Common App Template Guide
Overview#
Element451 and Common App have worked together to provide a process that is easy on our partners to get applications from Common App into Element451. Each cycle, Element451 and Common App work together on creating a standard template for First Year and Transfer applications. These templates contain every single field that Common App can collect from a student and tacks on any custom fields your institution has to the end of the templates.
If this is your first time setting up the integration, an Element451 team member works with you to create a template in your Element451 instance to get your started. If you have already been using the integration, an Element451 team member takes your previous template, and applies the changes for the upcoming cycle.
Element451 and Common App have an SFTP where we receive our partners applications and documents daily. From there, we copy the files into our partners’ specific SFTPs into a queue folder and a history folder.
The import task to get the Common Applications into Element451 lives in your instance right next to your other imports. You’ll be able to add or remove mappings at any point during the cycle and check to see if records got skipped and why. Element451 triggers the import to run using an external tool, this means you don’t have to worry about setting up an import schedule after editing mappings or checking the run history.
Suspect + Prospect Files
Depending on your plan with Common App, along with applications and documents, you may receive suspect and prospect files too. Common App defines suspect and prospect here (opens in a new tab). If you plan to import these files into Element451, we typically see our partners import suspects with Date of Inquiry Milestones and the prospects with Application Start Milestones.
Application Files
Although First Year and Transfer applications are slightly different, the process in Element451 is fairly similar. Common App will send one file a day for First Year applications and if you have a Transfer application with them, they’ll send separate files for each transfer term. In Element451, you’ll have one import for your First Year, and one import for your Transfer. The templates are slightly different, but once live, the integration flows the same way.