Overview
In this article, you'll learn about the various steps you and your new or returning enrolling families will take in the enrollment process.
First, you should make sure that you've completed the following steps:
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Performed rollover for Returning Students: Click here to learn how.
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Moved Accepted Applicants (New Students) into Enrollment: Click here to learn how.
Click to jump to:
How-To: Step 1 - Update Enrollment Statuses
If you need to place any students in an inactive status for the current year after you've rolled over all returning students, you can update their status in bulk from the Students in Enrollment list page by selecting the desired students, then going to the green Edit menu in the upper right - Change Status. You can also change statuses individually within the Edit menu of the student record.
Some of these statuses are listed below, but keep in mind your school may also have custom statuses set up that you'll want to move students into. Click here for an overview of the standard statuses and roles in Finalsite Enrollment.
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Academic Hold: Used for a student who is on hold for academic reasons. Depending on the process at your school, they can enroll once those grade requirements have been met.
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Financial Hold: Used for a student who is on hold for financial reasons. Depending on the process at your school, they can enroll once those grade requirements have been met.
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Mid-Year Withdrawal: The status Mid-Year Withdrawal is used to differentiate the time frame of when students withdraw. If a student is moved to this status, they will be removed from the Enrolled Students page; however, they will remain on the Students in Enrollment List Page. Upon moving a student into mid-year withdrawal, the role of 'Former Student' will be set for them. If you have a student that left the school prior to the end of the year, you can mark them as mid-year withdrawal and then roll them over if needed.
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Not Enrolling: Used for students who determined during the enrollment process that they are no longer enrolling. Moving a student to this status will automatically apply the 'Former Student' role to them.
The rest of your Returning students will be in the Enrollment in Progress status after rollover, with the enrollment type of 'Returning' and a contract status of 'Pending'. These students will show up in the Students in Enrollment list page within the Enrollment tab. Make sure you are viewing the correct term using the picker at the top of the page.
Step 2 - Adding Financial Aid
In most cases, Financial Aid should be assigned to families before sending out Contracts. If you can assign aid before sending out contracts, you should do that as a next step. Learn about adding Financial Aid to students in the Financial Aid Management article.
If you need to send out Financial Aid later in the year (after your enrollment period), we have a couple of suggestions for alternate workflows in this article: Tuition Assistance / Financial Aid
Step 3 - Preview Aid/Scholarship Amounts in Bulk
Next, you may want to check any financial aid and scholarship amounts for enrolling students, before their contracts are generated and become available in the Parent Portal. You can view this information within a student's contact record (typically under the Enrollment tab).
You can also view it in bulk from an Enrollment list page - first, use the filter options to filter the list down to your Enrollment in Progress students that have a Contract in the 'Pending' status. Then, click on the View in Search button to open this list of students in Search & Reports.
Once your results open in Search & Reports, you’ll click on the blue Change Display/Columns button in the upper right.
Most often, you can find aid- and scholarship-related fields under the Tuition Assistance or Tuition & Fees grouping, but you can always reference your Fields Setup page to double-check which field groupings you are using. Once you find the grouping in the Fields to Display list, click the plus sign to expand and then check off any columns of data that you'd like to view (such as Financial Aid Amount or Scholarship Amount). You will then click the blue Apply button to add these columns to your report.
You can now view any aid or scholarship amounts for your students and ensure they all look correct. You may also choose to save or export your search.
Step 4 - Contract Preview & Generation
You can preview the contract for any student to check all tuition and fee amounts, dual signatures that are rule-based, contract language, etc. to ensure everything is correct. This can be done before generating the contract. To preview a student's contract, go to their contact record, click on the Manage Contract menu in the upper right, and select Preview Contract. This will allow you to click through a full preview of the student's contract, as it would appear to the family in the Parent Portal.
Click here to learn more about previewing contracts.
After reviewing and ensuring that the student contracts look correct, you are ready to generate them. Contracts can be generated individually from the student's contact record within the Manage Contract menu. They can also be generated in bulk from the Students in Enrollment list page (within the 'Enrollment' tab at the top of the page). Once a contract is generated for a student, it will be visible to any financially responsible parents/guardians in the Parent Portal, as long as parent enrollment is enabled.
Click here to learn more about generating contracts.
Step 5 - Send Enrollment Email to Parents
Once contracts have been generated, you want to notify families that the contract is available to be filled out and also make sure parents/guardians can get authenticated to access the student contract within the Parent Portal.
To prepare to send this enrollment email, you can start on the Students in Enrollment list page (within the 'Enrollment' tab at the top of the page). Click on Filter Options and check off Generated for the Contract Status. You can also apply additional filters such as New or Returning, depending on your process. Once all of your criteria have been selected, click Apply Filter to narrow your results.
In the list of students, click the checkbox next to the Name header to select all the students on the page. Please note: This action selects all students on the current page. If you have multiple pages of results, you'll need to repeat this step for each page. Once you have the students selected, click on the green Communicate menu - Send Email.
In the Send Email window that appears, select your desired email recipients. You can also choose to send it as a family-based email or schedule it to send at a later date/time. Click here for more information on sending emails.
On the template editor page, select your pre-created Enrollment Email Template from the 'Insert Template' drop-down menu. If you don't have an enrollment email template created yet, go to Settings - Communication - Email Templates to get one set up, or our Support team can add our standard enrollment email to your site.
This email should give families instructions on how to log into the Parent Portal or create an account if they haven’t already done so. It will also give them their unique authentication code to link to their student(s). Click here for more information on authentication codes.
A few key merge fields you should include in your enrollment email that are found within the school and recipient categories are the following:
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Portal Name: {{school.portal_name}}
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Portal Web Address: {{school.parent_portal_url}}
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Authentication Link: {{recipient.verification_link}} - Please note: This merge field does not work well when created as a hyperlinked merge token. It's best to use the merge token as-is. In the preview, it will not look like a clickable link, but in the received email it will be clickable by the recipient.
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Authentication Code (for manual authentication): {{recipient.authentication_code}}
In addition, if you're using dual signatures on your contract, it's best practice to inform families that two unique Parent Portal Accounts (i.e. two unique email addresses) are required for them to complete the contract.
Below is an example of an enrollment email. Feel free to copy and paste it into your Finalsite Enrollment site - just be sure to try it out on some test students before setting it live to real families. You may also choose to customize it further with your school's logo, header, or other information.
Dear {{recipient.salutation_preferred_names}},
{{school.long_name}} has opened the online enrollment system for the {{school.current_enrollment_year}} school year. To begin this process:
1. Click on the following link to visit your family's enrollment portal: {{recipient.verification_link}}
2. {%if recipient.portal_email != blank%}Log in using your Parent Portal Account email: {{recipient.portal_email}}{%else%}Create a Parent Portal Account by clicking the blue 'Create an Account' button in the right sidebar of the Parent Portal login page.{%endif%}
3. Once you log in or create your account, you will be able to select 'Continue Enrollment Process' to begin the enrollment process.
4. Please complete the online contract and submit your deposit payment.
IMPORTANT: For dual household families that are prompted to invite a second signer, both parties MUST have their own unique Parent Portal Account to sign the contract. You will not be able to proceed in the process if you use the same email address to log into the Parent Portal.
If you have any issues with the above link, you can authenticate manually using your authentication code: {{recipient.authentication_code}}.
Questions about using the Parent Portal? Check out our Help Center.
We look forward to seeing you in the upcoming year!
Sincerely,
{{school.long_name}}After selecting your desired template and making any changes needed, click on the blue Next button, and in the next step, you can preview the emails before they go out. You should check that all of your merge fields are populating as expected with the correct information. Once everything looks good, click Submit and the emails will be sent out.
Step 6 - Monitor Checklist & Contract Completion
Once you’ve contacted families to let them know their contracts and any other enrollment checklist items are available, you can then monitor the completion status of these items from the admin portal.
One way to do this is to use the checklist progress bar within the Enrollment tab – Students in Enrollment sub-tab. This progress bar will be displayed in the Checklist column on the page, and you can hover over it for any student to see which checklist items they've completed and which are still pending.
You can also use the Filter Options on this page to search for specific items based on their completion status. One example using your filter options is to look for a complete checklist item of Contract/Registration Form and an incomplete checklist item of Deposit/Registration Fee. This way you can send a bulk communication to those families to remind them that payment needs to be submitted by a certain date.
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