Overview, Terms, Definitions, and Tips

Overview

Visual Analytics provides appropriately-permissioned WebAdMIT Users with graphical reports for key applicant data across multiple cycles. Reports allow you to obtain data for year-over year trending, or current point-in-time processing (i.e forecasting, filling applicant seats, etc.).

Each night around 11:00 PM EST, applicant data is transmitted from WebAdMIT to Liaison’s enterprise data warehouse, and then made available to users the following day in a series of reports that provide a point-in-time snapshot of data as of that day. Primary report types include:

• Volume Reports: Explores the number of applicants and applications over the course of an admissions cycle.
• Demographic Reports: Explores the gender, age, race/ethnicity diversity within an applicant pool.
• Residency Reports: Explores the geographic origins of applicants within an applicant pool.
• Academic History Reports: Provides representation of the academic history-related data for a CAS.
• Section Complete Status Reports: Provides information about the sections of the application that were completed (or not completed) by applicants who started, but have not yet submitted, an application.

Most reports, in addition to the interactive visual presentation of the data, also allow for the export and download of the raw data underlying the reports.

Notes:

• You should only access Visual Analytics reports via the WebAdMIT production environment. Reports accessed from the sandbox and prelaunch environments contain sample data.
• Visual Analytics data is loaded from WebAdMIT once a day. Any changes or new data generated in WebAdMIT after 10:00 PM will not be reflected in the reports that are available the following day. 

Distinguishing Between Applicants and Designations

When working with these reports, note the distinction between applicant-related reports and designation-related (or“application-related”) reports:

• Applicant-related reports count each applicant once. For example, if an applicant initially submits their application in November, reports that focus on applicant submissions will count each of these applicants once.
• Designation-related reports count each designation (application) that an applicant submits. For example, if an applicant applies to 5 different schools/programs in November, reports that focus on designations submitted will count that applicant 5 times – once for each designation (application) submission.

Applicant Milestones & Application Statuses

As applicants move through the application process, they can reach three milestones in Visual Analytics:

• Submitted: Paid and submitted a designation to at least 1 program.
• Complete: Paid and submitted a designation to at least one program, has a transcript scanned for each US or Canadian institution listed (if required by the CAS), and has the minimum number of recommendations submitted as required by CAS rules.
• Verified: Paid and submitted a designation to at least one program, has a transcript scanned for each US or Canadian institution listed (if required by the CAS), has the minimum number of recommendations submitted as required by CAS rules, and has had all transcripts verified by CAS operations staff (if applicable).

Applicant Milestones are different from Application Statuses because they look at how far along in the application process an individual applicant may have come (whereas application statuses look at where an application is at any given time). Therefore, as applicants reach each milestone, they remain indefinitely in that milestone’s “bucket.” For example, an applicant who reaches the Complete milestone will also reflect as having reached the Submitted milestone, and an applicant who reaches the Verified milestone will reflect as having reached both the Submitted and Complete milestones.

Tips for Using Dates Filters

As you review the various reports and apply Start Date and End Date filters, it's helpful to remember the following: 

• These filters are applied to an entire dashboard, regardless of the types of data appearing on the dashboard. For example, when these filters are applied to a report that contains both applicant and designation data, such as the Volume Summary report, the filter is applied to both the applicant count visualizations and the designation count visualizations. 
• If using the start and end date filters, you must set Filter on Earliest Submitted Date to Yes. 
  
  
• Start and end date filters are based on the earliest submitted date for each applicant, not a snapshot date or designation submitted date. If the earliest submitted date for an applicant doesn't fall between the selected dates, their designations are not counted as Submitted. Additionally, if the earliest verified date doesn't fall between the start and end dates for the cycle, the designation will not be counted as Verified. 
• If an applicant submits an application outside the cycle dates that are outlined in the Business Requirements Document (BRD), the applicant and their designation are not counted in any reports.  
• The As of filters (found in Volume reports) allow you to narrow the data to all designations submitted up to (i.e., before or on) the selected month and day for a particular cycle. When the As of Day filter is set to All, data from all days in the selected month are included. For example, if a cycle runs from September to January and you want want to view all designations submitted through October, you'd set the As of Month filter to October and the As of Day filter to All. Alternatively, you could set the As of Day filter to a specific day in the month, if necessary.   

A Note about Ethnicity and Race

When reviewing ethnicity and race information, note that Hispanic takes precedence if more than one value was selected by an applicant. 

A Note about Comparing Reports

When reviewing numbers across different reports, you may find that there are disparities where you would expect numbers to match. For example, your Applicant Pool Summary report may show 451 submitted applicants, of which 419 are verified, but your Applicants by Application Status repors might show 424 submitted applicants, of which 406 are Verified. So, why the discrepancies? These perceived discrepancies are a result of the distinction between applications (i.e., designations) and applicants and how the reports count each (remember, an applicant can have more than one application). As a general rule, reports are designed to produce unique counts for unique purposes and are not meant to be compared. 

Imagine Aimee Applicant applies to 8 programs in SampleCAS. Seven of these applications are Verified and one application is still In Progress. In the Applicant Pool Summary report, Aimee is counted as follows: 

• All Applicants: Aimee is counted in this milestone because she has either an In Progress or Submitted application. In Aimee’s case, she happens to have at least one of both. 
• Submitted Applicants: Aimee is counted in this milestone because she has submitted at least one application. 
• Completed Applicants: Aimee is counted in this milestone because she has completed at least one of her applications. 
• Verified Applicants: Aimee is counted in this milestone because at least one of her applications has been verified. 
  • Note the distinctions between: 
    • A submitted application and an application that is in a Submitted status.
    • A completed application and an application that is in a Completed status. 
    • A verified application and an application that is in a Verified status. 

If we were to look at the Applicants by Application Status report, we’d notice that Aimee is counted as follows: 

• In Progress: Aimee is counted here once because at least one of her applications is currently in this application status. 
• Received: Aimee is not counted here because none of her applications is currently in this application status. 
• Complete: Aimee is not counted here because none of her applications is currently in this application status. 
• Verified: Aimee is counted here once because at least one of her applications is currently in this application status. 
• On Hold: Aimee is not counted here because none of her applications is currently in this application status. 

Now, imagine Aimee is the only applicant reflected in these two reports. If we were to try and compare the two, we’d see the following (notice how the first report indicates we have 1 completed applicant while the second indicates we have 0 Complete applicants):

• The Applicant Pool Summary report shows:
  • 1 total applicant (i.e., All Applicants).
  • 1 Submitted applicant.
  • 1 Completed applicant. 
  • 1 Verified applicant.
• The Applicants by Application Status report shows:
  • 1 In Progress applicant. 
  • 0 Received applicants. 
  • 0 Complete applicants. 
  • 1 Verified applicant. 
  • 0 On Hold applicants.