Checklists And Tracks: What Can We Do With These?

Becka Hughes

Have you ever been in charge of buying the supplies for a dinner with family and friends, spent hours at the grocery store buying all of the items, only to come home and realize that you forgot to buy a necessary ingredient? When there are a million other things going on (and there most certainly are, especially when you work in a school) sometimes important things can slip through the cracks.  Although the Admissions Office in the Education Edge can’t help you with your grocery lists, it can serve as a checklist to help ensure that all forms are filled out, letters are sent, and appointments are made before an applicant can be enrolled in the school.


In Configuration in the Admissions Office, there is a section called Tracks.  Essentially, tracks define groups of items and actions that can be automatically added to records to accelerate the admissions process.  Checklist items are housed within these tracks. For example, this is what a Track and a Checklist might look like:

Track: Inquiry (Description: Student is interested in enrolling in the upper school)

Checklist: Inquired


Application Form received


Application Fee Received




Not entirely sure how to add checklist items to a track? Here is a comprehensive overview:
http://www.blackbaud.com/kb/index?page=content&id=BB128549


All tracks have sections called Pre-Conditions and Post-Conditions, as seen below:




These come into play if you would like a completed checklist within one track to prompt a new track.  For example, once someone has completed the Inquiry Track—they have expressed their interest, filled out the application form, and sent in the deposit fee---the school may decide to accept them.  Once a student is accepted, however, in order to be truly enrolled, they must fill out a contract, send in medical forms, get immunizations, and pay a tuition deposit.  This is an entirely new checklist that wouldn’t typically be included in an Inquiry track so we could create something called an Accepted track.  Therefore, as a Post-Condition for the Inquiry Track, we could prompt a new status on the student record (e.g. Inquiry-Accepted).  As a Pre-condition for the Accepted Track, we could say that a student must have the Inquiry-Accepted status to get the Accepted Track on the record.




More often than not, we deal with multiple students at once, and we may want to add tracks to multiple student records at a time.  This can be done globally.  The steps are listed in the link below:
http://www.blackbaud.com/kb/index?page=content&id=BB313431


Not sure which students have completed checklist items and those who have a few more things to do?  The system can absolutely give you that list.  Here’s a link that will walk you through the process:
http://www.blackbaud.com/kb/index?page=content&id=BB437859


Although we can’t help you with the grocery store trip, we can ensure that nothing is forgotten in the Application process for new students.  Since there are obviously other things going on at your school that require your full attention, let the Education Edge assuage some of the stresses that come with a fast-paced environment.  Checklists? No problem!