Have you already decided how you will migrate CAS applicant data into your local system? There are four approaches to accomplishing this. Review the information below to learn more about one of these methods: the Manual Data Entry approach.
Institutions with data entry personnel on staff may want to leverage that resource to bring CAS application data into local systems. Generally, manual data entry works best for institutions intending to use CAS data in local systems only after the point of offer, when there are fewer records to manually key in to local systems. If the volume of applications coming through the CAS is low, data entry will have a low manual effort cost and it will avoid the challenges of building a data integration. The manual data entry approach also appeals to admissions units without access to data upload tools in local systems.
At some point after applicants have submitted their applications to the CAS, and usually when the population to bring into local systems is completely fixed (i.e., after offers have gone out), all the relevant application data is retrieved in one form or another from the CAS and manually keyed in to local systems, creating the necessary records. There are different ways to retrieve CAS data for this purpose. Some schools print out the “Full Application PDF” document to use for data entry. Other schools view the application record online in an admissions managements software (e.g., WebAdMIT, Liaison Outcomes, etc.) when doing data entry. Still others download spreadsheets of data from the CAS to use for data entry.
The team needed to set up the manual data entry approach must have three skill sets. These skill sets don’t need to be spread across different people. Consider which people in your organization have the necessary skills, knowledge, and tools.
Role |
Skills, Knowledge and Tools |
Typical Office |
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Project Lead |
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Admissions |
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Business Analyst |
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Yes. As long as someone with access to CAS application data also has access to the data entry tools in your local systems needed to create the necessary records, you can take the manual data entry approach. Keep in mind the volume of applications and the resources available to perform data entry.
Plan for two to four weeks to set up the manual data entry approach. With a motivated project team and an existing data entry team, however, this approach can be up and running even more quickly.