CAS API Yearly Maintenance
CAS API Yearly Maintenance
To prepare your CAS API data integration for a new admissions cycle, you'll always need to perform several actions. This article focuses only on regular yearly maintenance. In addition to the actions listed here, you'll want to consult the Yearly Maintenance article to consider other ways your data integration might need to be changed to keep up with changes to your admissions processes or the CAS application. The following is a list of the actions that will need to be performed.
- Adjust API calls
- Review lookups for any value crosswalk changes
- Review configuration for any custom question changes
API Call Adjustments
You'll need to adjust your CAS API calls to grab the data for the right cycle. In the CAS API data model, cycle information is wrapped up in programs. The same program in two different cycles will have two different program entries—complete with their own unique IDs—in the CAS API data model. You'll have to use the "Program Details by Organization" endpoint (GET /v1/applicationForms/:applicationFormID/organizations/:organizationID/programs/:programId) to figure out the cycle for each program ID. An alternative would be to use information from the application details to identify the cycle/term the applicant is applying for.
Value Crosswalk Changes
From time to time, the lists of possible values for defined option fields will change. For example, when South Sudan became its own country, a new country was added to the list of countries. You can retrieve these lists using the "Lookup" endpoints. Once retrieved, it is important to review these lists against your current value mappings and make any necessary changes.
Custom Question Changes
Questions on the CAS application will change over time. These changes may come from inside or outside your organization. You can use the "Config" endpoints to pull down information about custom questions, including what questions exist and the possible response values. If you are transferring responses to custom questions to your local systems, it's important to review these each cycle and make any necessary changes.