Hello,
With the new semester/quarter coming up, I'm wondering if anyone has tips on making registration a bit easier. For example, how do you organize your Change of Educational Level students? How do you separate transfers from non-transfers so you can make new I-20s for them? Any other tips and tricks would be greatly appreciated.
Registration Tips?
Re: Registration Tips?
Hi Massey!
Great question and so timely. Many out there in sunapsisland our asking themselves the same! Here are some thoughts that i have:
Prep prior to registration:
-Check your sunapsis Term Dates config. And, while you are at it, just do it for all terms in 2020(and spring 2021)! These dates can change over time from what you may have configured when dates were first configured in SIS and/or sunapsis. Make sure that your term dates match what is coming through your datafeed. For Banner, this would typically be your STVTERM table. These dates may or may not match the dates that you would traditionally think of for the start and end date of term. For example, some schools have STVTERM end date as last day of class rather than last day of finals.
-Check your SEVIS Term Dates config. Do this one for all of 2020 (and spring 2021) too! This one should be set up to match the *real* term start (1st day of class) and end dates (last day of finals).
-Of course, few people are perfect, so you'll need to cover your backside. Check the SEVIS beast to make sure that you are all caught up with any series of unfortunate incidents that may result (or have resulted) in student records being prematurely terminated. :0). Don't know which ones to check? Familiarize yourself with the Alerts, Lists and Downloads by clicking on each one. For example, Active Students Requiring Registration, Initial Status with POE, Cancelled/Terminated in the next 45 days (that's a wonderful one!). Become familiar with what you should expect to see at each time of the year. It's a good idea to build into your business process a regular sweep through of this task. For example, every 15 days the Adjudications Results will reset itself and you will have missed a golden opportunity to find out about those *hidden* COS's that were fed to the beast through USCIS adjudications feed.
Note: Registration events will not be built until the first day of class, so don't give yourself a brain aneurysm over this (like I did in 2016) prior to 2nd day of class. Ain't nobody got time for that!
And while you are preparing for SEVIS registration game, might as well check on those configs for underenrollment!
Check your underenrollment config to make sure that the business process that your advisors are *currently* using matches configs. Check not only the underenrollment hours, but also CPT, Done with Coursework and while you are there just click on all of those drop downs to find whatever interesting thing that you may not have known or that may or may not be configured properly! Start clicking/picking like a kid in a candy shop.
-Check your sunapsis compliance alerts! They'll tell you exactly which records have fallen through the cracks.
Registration creatures:
- COL. These are manual hand holding UNLESS you build into business process to have advisors send registration event after creating the COL in SEVIS. Then, BOOM, you are done. If not,you would need to create a different business process that would allow for getting these COLs registered. You could have COL students submit eform and put eform on a checklist so that you could monitor the COLers this way. You could have advisors assign a case with date alert to alert them when they need to register the SEVIS record. Then, if SEVIS coordinator is on top of her game with sunapsis compliance alerts and RTI alerts including Students that will be canceled/terminated in 45 days, she will alert advisor if they miss the registration step. And, the people in your office will think that you are a magician pulling COL rabbits out of your hat!
- Transfer. Okay, so this one is totally manageable but it depends upon which way you want to shampoo the cat! Here's how I've done it in the past. Configure sunapsis to the build registration batches for Transfer. After advisor transfers in record, remove the US Residential Address (URA)and SEVIS US Residential Address (SURA). Once student checks in, template the address to populate URA/SURA (this wouldn't work if your data feed will overwrite), and then, registration batch will build once first day of class has arrived for a student with enrollment row for the term and a SURA.
- Separate transfer from non-transfers? If you are talking about needing to create i20s for transfer in students, but not doing them for other initial students, I'd encourage your team to think about just printing a new document for all new admits. Then, they have their travel sig for a year and you don't get hit at holiday time during their first or second term. SEVIS status will be Initial for regular folks and Transfer for transfers.
I hope some of this is helpful as it took me a long time to type all of this, but I've had three people ask me about how to prepare for registration this week and so this is some of the tip of the iceberg advice I have to give.
Great question and so timely. Many out there in sunapsisland our asking themselves the same! Here are some thoughts that i have:
Prep prior to registration:
-Check your sunapsis Term Dates config. And, while you are at it, just do it for all terms in 2020(and spring 2021)! These dates can change over time from what you may have configured when dates were first configured in SIS and/or sunapsis. Make sure that your term dates match what is coming through your datafeed. For Banner, this would typically be your STVTERM table. These dates may or may not match the dates that you would traditionally think of for the start and end date of term. For example, some schools have STVTERM end date as last day of class rather than last day of finals.
-Check your SEVIS Term Dates config. Do this one for all of 2020 (and spring 2021) too! This one should be set up to match the *real* term start (1st day of class) and end dates (last day of finals).
-Of course, few people are perfect, so you'll need to cover your backside. Check the SEVIS beast to make sure that you are all caught up with any series of unfortunate incidents that may result (or have resulted) in student records being prematurely terminated. :0). Don't know which ones to check? Familiarize yourself with the Alerts, Lists and Downloads by clicking on each one. For example, Active Students Requiring Registration, Initial Status with POE, Cancelled/Terminated in the next 45 days (that's a wonderful one!). Become familiar with what you should expect to see at each time of the year. It's a good idea to build into your business process a regular sweep through of this task. For example, every 15 days the Adjudications Results will reset itself and you will have missed a golden opportunity to find out about those *hidden* COS's that were fed to the beast through USCIS adjudications feed.
Note: Registration events will not be built until the first day of class, so don't give yourself a brain aneurysm over this (like I did in 2016) prior to 2nd day of class. Ain't nobody got time for that!
And while you are preparing for SEVIS registration game, might as well check on those configs for underenrollment!
Check your underenrollment config to make sure that the business process that your advisors are *currently* using matches configs. Check not only the underenrollment hours, but also CPT, Done with Coursework and while you are there just click on all of those drop downs to find whatever interesting thing that you may not have known or that may or may not be configured properly! Start clicking/picking like a kid in a candy shop.
-Check your sunapsis compliance alerts! They'll tell you exactly which records have fallen through the cracks.
Registration creatures:
- COL. These are manual hand holding UNLESS you build into business process to have advisors send registration event after creating the COL in SEVIS. Then, BOOM, you are done. If not,you would need to create a different business process that would allow for getting these COLs registered. You could have COL students submit eform and put eform on a checklist so that you could monitor the COLers this way. You could have advisors assign a case with date alert to alert them when they need to register the SEVIS record. Then, if SEVIS coordinator is on top of her game with sunapsis compliance alerts and RTI alerts including Students that will be canceled/terminated in 45 days, she will alert advisor if they miss the registration step. And, the people in your office will think that you are a magician pulling COL rabbits out of your hat!
- Transfer. Okay, so this one is totally manageable but it depends upon which way you want to shampoo the cat! Here's how I've done it in the past. Configure sunapsis to the build registration batches for Transfer. After advisor transfers in record, remove the US Residential Address (URA)and SEVIS US Residential Address (SURA). Once student checks in, template the address to populate URA/SURA (this wouldn't work if your data feed will overwrite), and then, registration batch will build once first day of class has arrived for a student with enrollment row for the term and a SURA.
- Separate transfer from non-transfers? If you are talking about needing to create i20s for transfer in students, but not doing them for other initial students, I'd encourage your team to think about just printing a new document for all new admits. Then, they have their travel sig for a year and you don't get hit at holiday time during their first or second term. SEVIS status will be Initial for regular folks and Transfer for transfers.
I hope some of this is helpful as it took me a long time to type all of this, but I've had three people ask me about how to prepare for registration this week and so this is some of the tip of the iceberg advice I have to give.
Thank you,
Jodi
Jodi