How do I report on applications & decisions
Introduction
The two reports below demonstrate the basic principles of report writing on applications & decisions. Report 1 provides the foundations for application report writing, Report 2 provides more advanced report writing instructions that touch upon reporting upon application decision logically and incorporating additional report display guidelines.
The example reports are specific to certain business areas to ensure the correct results are gained, however, reporters may wish to vary some of the object filters to gain results pertinent to their business area once a basic level of confidence is gained in running these types of reports.
Example 1 - Running a report on all applications with a conditional offer who have firmly accepted.
The example below describes the steps taken to create a basic report to return data on all applications with a conditional offer and a firm applicant response for postgraduate applications for entry within the 2009/10 admissions cycle:
Step 1 – Selecting the objects to report upon
To create a basic standard decision report the following objects are required:
Object |
Class |
Description |
UUN |
Applications |
Displays applicant Unique University Number |
Application Sequence Number |
Applications |
These objects are required to identify the sequence of an application if the applicant has multiple applications with the University |
Course Application Sequence Number |
Applications |
|
Academic Year Code |
Applications |
Displays the academic years of entry |
Admissions Entry System Description & Code |
Applications |
This object will be used in identifying if the application is undergraduate or postgraduate |
Applicant Status Description & Code |
Applications |
This object will be used to identify the status of the application e.g. withdrawn, active etc |
College Description |
Applications |
Displays the full name of the college that the application has been submitted to |
College Code |
|
Displays the EUCLID Code of the college that the application has been submitted to |
Initial Decision |
Applications/Decisions |
The initial offer |
Initial Response |
Applications/Decisions |
The initial applicant response the initial offer |
Select the objects noted above and move them into the Results Objects area
The objects within the Results Objects area will be displayed as columns in the report.
Step 2 – Selecting the objects to filter upon
Move the following objects from the Results Objects area into the Query Filters area:
- Academic Year Code
- Admissions Entry System Description & Code
- Applicant Status Description & Code
- Initial Decision
- Initial Response
Step 3 – Selecting the values to filter upon
We now need to select the values within the objects noted above to filter the data we need.
To filter on these values click on the InList operator 
For example for Academic Year Code click on the InList operator
Select Value(s) from list
Click on 2009/0 from the Academic Year Code list of values for selection and then click on the 
button. This will move the value into the Value(s) Selected box.
Click on Ok to complete the value selection.
The Object should now be displayed as below:
Click on the InList Operator for the following Objects within the Query Filters area and select the value as described.
Object |
Filter |
Value |
Description |
Academic Year Code |
In List |
2009/0 |
2009/0 – for the current admissions cycle. You may choose to not filter on Academic Year if you wish to incorporate deferrals. |
Applicant Status Description & Code |
In List |
Applicant - A |
Always Select Applicant – A to report upon ‘active’ applications. |
Admissions Entry System Description & Code |
In List |
Direct Entrant – D |
Choose from U (UCAS), G (GTTR) or D (Direct Entry e.g. Postgraduate or Visiting Students) |
Initial Decision |
In List |
C |
C = Conditional |
Initial Response |
In List |
F |
F = Firm |
Your Query Filter area should look like this:
Step 4 – Running the query
You can now run the query to view the report by clicking on the 
button.
This should produce the report as below:
Example 2 - Running a report on undergraduate applications with an unconditional offer who have firmly accepted by Programme.
The example below describes the steps taken to create a basic report to return data on all applications within an undergraduate programme with an unconditional offer and a firm applicant response for entry within the 2009/10 admissions cycle:
Step 1 – Selecting the objects to report upon
To create a basic standard decision report the following objects are required:
Object |
Class |
Description |
UUN |
Applications |
Displays applicant Unique University Number |
Application Sequence Number |
Applications |
These objects are required to identify the sequence of an application if the applicant has multiple applications with the University |
Course Application Sequence Number |
Applications |
|
Academic Year Code |
Applications |
Displays the academic years of entry |
Applicant Status Description & Code |
Applications |
This object will be used to identify the status of the application e.g. withdrawn, active etc |
Programme Code |
Applications |
This object lists all the Programme codes (e.g. UTPREDDPGDE) that have application data |
Programme Description |
Applications |
This object provides a full title of the Programme |
Initial Decision |
Applications/Decisions |
The initial offer |
Initial Response |
Applications/Decisions |
The initial applicant response the initial offer |
Confirmation Decision |
Applications/Decisions |
If a conditional offer was made as an Initial Decision, then the Confirmation decision is based on the outcome of the applicant meeting the conditional offer i.e. Unconditional if met, Reject if not. |
Confirmation Response |
Applications/Decisions |
The applicant is required to respond to the confirmation offer if the offer is Unconditional. |
Clearing Decision |
Applications/Decisions |
If the applicant has applied via the UCAS Clearing process, the Unconditional offer will be recorded here. |
Clearing Response |
Applications/Decisions |
If the applicant has applied via the UCAS Clearing process, their Firm response will be recorded here. |
Number of Applications |
Applications |
An object that calculates the total applications returned within a report |
Select the objects noted above and move them into the Results Objects area
The objects within the Results Objects area will be displayed as columns in the report.
Step 2 – Selecting the objects to filter upon
Move the following objects from the Results Objects area into the Query Filters area:
- Academic Year Code
- Applicant Status Description & Code
- Programme Description
- Initial Decision
- Initial Response
- Confirmation Decision
- Confirmation Response
- Clearing Decision
- Clearing Response
Step 3 – Selecting the values to filter upon
We now need to select the values within the objects noted above to filter the data we need.
To filter on these values click on the InList operator 
For example for Academic Year Code click on the InList operator
Select Value(s) from list
Click on 2009/0 from the Academic Year Code list of values for selection and then click on the 
button. This will move the value into the Value(s) Selected box.
Click on Ok to complete the value selection.
The Object should now be displayed as below:
Click on the InList Operator for the following Objects within the Query Filters area and select the value as described.
Object |
Filter |
Value |
Description |
Academic Year Code |
In List |
2009/0 |
2009/0 – for the current admissions cycle. You may choose to not filter on Academic Year if you wish to incorporate deferrals. |
Programme Description |
In List |
BEd (Hons) Primary Education |
Undergraduate programme being used for this demonstration |
Applicant Status Description & Code |
In List |
Applicant - A |
Always Select Applicant – A to report upon ‘active’ applications. |
Initial Decision |
In List |
U |
U = Unconditional |
Initial Response |
In List |
F |
F = Firm |
Confirmation Decision |
In List |
U |
U = Unconditional |
Confirmation Response |
In List |
F |
F = Firm |
Clearing Decision |
In List |
U |
A decision object purely for undergraduate use. Can be missed out of non undergraduate reporting. U = Unconditional |
Clearing Response |
In List |
F |
A response object purely for undergraduate use. Can be missed out of non undergraduate reporting. |
Your Query Filter area should look like this:
Step 4 – Amending the Query Filters grouping
We now need to amend grouping of those objects within the Query Filters box.
Currently, if we ran the report now, there would be no results returned. This is due to the object grouping indicating to BOXI that we want all applications that have an unconditional/firm at the Initial, Confirmation & Clearing decision stages. This is impossible. We need to re-group to indicate to BOXI that we want to return all applications that have unconditional/firm at the Initial stage, or at the Confirmation stage, or at the Clearing stage.
Grouping objects within the Query Filters box is not an easy process within BOXI and requires trial and error. The actions below are designed to help with this process:
Action 1
Holding down the left mouse button over the Initial Response object, move you mouse upwards to the Initial Decision object above until you see the display below:
Now take your finger of the left hand mouse button to drop the object to reflect the Query Filters display below:
Action 2
Holding down the left mouse button over the Confirmation Response object, move you mouse upwards to the Confirmation Decision object above until you see the display below:
Now take your finger of the left hand mouse button to drop the object to reflect the Query Filters display below:
Action 3
Holding down the left mouse button over the Clearing Response object, move you mouse upwards to the Clearing Decision object above until you see the display below:
Now take your finger of the left hand mouse button to drop the object to reflect the Query Filters display below:
Action 4
Holding down the left mouse button over the And bracketing the Initial Decision & Initial Response objects, move you mouse upwards to the object above until you see the display below:
Now take your finger of the left hand mouse button to drop the object to reflect the Query Filters display below:
Action 5
Holding down the left mouse button over the And bracketing the Confirmation Decision & Confirmation Response objects, move you mouse upwards to the rest below the Initial Response object above until you see the display below:
Now take your finger of the left hand mouse button to drop the object to reflect the Query Filters display below:
Action 6
Holding down the left mouse button over the And bracketing the Clearing Decision & Clearing Response objects, move you mouse upwards to the rest below the Confirmation Response object above until you see the display below:
Now take your finger of the left hand mouse button to drop the object to reflect the Query Filters display below:
Action 7
In the example above we now need to move the Applicant Status Description & Code out of the Decision grouping into a group consisting of Academic Year Code and Programme Description.
Holding down the left mouse button over the Applicant Status Description & Code object, move you mouse upwards to the rest below the Programme Description object above until you see the display below:
Now take your finger of the left hand mouse button to drop the object to reflect the Query Filters display below:
Action 8
Finally, we want to indicate that the Query should be looking for applications that have an initial stage Unconditional/Firm, or Confirmation stage Unconditional/Firm or Clearing stage Unconditional/Firm. We can do this by double clicking on the And bracketing the three decision object groups. This will change the And to an Or:
Step 4 – Running the query
You can now run the query to view the report by clicking on the 
button.
This should produce the report as below:
Step 5 – Amending the Report display
If you scroll to the right of the report you will see that currently the report is only counting each row and not the total applications.
Therefore,we are now going to amend the report display.
Positioning the ‘Number of Applications’ object
The Number of Applications object can be used to count the applications within the sections of a report.
Click on the Number of Applications Column beneath the column header. This should highlight the entire column.
Hold the left mouse button down on the column and drag it to the left hand side, aiming below the report title and above the body of results.
Once in position let the mouse button go.
This should create a new count header, totaling the applications that meet the Query filter criteria.
