Release 8 – September 8, 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: Updated WebAdMIT, CAS API, and Outcomes Effects

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.

Starting in 2024 Release 7, the Title field was removed from the CAS application in the Create Your Account and Reapplicant pages and the Biographic Information section. Currently, the Title field remains in the CAS API, Liaison Outcomes, and WebAdMIT, but no new applicant data is available. Read below for further updates on these products.

WebAdMIT

Now that Title information is no longer being collected from applicants, starting in your CAS's current, active cycle, any data in the Title field will be removed from WebAdMIT. Then, starting in your CAS's next cycle, the Title field will be removed from WebAdMIT. You will need to update any lists, exports, email templates, and other integrations to account for this field removal.

CAS API and Liaison Outcomes

The Title field currently remains in the CAS API and Liaison Outcomes. No new applicant data will be available.

Annual Fall 2024 Lookup Updates

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.

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." Periodically, we update these tables to include additional response options.

The new lookup table values include updates to colleges and majors. Review the Shared Lookup Table Updates page for a full list of updates.

These lookup table updates impact the following portals, some of which you may use. If you created a "crosswalk" from our portals to your local data in your SIS/CRM, you may need to update this crosswalk for the newly added options. For guidance on the optimal implementation of the new values, review the Shared Lookup Table Updates page.

"Refugee" Removed from List of US Visa Options

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

When entering Citizenship Information in the CAS application, applicants with a US Visa can select the type of Visa from a predefined list. The option Refugee was removed from this list, as it is not a valid US Visa type. The correct option, I-94 Refugee, remains available. Additionally, the related help center content was updated to reflect this change.

CAS Applicant Portal

If your CAS uses the standard Visa Information question under the Citizenship Information section, then the option Refugee is no longer available to select from.

CAS API, Liaison Outcomes, and WebAdMIT

Existing applicant data will remain. Moving forward, you may need to update your lists, exports, and integrations to account for this change.

Liaison Letters Enhancements

The following enhancements are now available in Liaison Letters. If you have any questions about these features, contact a member of your account team or support.

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

Optionally Hide Applicant's Program List in Letters

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.

In some CASs, recommenders can be on the committee that recommends whether to rank an applicant for admission. For example, an applicant may be graduating from Demo University and applying to its residency program. A faculty member who is writing their recommendation may also be on the residency ranking committee. As a recommender, knowing which programs an applicant is applying to may be a conflict of interest.

With this enhancement, Liaison Letters will not list the programs the applicant is applying to. This enhanced privacy helps maintain an objective recommendation process.

Recommendation Request with Programs List

Release Notes Letters Programs Appear.png

Recommendation Request with No Programs List

Release Notes Letters Programs Do Not Appear.png

WebAdMIT Enhancements

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

Field Updates: Ordering, Naming, and Availability

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.

We recently completed an audit of the fields available within several of WebAdMIT's features. Updates include:

  • Reordering fields within field groupings for logic and flow (e.g., all address fields are together).
  • Updating field names for consistency (e.g., the organization field name across experience types is the same).
  • Adding fields to the List Manager as new search criteria.
  • Making fields available to different types of WebAdMIT users (e.g., admissions users versus advisors).

We encourage you to download your CAS's data dictionary to view all updates. If desired, you can then use this to update any templates you've built in the following features:

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 Spring 2025

Requests due by November 1, 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. The last date to submit lookup table update requests is November 1, 2024.

New lookup table values will appear in the CAS Applicant Portal in March 2025 (subject to change).

Visit the Shared Lookup Table Updates page for more information.