Admission Letter Template Production
This documentation relies upon the following knowledge;
CORF2510 - Letter parameter types (used to create letter parameters)
CORF2520 - System Letter (used to create a system letter)
CORF2550 - Letter Phrase (used to create letter phrases)
ADMF2M34 - Admission Process Category System Letters (used to map a system letter to an admission process category)
ADMF3900 - Admission Letter Production (used to issue letters to individual students)
Admission Letter Parameters - An overview of letter parameters available for admissions.
An understanding of Microsoft Word.
An understanding of Admission Rules would be desirable (Admission Rules covers the creation and modification of the standard set of admission correspondence rules released with Callista).
Please familiarise yourself with the above documentation, prior to continuing.
A letter template
A letter template is used by Admission Letter Production ADMF3900 and Batch Letter Production CORF2540 to produce letters of particular correspondence types for students' applications for admission. Whilst it is possible to create more than the two correspondence types provided with Callista for admissions (ACKNOW-LET and OUTCOME-LT), no specific functionality has been provided for other correspondence types i.e. no facility exists for the automatic creation of other letters. Other letters (general letters) can be manually created against individual admission applications and use the same letter production mechanisms. Particular templates are mapped to system letters in CORF2520. To produce a letter, the template must be held in the directory specified in control.doc. The control.doc file is required to be held in the c:\tmp directory. If you have macros in your normal.dot template in word, you must replace normal.dot with the standard template.
Control.doc
Control.doc is a Word file, containing a Word Basic macro that coordinates the merging of information from Callista into the appropriate template.
Control.doc must be in the c:\tmp directory of any client machine that produces system letters.
Creating a letter template.
To create a letter template the user is required to have Word 8.0 (Word 97) or above. Create a new word document and save it into the c:\tmp directory, using a name of your choosing. The template is required to be saved in the directory prior to creating a system letter in
CORF2520. For best results design your template with Word's 'Show/Hide Paragraphs' set to show. The following examples of formatting letter parameters in the template are meant as a guide only. In the following examples, letter parameters have been created with the same name as the system letter parameter they have been mapped to. Institution specific data configurations may cause significant variations in formatting of letter parameters in templates.
1. Leave a little room for Word.
The word merge functions available to Callista have a number of irritating features, these include;
- The first character on a page may be repeated.
Solution: A blank line is required at the top of the page. This will ensure that the first character on the line, is not repeated.
If a letter parameter type has been included in a repeating group, in CORF2520, and the value of the parameter is empty, 19 lines may appear at the top of your page.
Solution: It is necessary to ensure that only appropriate parameters are contained in repeating groups.
After the word merge has finished, if Num Lock was ON, it will be set to OFF.
Solution: Set Num Lock ON again.
When placing a letter parameter in a table cell, no data was returned from Callista, and the table has been modified. I.e. additional cells may have been added.
Solution: Insert a return after the letter parameter in the table cell.
When creating a letter, incompatibilities between parameters on the template and parameters passed to Word from Callista have been found.
Solution: Replace your normal.dot template with a new normal.dot.
When creating a letter, text from the rules and other data are not displayed.
Solution: Include the ADM_COURSE parameter in your system definition in CORF2520
2. Adding letter parameters.
- Letter parameters of type ADM_RUL.htm# or system objects.
Letter parameters, mapped to ADM_RUL.htm# or objects ie. ADM_COURSE, can be inserted into the template as required. It is important to note that for each instance of the system definition of a parameter required, an unique letter parameter is required. Ie. If you wish for the course code to appear in the letter twice, it will be necessary to create two letter parameters mapped to ADM_CRS_CD (CRS_CD_1 and CRS_CD_2 for example). These two unique letter parameters can be placed anywhere in your document.
- Letter parameters of type PHRASE
Letter Parameters, mapped to type PHRASE, can be inserted into the template as required. It is important to note that you may wish for particular phrases to follow specific text. e.g. You have a letter parameter called ADD_DOC which you wish to use to indicate the nature of additional documentation the student is required to provide before the application can proceed, or before the offer can be finalised. This letter parameter would need to be placed after a letter parameter that has been mapped to an ADM_RUL.htm#, (In the standard set the letter parameter would be mapped to ADM_RUL_4).
- Letter parameters within repeating groups.
Letter parameters that have been included within repeating groups, can be inserted into the template as required. If you require all instances of the letter parameter to appear it is necessary to place the repeating group code before and after the letter parameter. Ie. Suppose we have created a letter parameter called ADM_UNIT, which has been mapped to the system letter parameter ADM_UNIT. In CORF2520, we have created a repeating group (code = G1) and specified the ADM_UNIT parameter to be within the repeating group. To display all options of admission units the student has applied for we would place the following on the template;
Unit Code Name Location Mode Class Year/Sem Status
G1
1. ADM_UNIT
G1
The output from this would be something like;
admtemplate3.gif
Preferential Admission Applications.
With the use of preferential applications, it is important that all the required course data for all applications is contained within repeating groups. Additionally, it is important that no course specific details ie. ADM_CRS_CD are used outside of the repeating group, as this will limit the data being displayed, to data for that course.
NB. It is only possible to 'nest' two repeating groups at this point in time. ie. One repeating group could contain course information and the second (contained within the first) could contain units approved for the particular course application.
3. Formatting one or more letter parameters on the same line.
Ref: PERSON_ID / CRS_CD
The letter parameters PERSON_ID and CRS_CD have been bolded. If more than one letter parameter is on the one line, or text is on the same line, then formatting has to be applied across the whole line. The above would return the following;
Ref: 99999999/M300
4. Formatting letter parameters within a cell.
admtemplate6.gif
Letter parameters within cells can be formatted independently of each other. In the above example, the PERD_COMM parameter has been italicised. The output from this would be something like:
admtemplate4.gif
Note:
If there is any chance that the parameter you have selected, would return no data or text, then it is important that a return is placed at the end of the parameter. This will ensure that the word merge function, does not alter the settings of the table/cell.
5. Formatting a letter parameter which contains data separated by tabs.
A number of letter parameters return multiple data that have tab separations between the individual data items. The size of the standard data and the amount your institution uses of the available size, will determine how to format the data.
6. A letter parameter without formatting.
admtemplate7.gif
The above parameter has no formatting, in terms of tabs set for it. The standard tabs will be used for this data. If we look at the output from this, it would be something like;
admtemplate5.gif
This data would benefit from a heading line and alignment of the tabs would need to be considered. To aid this process, it is recommended that the appropriate data, is copied into the template and the parameter and the data are formatted together. Once you have the required format, the data can be deleted, leaving the parameter with the appropriate format. The example below demonstrates this.
admtemplate1.gif
7. Applying dot points and numbers to parameters.
A number of parameters would benefit from applying dot points, or numbering. Some examples of this would be parameters of type phrase, where multiple phrases codes may be assigned to the parameter, and parameters of type ADM_UNIT where more than one unit would appear. To apply dot points or numbering the process is identical.
The following example demonstrates the addition of numbering to the parameter ADM_UNIT. As the value of ADM_UNIT can return more than one set of data, it is necessary to contain it within a repeating group code, in this instance G1 (see
CORF2520). In this case, the numbering will only apply to the parameter ADM_UNIT but the formatting of tabs will be applied to the repeating group code, G1, as well as the ADM_UNIT parameter. Highlight the parameter ADM_UNIT on your template and choose Format from the pull down menus. Select the Bullets and Numbering option and choose the number format you desire. (e.g. For dot points, choose the dot point option).
admtemplate2.gif
See point 4 above, for help with formatting the tabs for the parameter ADM_UNIT. Remember that as it is a repeating group, you should apply the tabs to the repeating group code (in this instance G1) and the parameter (ADM_UNIT).
The following demonstrates the output;
admtemplate3.gif
8. Miscellaneous advice.
- When letter parameters and other text (including punctuation) are to appear together, ensure you leave a space between the letter parameter and the text.
- It may be necessary to design several templates with the same name, to cater for different outcome statuses. An example of this is where an institution wishes to include an 'Acceptance of Offer' form or tear off slip to those students that receive an offer or a conditional offer. By using the facilities of ADMJ5300 to select only those students receiving an offer, and using CORF2540 to print the letters, you can ensure that the correct template is used for these students. To print for those students without offers etc, you would need to place the appropriate template in your c:\tmp directory and run the batch job and CORF2540 for the selected group of students. Alternatively, a more generic approach would be required. [See the example template 'outcome_generic.doc' for the generic approach and the example templates 'outcome_slip.doc' and 'outcome_form.doc' for offer and conditional offer templates. These templates form part of the Callista deliverables and should have been placed in the C:\tmp directory of client machines using this functionality.]
Last modified on 22 September 1999
