When a prospective student (or their family) is interested in your organization, you may keep track of them as an enrollment lead in the BigSIS Leads module. An enrollment lead is a student whose family has demonstrated an interest in your school and who you would like to follow-up with and, hopefully, ultimately enroll in your school.
How do Leads get Entered into BigSIS?
Enrollment leads are typically entered into BigSIS through an inquiry form. There are two inquiry forms available: one public that can be placed on your school's website (see example here), one internal that may be used by your office staff (to see an example, go to Admissions/Leads > Quick Add Lead). The former allows the public at large to visit your website and initiate the first contact with you on their own terms by filling out the inquiry form by themselves. The latter allows your staff to log a new enrollment lead instead (e.g., when a parent calls on the phone to inquire rather than fill out your public inquiry form). How an enrollment lead is entered doesn't matter, all leads end up in the same place.
What Happens Once a Lead is in BigSIS?
Once a lead is in BigSIS, your staff can keep track of them via a series of phases. There are five distinct phases that most new enrollment leads will move through in sequential order: (1) Inquiry, (2) Application, (3) Application Decision, (4) Contract, (5) Enrollment. This is also known as the admissions process. The order of these phases is static and may not be changed, and no lead may be in two phases at once. But, many of these phases may be skipped when necessary (e.g., a family may forego an inquiry altogether and instead proceed directly to an application). The Leads module also offers additional flexibility should it be needed. Additionally, if your institution elects to use BigSIS to process re-enrollments, you may not need them to fill out inquiry forms or applications for returning students, instead, you may just need the family to sign a new enrollment contract for the new year.
While a lead sits inside a particular phase, its status within that phase may vary. Each phase offers a choice of statuses that reflect the current status of the lead. For example, while in the application phase a lead may have the status of (A) Application Submitted, (B) Application on Hold, (C) Application Withdrawn, (D) Application Completed. All of these statuses are available ONLY while in the application phase. A different set of corresponding statuses are available while the lead is in other phases (e.g., during the Inquiry phase, a lead may have the status of Inquiry Submitted, Inquiry On Hold, etc. instead). Like phases, no lead may have two distinct concurrent statuses at any time. Unlike phases, however, statuses are not moved through in sequential order, so leads may be assigned any status within that phase at any time. In fact, a lead may move in and out of statuses, for example, a lead may have the status of Application Submitted, then be moved to Application on Hold if the family hesitates, then moved back to Application Submitted if the family decides to re-open a dormant application. Moreover, though each phase has several available status options, most leads will only ever be placed into one or two of the statuses within a phase. If a lead is progressing along nicely, for example, there may be no need to ever place it in an "On Hold" or "Withdrawn" status so you may ignore those statuses altogether. Finally, to move a lead from one phase to another, the lead must have either a "Skipped" or "Completed" status in the previous phase.
What's the difference between Phases, Statuses, and Tasks?
What is the status of the lead?
How do we keep the lead moving along?
Currently, the lead is in the application decision phase.
The current status of the lead is that their application decision is on hold.
Jane's next task is to collect missing documents from the lead's family.
Bobby's family is interested in your school. They visit your school's website where they locate the public inquiry form, fill it out, and submit it.
Your admissions director receives an email alert notifying her that a new lead inquiry has been submitted by someone. The admissions director logs into the BigSIS admin and visits the task calendar where they notice that they have a task assigned to them titled "Respond to Inquiry for Bobby." The task is due in 48 hours.
The admissions director goes to the Leads module to review more information about the exciting new lead. She opens up Bobby's lead and notes that the lead is currently in the Inquiry phase with a current status of 'Inquiry - Submitted.' While reviewing Bobby's lead, the admissions director looks for contact information for the parents and proceeds to contact them. The director just completed her first task 'Respond to Inquiry' and it's time to check it off as completed in BigSIS. This triggers a follow up task titled 'Schedule a school visit' and so while on the phone with Bobby's parents, the director schedules a school visit with them. Once she hangs up, she marks that second task as completed as well. This then triggers a third task 'Note completion of school visit in BigSIS' which she will complete at some point after the school visit takes place.
After all tasks have been completed in the inquiry phase, she's ready to adjust the status of the lead from 'Inquiry - Submitted' to 'Inquiry - Completed.' At this point, if someone asked the admissions director where Bobby's lead is, the director would say, "It's still in the inquiry phase but we're just about done with that phase." If the director was asked, so what's the status of the lead, then, is the lead on hold, withdrawn, progressing well? The director might say, "Oh, it's progressing well, the actual status is 'Inquiry - Completed' so we're good to go, we'll start the application phase tomorrow." And finally, if the director is asked, how are you going to do that? The director might respond, "Well, the first task in the application phase is to check to make sure all the required application documents are received so I'll check that tomorrow. Then, the next tasks are to make copies of the application, send the check to the business office, and determine if the family qualifies for tuition assistance. All of this will be done during the application phase."
The process proceeds in this manner through all the phases. At certain points, as certain tasks are completed, a lead's status may change. After all tasks in a phase are completed, we move on to the next phase where the lead gets a new status. So on and so forth until we reach the final phase, which is the enrollment phase, and we admit the student into the school.