Release 7 – August 4, 2024

New Features and Enhancements

Cross-Portal Enhancements

Liaison’s suite of portals work together to help you collect and manage applications. The CAS application, also referred to as the CAS Applicant Portal, is the system where applicants find and apply to your programs. You receive these applications in WebAdMIT or Liaison Outcomes, where you perform your review processes. The appearance of your program and your requirements are customized in the CAS Configuration Portal, where you establish the program-specific elements that your applicants will interact with. Additionally, your program may use one or more of the following tools and platforms:

  • API: a data integration tool.
  • CAS Analytics by Liaison and Othot: advanced analytics solutions and data reporting tools.
  • CAS Applicant Gateway: a platform for applicants who have already submitted their CAS application to complete and upload additional materials requested by their programs.
  • CAS Liaison Letters: a platform for evaluators to submit their letters of recommendation.
  • Enrollment Marketing and TargetX: customer relationship management (CRM) systems for student lifecycle management.
  • Living Profile: a platform where students can connect their academic pursuits with their career aspirations.
  • SlideRoom: a platform for collecting digital portfolios.
  • Time2Track: a platform for tracking, verifying, and managing experiences.

Disclaimer: on rare occasions, a new feature or enhancement may be moved to a future release or otherwise subject to change.

Remove Title/Prefix Field

This enhancement is automatically available for use by all CASs and participating programs. No action is required on the part of any association, school, or program. Contact a member of your account team for more information.

The Code of Federal Regulations, specifically Title 34, Part 106, deals with non-discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance. Within that code, section 34 CFR § 106.21(c)(4) is part of the broader implementation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or other education program that receives funding from the federal government. It states that:

The University is barred from "[m]ak[ing] a pre-admission inquiry as to the marital status of an applicant for admission, including whether such applicant is 'Miss or Mrs.' A [university] may ask an applicant to self-identify their sex, but only if this question is asked of all applicants and if the response is not used as a basis for discrimination."

Liaison interprets this to require the removal of all salutations on the CAS applications to comply with this regulation. Although the regulation is effective as of March 2024, enforcement is not expected until the fall. To comply with this regulation, our team has completed the development process to effect this change. We have removed the field; however, any applicants who completed it prior to removal will retain that data.

If you have any questions or concerns with this change, please contact a member of your account team.

CAS Applicant Portal

Applicants will no longer be able to view the Title field on the Create Your Account, My Profile, or Reapplicant pages, or the full application PDF.

Release Notes CAS Applicant Portal Title field.png

CAS API, Liaison Outcomes, and WebAdMIT

The Title field will remain in the CAS API, Liaison Outcomes, and WebAdMIT. Existing applicant data will remain, but no new applicant data will be available. You should review any exports, lists, and email templates that include this field and update them appropriately.

Note that WebAdMIT has updated behavior; review the 2024 Release 8 notes for more information.

CAS Applicant Portal Enhancements

Required and Optional Headers Can Be Removed for Program-level Documents

This enhancement must be approved by the CAS association or UniCAS client for use in the current cycle. If activated, this enhancement is available for all participating programs. CAS association and UniCAS clients: contact a member of your account team for more information or to enable this feature.

Programs can request applicants upload documents under the Program Materials section. Currently, each document type requested is listed under a Required Documents or Optional Documents header, depending on the document configuration. With this enhancement, those headers can be removed from every program’s document requirements in a CAS.

This can be helpful if a program requires applicants to upload documents after they submit their application. In this situation, you would need to configure the document as optional so applicants can upload it after they submit their application, but by using this enhancement, documents wouldn't be associated with a Required or Optional category in the application UI, thereby eliminating potential confusion.

WebAdMIT Enhancements

Disclaimer: on rare occasions, a new feature or enhancement may be moved to a future release or otherwise subject to change.

Sandbox Environment Migrated to New Site

This enhancement is automatically available for use by all CASs and participating programs. No action is required on the part of any association, school, or program. Contact a member of your account team for more information.

The WebAdMIT sandbox environment is a copy of the WebAdMIT production (i.e., live) environment with obfuscated sensitive applicant data (e.g., surnames, email addresses, etc.). You can use sandbox to test new workflow configurations. It is most useful for current CAS/WebAdMIT programs that are live and accepting applications.

The WebAdMIT sandbox environment has been migrated to a new site: https://uat.webadmit.org. All existing functionality from the former environment remains the same. Data within the sandbox environment, including applicant data and test workflows you built, will be overwritten and refreshed with current data from production every two months. If you created any test workflows in the former site and want to continue using them, you will need to rebuild them in the production or new sandbox environments. Note that you may need to add additional IP addresses to your safe-list.

Visit the WebAdMIT Sandbox Environment Guide for more information and best practices. Additionally, please note that the sandbox environment was refreshed using production data as of Friday, August 2.

New Documentation for WebAdMIT

Please review the list of new reference guides, all accessible in the WebAdMIT Help Center.

Document

Details

Transfer Settings Guide

WebAdMIT's Transfer Settings feature allows you to transfer templates from a previous cycle to a current cycle. The feature is typically available within the first week of the CAS application launch.

This guide has been restructured and updated with the most current workflows and best practices.

Ongoing Maintenance

Please review the list of scheduled downtime/maintenance and product updates.

Event

Date

Details

Sandbox Environment Refresh

August 2, 2024

The WebAdMIT Sandbox environment (uat.webadmit.org) was refreshed with current (cleansed) production data and program configurations. Any test exports, custom fields, etc., in the current sandbox were overwritten.

The next sandbox environment refresh is scheduled for September 29, 2024.

Coming Soon!

Please review the list of upcoming events, including scheduled downtime/maintenance, product updates, and regional training opportunities.

Event

Date

Details

Shared Lookup Table Updates for Fall 2024

September 8, 2024

Many fields in the Applicant Portal contain predefined answer values that applicants can select; for example, the Country and County fields both have predefined answer values. These values are housed in shared "lookup tables" which are viewable in your CAS's/UniCAS's data dictionary file.

Lookup table change requests can be sent to a member of your account team, who will compile and review these requests. New lookup table values will appear in the Applicant Portal on September 8, 2024 (subject to change).

You can view the upcoming lookup value changes on the Shared Lookup Table Updates page.