Once admissions start coming in, is there a way to view them nicely in Gibbon? I have seen the Manage Applications view, but it isn’t fully user friendly for, say, a principal or admissions officer to view and consider applications from.
Wondering how other schools use Gibbon in their admission process?
And how could we download the files applicants have uploaded? One by one or is there a batch way?
Any experience and streamlined ways of fitting Gibbon into admissions would help - it would be a big win for us to get admissions on board!!
We use it as is (although the form and manage interface are moving to the Students module in v12), and have had a few requests for tweaks, but nothing major. Our admissions offiicer seems mostly happy with it. Any particular input as to what we can improve? I guess going to full-screen mode might make it more usable.
In terms of files, have you got a (free) Query Builder license? We can issue you one by email, just request to support@gibbonedu.org. Once you are up and running we can write you a query to get application form files in one batch. Query Builder has a ton of uses, and with a license is stocked with dozens of handy queries.
I noticed the files actually are organised into a folder per applicant. Nice! I’d just grab these from the server - that’s how we want it out anyway.
The interface does not work well for our admission process.
I wonder if your admission officer does a fair amount of work behind the scenes? Such as preparing / printing for interviews or organising and communicating for admissions events…?
Summary Views
One thing our admissions still does is prints out and prepares cover sheets for the principals before interviews. So interviewers would want to see a useful summary and then browse through the important details. I don’t think the edit screen is the best for this, particularly as they are mostly browsing (and I’d hate for them to change some data by accident).
Rich Notes / Attachments
Notes now are paper-based because of our current system, and become a headache to import back into a digital system, so are kept paper. It would be awesome if some of those interview notes on Gibbon could include more rich data inputs, like attachments or images. I’ve also had the admissions department request that related communication between applicant and school be visible on there - sort of more “Facebook style” - at a glance. (That would require an account, I guess)
Setting username and accounts
I also have major problems with not being able to set the username. We have a set pattern and method for issuing student IDs, and there is no place to store that in Gibbon. I’d ideally like to be able to set the username (this could be the student ID as it is for most of our other IT systems) at some point in the application process, and also be able to create a Gibbon account, but at a stage earlier than “Accepted”.
Lot’s of space here I need to fill before our admissions would be happy with it, I get the feeling!!
Andrew, might be easier to talk these through on the phone, as I think there are some work arounds here. No doubt things could be improved, I am just not sure we have the resources for it right now. Do you want to call me on Friday, and we can chat? Ross