Inconsistency in Application management

Administration
1

Hi,

I’m configuring permissions for a role and I found the following:

If I grant Admissions/Manage Applications permission, it shows a menu item under people/Admissions/Prospective Students/Manage Applications.
No records shown here.

While if I grant Students/Manage Applications_edit permission, I have a menu item under People/Students/Manage Applications, and
here there is a listing of applications currently in the system (in this case already accepted)

If I see the same menu name I assume the same functionality. Both screens look the same.
Not sure if this is a bug or a data problem.

Please let me know if you can reproduce the inconsistency.

When in Admissions/Prospective Students/Manage Applications under Admissions if I try to add an application it shows two list boxes and allows me to select from Application Form (the custom form I created) and the Type.
If I select my custom form and Type= Blank Application, it returns an error.
Your request failed due to a database error.`
If instead of Blank Application I select Current User, it displays an additional list box which shows a list of all users except the students

Pretty confusing, at least to me. I would really appreciate clarification of how this works (unless it is a bug)

If under the same menu I select Admissions/My Application Forms, it shows me only the custom Form I built, but this time as a radio button instead of a dropdown list, and no Type option; but it displays the custom form with no error.
The problem here is that the form is prefilled with some information that cannot be changed.
I don’t know if “My Application Forms” is supposed to be my personal application to the school (in case I’m a student besides being the administrator) or if it is referring to my custom Application Form (the one I created)

Finally, if I go to the Manage Applications under the Students menu, it only shows me the Type and displays the default form.

In summary, I cannot enable all the paths to the Application Form, because I think it will be very confusing to end users.
So I will appreciate your words of wisdom on what would be the best option until the next version of the application is released and things are consolidated into a single functionality.

Thank you!!!
Ricardo
2

Hi Ricardo,

The inconsistency you’re seeing is that there are two admissions systems currently available, the old one is still on by default for new installations, and the new one is off by default but available as a beta feature. There being two Manage Applications pages is a result of this: anything in the old system will show up in the Students module, anything in the new system shows up in the Admissions module + System Admin > Form Builder.

The database error sounds unusual and I can look into this. The reason it shows current users except students is because when adding a new application it can be attached to an existing parent or staff member, but cannot be attached directly to another student.

The My Application Form page is for existing parents and staff in the system to submit an application which is automatically attached to their account, which is why it pre-fills data. It’s not meant to be used by admin for bulk-adding applications (that is what the Manage Applications > New Application is intended for).

Please do keep in mind the new admissions system has been marked as Beta because, while it has been tested in many different ways before release, it is a new and very large feature set and it’s quite possible there will be some bugs or edge cases to work out. Thanks!

3

Hi Sandra,

As always, crystal clear! Thank you!!

The only remaining issue here is the error (Your request failed due to a database error) that prevents me to create a Blank Application using the new Form system.
So, please let me know when you have any news on this.

4

Hi Ricardo,

Thanks for the heads up, I’ve applied a fix to v25 which you can apply to your system if you’d like: https://github.com/GibbonEdu/core/commit/370362f17af452fe47d3cdb6aace213a57aa0feb The caveat is that blank applications will require an email address, because they must be attached to an admissions account, so either one will be created for that email address or an existing account for that email address will be used.

Cheers,
Sandra

5

Hi Sandra,

Great!!
I’ll try to apply the fix (my first time with this :smile: )
I guess the colors mean something (like red=old version and green=new version) but I’m not sure.
I think that looking at the v24 code and noticing the differences with the fix, will do the trick. If it doesn’t I’ll post a “please help!” on this same Discussion.

Sorry if this is too basic to ask: after applying the fix is it necessary to bounce any services in the server for the changes to take effect?

Thank you!!
Warm regards
Ricardo

6

Yes, green are the new additions. You can also click the … to View File, then click Raw and download a whole new copy of the file, replacing the old one in your system. These two changes should be backwards compatible to v24. You won’t need to do any database or other updates for this fix, just the two files.