Pre-enrolment

Pre-enrolment is one of the key enrolment management processes within Callista. All offers of admission to courses must at some stage go through the pre-enrolment process to transfer data created in the Admissions subsystem to the Enrolment subsystem. It is also recommended that all returning students are pre-enrolled a minimum of once per academic cycle. Typically this means that all students seeking to enrol should be pre-enrolled once per year. This involves the automatic creation of student course attempts and/or unit attempts and/or unit set attempts in the Enrolments subsystem. This may occur:

Individually for each new student through the Admissions subsystem.
Individually when confirmation of a student course attempt is attempted in ENRF3000, an admission application exists but pre-enrolment has not been performed
As a batch process for new students through the Admissions subsystem.
As a batch process for new student course attempts entered directly in the Enrolments subsystem.
As a batch process for returning students (students continuing in an existing course attempt).

In each case, pre-enrolment is subject to constraints.

New students Overview

The components of pre-enrolment differ between students being admitted to a course for the first time, and those gaining admission or readmission to an existing student course attempt.

For new students, the pre-enrolment process creates in ENRF3000 new student course attempt enrolment records and adds to each the following detail:

a funding source record

a fee category record

a correspondence category record

values in the nominated completion year and nominated completion period fields

a link to the research candidature record, where one was created as part of the admission application

and can

create unconfirmed student unit attempts.

As a part of pre-enrolment, it is also possible to establish fee contracts between the institution and an individual. More details are given about this in the Student Finance subsystem. See Individual sponsorship and contracts in Understanding Student Finance, and Contracts/predictive assessment at Admissions in the Specialist Overview.

In ENRF5F00 the process inserts the enrolment category record which will be used to process an enrolment and enrolment variations in the forthcoming academic period. In certain circumstances pre-enrolment can be used to override the default enrolment due date.

In addition the new student pre-enrolment process copies into:

ENRF3252 any unit set details recorded as part of the course admission offer
ENRF3110 HECS details if recorded at admission time.

For new students, the pre-enrolment process can be configured to operate as an integral component of individual admission application processing, as a scheduled batch process or as an immediate (ad-hoc) batch process. If run in batch, an exception report is generated which can be configured to report various levels of detail.

Pre-enrolment of students individually through the Admissions subsystem

Callista's pre-enrolment process can be configured to operate as an integral component of individual admission application processing.

At the time of recording an admission application for a potential student, the application is assigned an admission process category. This determines which steps of the admission process are performed on the application. If the admission step PRE-ENROL is included in the admission process category assigned to the application, Callista can perform pre-enrolment for the individual application. If the step PRE-ENROL is not included, a batch process performs pre-enrolment for those admission applications not already processed (see Batch pre-enrolment of new students through the admissions subsystem). The institution determines which of the pre-enrolment methods is used. (Refer to Defining Admissions Processes for details of admission process categories and their steps)

Individual pre-enrolment is automatically performed on-line when the outcome status recorded against the student's course application in ADMF3240 is changed to either OFFER or COND-OFFER.

A new application with no course attempt in Enrolments

Providing that a student course attempt does not exist in the Enrolments subsystem, the pre-enrolment process creates a student course attempt based on the admissions offer, and its:

funding source is defaulted from funding source restriction details recorded in CRSF12A0
fee category is defaulted from admissions or the default mapping (Fee Assessment tab in ADMF3240)
correspondence category is defaulted from admissions or the default mapping (ADMF3240)
nominated completion year/period are defaulted from admissions expected completion year/period (Completion Period tab in ADMF3240)
course Attempt status is added as unconfirmed, if the pre-enrolment process is called while making an offer of admission in ADMF3240
course Attempt status is added/changed to inactive if the pre-enrolment process is called when an offer of admission is accepted in ADMF3240.

An application with the course attempt already existing in Enrolments

In certain circumstances, an offer of admission will be made to a student course attempt that already exists in the Enrolments subsystem. This may arise where a student gains re-admission following an incomplete prior attempt or where a student is made a new offer of admission, typically in a subsequent year, after not proceeding with an offer to the same course in a prior period.

Under these circumstances the pre-enrolment process performs the following actions:

Where a student course attempt already exists in the Enrolments subsystem and its status indicates that it is no longer active, and:

its status is DELETED, then:

the status is changed to UNCONFIRM
location type, attendance mode and attendance type, funding source, fee category and correspondence category, nominated completion year and period are set to the attributes of the new offer

its status is DISCONTIN and the new offer has not been accepted, then:

the discontinuation is lifted and the status is changed to INACTIVE
location code, attendance mode and attendance type, funding source, fee category and correspondence category, nominated completion year and period are set to the attributes of the new offer

its status is LAPSED and the new offer has not been accepted, then:

the lapsed date is cleared and the status is changed to INACTIVE (or ENROLLED if a form due date is not yet reached)
location code, attendance mode and attendance type, funding source, fee category and correspondence category, nominated completion year and period are set to the attributes of the new offer

its status is INACTIVE (i.e. the new offer has already been accepted) or UNCONFIRM, then:

location code, attendance mode and attendance type, funding source, fee category and correspondence category, nominated completion year and period are set to the attributes of the new offer

its status is COMPLETED, ENROLLED or INTERMIT, then:

no pre-enrolment action takes place.

In both cases

The pre-enrolment process attempts to register the student course attempt in an enrolment period, with a nominated enrolment category, creating a student course attempt enrolment record. This is seen in ENRF5F00 (accessed via ENRF3000).

The enrolment period is determined:

from the relationship between the admission calendar instance in which the offer is made and the enrolment calendar instance and can be viewed in ENRF5F00. If the relationship has not been set up, the application will not be pre-enrolled. (see Configuring Admission Calendars)

The enrolment category is determined from either:

the category specified against the admission application in ADMF3240, or
the default mapping between admission category and enrolment category (as established in ADMF2M20 and recorded in ADMF3240).

This is copied into ENRF5F00.

Where no enrolment category can be determined, the application will not be pre-enrolled.

If a student course attempt enrolment record already exists for the course attempt, with the same enrolment period as determined above but a different enrolment category, the enrolment category is updated.

The pre-enrolment process attempts to copy unit set details recorded for the admission application to the student course attempt (in Enrolments), creating a student unit set attempt. Either:

a new student unit set attempt is created as unconfirmed or

if a student unit set attempt already exists for the course attempt and its end date is in the past (it is ended), a new record is added (subsequent attempt) or
if a student unit set attempt already exists for the course attempt and is current, no action is taken and the current record remains.

If a HECS payment option (default fee assessment HECS option) has been specified against the course admission application (under the Fee Assessment tab T-list item in ADMF3240), these details are copied to the student course attempt. If a student course attempt HECS option already exists, it is end dated and the new HECS option is recorded. Where a fee contract is established as a part of pre-enrolment, the HECS option may determine the rate at which the contract should be set.

If a Research Candidature record has been created as part of an admission application, the candidature record is linked to the student course attempt. The proposed commencement date (recorded as part of the research candidature) is mapped to the student course attempt commencement date, when an offer is accepted.

Where units have been recorded for the admission application and their outcome status is OFFERED, they are copied to Enrolments as unconfirmed student unit attempt records in the pre-enrolled academic period.

Where a pattern of study exists for a pre-enrolling course, that pattern of study may, subject to the listed constraints, be used to create unconfirmed student unit attempts. This pre-enrolment is performed for the target and future academic periods, depending on the 'number of periods' specified to be pre-enrolled for the pattern of study (in CRSF1441).

By default, the pre-enrolment process also establishes an enrolment due date for the student course attempt. The due date defaults to the value of the Form Due Date Alias established in the Enrolment Calendar Configuration form, ENRF01F0. This default date can be overridden either by directly inserting a record in the Enrolment Form Due Date field within ENRF5F00, or for a group of students by re-running pre-enrolment as a pre-cursor batch process to enrolment form production.

Pre-enrolment of a student course attempt in ENRF3000 (where an admission application exists but pre-enrolment has not been performed)

If an attempt is made to confirm an unconfirmed student course attempt in ENRF3000, the pre-enrolment process is automatically activated. It checks for the existence of a corresponding admissions offer in the relevant admissions period. If none is found, pre-enrolment is not performed. If the admissions offer exists, pre-enrolment is performed as described under 'An application with the course attempt already existing in Enrolments' in the section Pre-enrolment of students individually through the Admissions subsystem.

Batch pre-enrolment of new students through the Admissions subsystem

At the time of recording an admission application for a potential student, the application is assigned an admission process category. This determines which steps of the admission process are performed on the application. If the admission step PRE-ENROL is not included in the admission process category assigned to the application, pre-enrolment is not performed on-line (see 'Pre-enrolment of students individually through the Admissions subsystem' for on-line pre-enrolment). In these circumstances a batch pre-enrolment must be performed on all offers and conditional offers of admission. (Refer to Defining Admissions Processes for details of admission process categories and their steps)

Each institution must determine which pre-enrolment method (on-line or batch) is most suited to each group of students. If an enrolment form is generated as part of the admission offer process, batch pre-enrolment may be more suitable as it:

allows the institution to specify a different enrolment form due date for each group of students
gives the institution the option to pre-enrol ad-hoc groups of units through the batch process pre-enrolment parameter form

If production of an enrolment form is not part of the admission offer process, and applicants go through a two stage admission and enrolment process (involving acceptance via Admissions followed by a separate enrolment process), then on-line pre-enrolment at offer is appropriate. The possibility remains of running the batch process again when enrolment forms are created.

Pre-enrolment can be performed for those admission applications where the outcome status recorded against the student's course application in ADMF3240 has been changed to either OFFER or COND-OFFER.

Batch pre-enrolment is performed by the batch process ENRJ3100. ENRJ3100 is usually set up as a standing request in the Job Scheduler and would typically run nightly. It can, however, be run both at other times and for subsets of qualifying admission applications. For example, a course pattern of study could be approved after some students have been pre-enrolled in the course. ENRJ3100 can be rerun for that course only, in order to apply the pattern of study to both the pre-enrolled students and any other new applicants for the course not yet pre-enrolled. The subset of applications/student course attempts affected by the batch process is determined by the selections made in ENRJ3100's parameter form. Refer to ENRJ3100's documentation for recommendations regarding the use of parameters.

ENRJ3100 can also be run in immediate mode for subsets of qualifying admission applications. Immediate mode pre-enrolment is particularly appropriate when small groups of offers of admission, including an enrolment form, are being made. In this case the Course Type, Responsible Org Unit, Person ID Group and Course Code parameters can all be used to refine the set of student course attempts which are processed. Immediate mode pre-enrolment can also be used to pre-enrol approved pattern of study units.

For nightly processing, it is unlikely that any parameter other than the current academic period will have been specified. In this case, the batch process will only consider applicants and students if:

no student course attempt is already recorded for their application OR
the course offering of their recorded course attempt has a pattern of study, but no unit pre-enrolment has occurred in the target academic period.

For each applicant/student record selected, pre-enrolment is performed as described in Pre-enrolment Individually for each new student through the Admissions subsystem.

Batch pre-enrolment for new student course attempts entered directly in the Enrolments subsystem

Students' course selections may be keyed directly onto the System in Enrolments (this is not a recommended approach), bypassing the Admissions subsystem. For each, a student course attempt is created with a status of UNCONFIRM. These student course attempts can be pre-enrolled by the batch process. By selecting the Person Add indicator and the Course Add Allowed indicator in ENRF0192, students and student course attempts can be keyed directly onto the System in ENRF3000 bypassing the Admissions subsystem. Whilst this is not a recommended approach, course attempts created in this manner are established with a status of UNCONFIRM. These student course attempts can be pre-enrolled by the batch process ENRJ3100 but are treated on this one occasion as returning students.

ENRJ3100 can be set to run as required but would typically be run nightly for the purpose of enrolling student course attempts. Pre-enrolment takes place when:

the job ENRJ3100 detects that attributes of the student course attempt match the parameters specified for the job and

the student course attempt has a status of INACTIVE / INTERMIT
the student is not deceased or encumbered for the entire academic year

The selected student course attempts are processed as for returning students.

Refer to Recommended Parameter Usage documentation for recommendations regarding the use of parameters.

Returning Students Overview

The pre-enrolment process operates differently for returning students. Here the process is designed to create an ‘eligible to re-enrol’ record. The process:

checks to see if the student’s enrolled course version is on offer and issues a warning where necessary
checks if the student’s last HECS option was flagged to expire at the end of the prior academic period and issues a warning where appropriate.
in certain circumstances, creates unconfirmed student unit attempts.

In ENRF5F00 the process updates the enrolment category record which will be used to process an enrolment and enrolment variations in the forthcoming academic period and can be used to override the default enrolment due date.

For returning students, pre-enrolment only operates as a scheduled batch process or as an immediate (adhoc) batch process. Again, an exception report is generated which can be configured to report various levels of detail.

Batch pre-enrolment for returning students (students continuing in an existing course attempt)

Returning students are those who have already been enrolled for one or more years of a course (for the purpose of discussion here. See the Enrolments glossary for a full definition of 'returning student'). Pre-enrolment is performed for these students in order to prepare their enrolments records for the upcoming year. If a re-enrolment form needs to be created, pre-enrolment becomes a mandatory process. Typically this means that all returning students are pre-enrolled once annually.

Returning student pre-enrolment can only be done using the batch process ENRJ3100. It is recommended that pre-enrolment is run in tandem for logical groups of students with ENRJ3161, the enrolment form extract process. Running these two processes together allows the institution to set an Override Form Due Date Value in the pre-enrolment parameter form which is appropriate for each group of students who are to receive a re-enrolment form. Following successful pre-enrolment, this override value is displayed in the Student Course Attempt Administration Details form, ENRF5F00.

Pre-enrolment takes place when:

the job ENRJ3100 detects that attributes of the student course attempt match the parameters (see ENRJ3100) specified for the job and

the student course attempt has a status of INACTIVE or INTERMIT (and the intermission is due to expire in the upcoming academic period)
the student is not deceased or encumbered for the entire academic year

For each student course attempt selected:

The enrolment category is determined from the previous pre-enrolment period. If no previous pre-enrolment is found, the enrolment category must be specified as a parameter prior to running ENRJ3100, otherwise pre-enrolment is not performed for that record.

A student course attempt enrolment record is created using the enrolment period nominated in the parameters for ENRJ3100 and the enrolment category determined from the previous step. If a record already exists for the enrolment period, the enrolment category is updated if it is different to the existing enrolment category.

If the student's last HECS option was flagged to 'expire at end of academic period' and ended before the start of the academic period being pre-enrolled, a warning is written to the exceptions report (ENRR3100)

The System checks that the student's 'enrolled' course version is still being offered within the target academic period. If not, a warning is produced but pre-enrolment is still performed.

If the Pre-enrol Pattern of Study Units parameter in ENRJ3100 is set to 'Y', unit attempts may be pre-enrolled via a pattern of study (subject to pre-enrolment constraints). For a pattern of study, pre-enrolment is performed for the target and future academic periods, depending on the 'number of periods' specified to be pre-enrolled (in CRSF1441).

Pre-enrolment constraints

When pre-enrolling a student, the units to be pre-enrolled could potentially come from:

units specified in the admission application (for 'new' students through admissions)

units specified as parameters in the pre-enrolment batch job, ENRJ3100

a pattern of study attached to the course

Only one of these sources can be used for an individual's pre-enrolment. The System checks, in the order shown, for the existence of data in each source. It uses the first source found to contain data. E.g. If units are specified in the admission application, the System attempts to pre-enrol these but no attempt is made to enrol either units specified in the batch job or pattern of study units.

Subject to this hierarchy, if there are unit attempts already recorded against the subject course attempt:

units specified in admissions can still be added, providing they don't already exist
units specified in the batch job, ENRJ3100, can still be added, providing they don't already exist
no attempt is made to pre-enrol pattern of study units. Pattern of study logic will not attempt to merge a pattern of study over existing units

A unit will not be pre-enrolled where:

the student is currently excluded from the unit
the student has GRANTED or APPROVED advanced standing (of type CREDIT(100%) or PRECLUSION) in the unit
the unit attempt (of any status) already exists in the academic period

Pattern of study constraints

Subsequent runs of the batch process can be used to apply a pattern of study to a student but only where no unit attempts are currently recorded.

For example:

A student is made an offer through admissions in course A300 in the 1999 academic year and a pre-enrolment is performed on-line. There are no units specified against the admission application and the pattern of study for this course for 1999 is not yet approved. Pre-enrolment does not pre-enrol any units.
ENRJ3100 (pre-enrolment batch process) is set up to run once per week. This job has its Pre-Enrol Units parameter set to 'yes' and the combination of its other parameters means that it will process course A300 (and possibly others).
A few weeks later the pattern of study for A300 is approved for 1999. When the batch process next runs, the student is selected (as their course has a pattern of study and they have no pre-enrolled units in 1999) and units are pre-enrolled according to the pattern.

Pattern of study pre-enrolment is not performed where:

a student has granted or approved 'unit level advanced standing' in the course attempt

a student has a current 'Unit Requirement' encumbrance which is not satisfied by the pattern of study units recorded for the course

for a returning student, progress has not been according to the prescribed pattern. (This is determined by the by the existence of passed or incomplete unit attempts in teaching periods nominated by the pattern) Note: This check is overridden where the 'Always Pre-enrol' flag is set for a pattern of study.

The pattern is not approved (in CRSF1441) for the target academic calendar instance. (Note: If no approved calendar instance is recorded for the pattern of study, this means that approval is not required.)

Determining which unit offering option to pre-enrol

Units in a pattern of study can be specified with only a unit code. The specification of a location and/or a unit class is optional. However, the creation of a student unit attempt requires that a specific unit offering be nominated. The pre-enrolment process uses the following method to determine the unit offering option to use when location and/or class are not specified.

The process searches for all available offerings of the unit within the relevant academic period which match the pattern of study teaching calendar type. Multiple records may be returned if the unit is offered in various location/class combinations.

If the location code has been specified in the pattern of study, only offerings at that location are considered.
If the location code has not been specified, only offerings at the student's course attempt location are considered.
If the unit class has been specified, only offerings in that class are considered.
If the unit class has not been specified, offerings of any available mode are considered. If the mode of an offering matches the mode of the student course attempt, that offering is given preference over others.

This selection process typically reduces the available unit offerings to one. If more than one remains, one of the remaining options is selected at random. (Note: The only scenario where this occurs is when the unit is offered in multiple classes within a mode. E.g. 'Day' and 'Evening' classes within 'On-campus' mode.)