scholarship amount, enrollment deposit deadline)?
• How should notification channels be prioritized (for example push to portal, email first, then SMS for critical admits)? Options: Portal then email, Email then SMS, Email only, Custom priority
• Which data points must reconcile on the offer letter with SIS records (for example program code, start term, scholarship amount)?
• Who must sign off on the final templates and what approval workflow will you use for legal and registrar review?
• Are there regulatory or audit requirements for storing issued offers (for example retention period, exportable audit trail)? Options: Yes, No

Set role-based permissions and user provisioning

• Which user roles are required at launch and how many users per role (for example reader 25, committee chair 5, operations admin 3)?
• How should access to sensitive documents be restricted by role (for example restrict download of social security documentation to registrar only)?
• Which identity provider or single sign-on method will you use for provisioning (for example SAML2 SSO, LDAP, manual user creation)? Options: SAML2 SSO, LDAP/Active Directory, Manual provisioning, Other
• What SLA do you require for user provisioning requests during peak review periods (for example provision within 4 hours)?
• Who owns user lifecycle tasks such as deprovisioning and role changes and what is their contact?
• Are there any privileged roles that must have multi-factor authentication enforced? Options: Yes, No

Deliver reader training and onboarding sessions

• Which reader audiences need training (for example initial readers, senior readers, external reviewers) and approximately how many attendees per audience?
• What delivery formats do you prefer for training (for example live workshops, recorded videos, train-the-trainer)? Options: Live workshop, Recorded video, Train-the-trainer, Documentation only
• What learning objectives must be achieved to consider reader onboarding complete (for example complete rubric training, pass sample calibration with 80% agreement)?
• How will you measure ongoing reader accuracy after go-live (for example periodic calibration sets, monthly inter-rater reports)?
• Who will schedule training sessions and who will be the subject-matter contact for content changes?
• When do you prefer training to occur relative to cutover (for example two weeks prior, concurrent parallel processing)? Options: Two weeks prior, One week prior, During parallel processing, After go-live

• Subscription Agreement
• Order Form
• Master Services Agreement (MSA)
• Statement of Work (SOW)
• Data Processing Agreement (DPA)
• Acceptance & Go/No-Go Certificate
• Migration and Cutover Plan
• Security & Compliance Addendum

• Go-live Health Check (weeks 1-4)
• First Outcome Measurement (weeks 4-10)
• Acceptance Gate Review (around day 90)
• Quarterly Adoption and Outcomes Review (ongoing)

• Close or escalate any operational tickets older than the agreed SLA and record the resolution status.
• Restate acceptance criteria and numeric targets
• Produce a documented acceptance decision, with pass/fail recorded per acceptance criterion listed in Solution Scope.
• Confirm the legacy system decommissioning or retention plan and ensure no operational fallback remains active.
• Agree remediation and retest dates for any failed criteria so the loop is closed with clear next steps.
• Publish the acceptance decision document and attach the evidence pack used for the decision.
• If any criteria failed, log remediation tasks with target retest dates and resolution acceptance criteria.
• Execute the legacy system wind-down plan or confirm read-only retention and archive completion, then publish the status.
• Trend review against Solution Scope targets
• Confirm whether outcome trends for average time-to-decision and inter-reader score variance are meeting the trajectory required by Solution Scope targets.
• Clear the backlog of persistent operational issues or move them into a defined remediation plan with dates.
• Agree the prioritized enhancement list for the next quarter and the expected delivery window for each item.
• Publish the quarter's outcome dashboard with underlying data and calculations for the named metrics.
• Move prioritized enhancement requests into the delivery backlog and publish estimated delivery dates in the shared channel.
• Reconfirm committed success criteria and owners
• Confirm there are no unresolved critical deployment defects that prevent reviewers or applicants from completing core tasks.
• Agree remediation plan and target close dates for all high-severity issues.
• Confirm who owns each success criterion recorded in Solution Scope for measurement and reporting.
• Produce and circulate a deployment validation checklist showing migration status, integration endpoints health, and environment readiness.
• Log all high-severity issues in the shared issue channel with target resolution dates.
• Enable reviewer and admin audit logging for the next 30 days to support the upcoming measurement meeting.
• Present first data against named metrics
• Establish whether average time-to-decision and reviewer throughput are moving toward the targets recorded in Solution Scope, or require remediation.
• Document the top 3 root causes for any metric gaps and agree corrective actions with target completion dates.
• Confirm the data window and evidence set that will be used at the Acceptance Gate Review.
• Deliver a metric evidence pack with raw data extracts and calculation notes for average time-to-decision, reviewer throughput, and incomplete application resolution rate.
• Implement agreed configuration or process changes and report completion in the shared issue channel before the acceptance gate.
• Schedule any required targeted reviewer training sessions and publish attendance records to support adoption claims.
• Deployment and migration validation
• Adoption and proficiency check
• Root cause diagnosis for any gaps
• Present outcome data against each criterion
• Agree specific corrective actions and dates
• Document pass or fail and record acceptance decision
• Persistent issues and open tickets
• Early adoption signals and usage patterns
• Confirm timeline to the acceptance gate
• Blockers and open issues
• Incumbent system wind-down confirmation
• Enhancement request prioritization
• Agree remediation items for any failed criteria
• Immediate remediation actions