Cheat Sheet | Quick Facts

CAS API Documentation

Summary

Each program (or organization, in Liaison-speak) has three subscriptions configured via the CAS API, each of which will deliver a file via SFTP upon specific “business events” (or triggers). These triggers reflect the status of the application in the CAS. The application status changing from one status to another is a “trigger” and these are the only points in time in which a fresh file can be sent.

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In Progress (CSV)

Business Event/Trigger: application.program.selected

Business Event/Trigger Description: When the student adds the program designation to their “shopping cart” (i.e., they pick the program as one they plan to apply to). This is the equivalent of “application created” in Slate.

Fields Imported:

Application Data (CSV)

Business Event/Trigger: application.program.selected

Business Event/Trigger Description: When the student adds the program designation to their “shopping cart” (i.e., they pick the program as one they plan to apply to). This is the equivalent of “application created” in Slate.

Fields Imported:

Documents (PDF)

API Subscription

Slate Source Formats

Slate Rules (Automations)

Checklist - Add

Checklist - Fulfill

Application Statuses

Populations

WebAdMIT API Documentation

Summary

The WebAdMIT API was built to supplement the CAS API and transfer the following data from the PTCAS instances and Slate:

• Trigger: Evaluation (Reference) recieved by PTCAS

  • Data

    • Export: Evaluation (Reference) Status and Occupation details (Scheduled SFTP)

• Trigger: Prerequisite review process completed by TUSMGP staff in PTCAS

  • Data:

    • Export: CAS Calculated GPAs (Manual SFTP)

    • Report: Prerequisite Course details (Manual SFTP)

  • Documents

    • PDF Manager: Full Application PDF (Manual export/upload via Batch Acquire)

    • PDF Manager: CAS Transcript (Manual export/upload via Batch Acquire)

Process Overview

The following steps/configurations have been made to each instance of PTCAS.

1. WebAdMIT/PTCAS: Configure the “destination” as Slate’s SFTP host using Destination Manager.

2. WebAdMIT/PTCAS: Create required lists to identify groups of applicants whose data or documents should be included for each transfer:

   1. Applicants who are not yet complete who have a received reference letter within the past day

   2. Applicants who have passed the prerequisite review process required by the program and are ready for interview screening.

3. WebAdMIT/PTCAS: Create exports to generate needed CSV files:

   1. Evaluation (Reference) Received Update

   2. CAS Calculated GPA data

4. WebAdMIT/PTCAS: Create a report to generate the needed prerequisite course data CSV

5. WebAdMIT/PTCAS: Create PDF templates to generate needed PDFs:

   1. Full Application PDF

   2. CAS Electronic Transcript

6. In Slate, create and configure a new source format for each export and report file expected from WebAdMIT

7. WebAdMIT/PTCAS: Add schedule(s) to each export and report that will transfer data via SFTP (and not manually).

Decision Reasoning

The CAS API is carrying the bulk of the data and document transfer between the PTCAS instances and Slate, however there are some elements that the CAS API cannot handle:

• Course and GPA Data:

  • Although there is a separate CAS API feed for course data, and GPA data is included in the application data file, these options did not work for our business process.

  • The CAS API course data feed does not include any information about program-specific prerequisite requirements (i.e., does the course fulfill a specific prerequisite). This makes sense, because the work of identifying and approving prerequisites happens in WebAdMIT (not at the CAS-level).

  • GPA data is available in the application data files consumed through the All CAS by Liaison - Applications source format, however because the CAS converts it to a flat data file, doing the source format mapping in Slate would be highly onerous and inconsistent (i.e., it would be impossible to be sure that GPA_38 is always the overall gpa and not GPA_29 or GPA_65).

• Evaluation/Reference Information:

  • The CAS API process sends information about references which are added to the application in Slate via those source formats. However, no business event/trigger exists for when the evaluation status is updated in the CAS; this means that it is possible for the status of an evaluation to move to “complete” in WebAdMIT and that information to be significantly delayed and/or never updated in Slate. (See further explanation of how References are managed in Slate).

• Full Application PDF and CAS Transcript

  • The CAS API will deliver a full application PDF, however this document contains not only the application form data in a PDF format, it also appends all other documents, including references/transcripts/miscellaneous documentation. Due to our need to purge reference letters while retaining the remaining materials, this is not a viable option for us. Slate’s retention policies cannot edit a PDF document material (cannot remove specific pages or content within a PDF).

  • The WebAdMIT delivered PDF can be customized to include only application form data and can also support generating a reader-friendly “CAS Transcript” with a summary of the prerequisite course selections which is necessary for our faculty readers.

WebAdMIT/PTCAS Destinations

Each instance of PTCAS is configured with a “destination” that allows for that instance to send data a host via SFTP; the Destination has been configured to the same settings as used for the CAS API, including the same authentication user/password and the same paths/endpoint. All data sent via the WebAdMIT API appears in the same location in the SFTP server that the CAS API files appear.

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WebAdMIT SFTP Documentation

WebAdMIT/PTCAS Configurations for Data Exports

List Configurations

API: Evaluation Received (within the last 2 days)

Create a list to pull applicants who are still not complete (i.e., in the “none” local status or whose local status is null) and who have a reference received date within the last 2 days. This list is used for the Evaluation Received export.

This will pull the data needed for the daily feed only when an applicant meets these criteria (i.e., they had a reference go from requested to completed within the last 2 days). I used 2 days to allow for any hiccups in timing, server connection, or file delivery.

API: Complete Applications Export to Slate

Create a list to pull applicants who are in the “complete” local status, which will be used for any export/report/PDF export that needs to pull applicants who are queued to have this data moved to Slate. This list is used for the Verified App data, Prerequisite Course report, and PDFs.

Export/Report/PDF Manager Configurations

Export: Evaluation Received (Export)

Sent to Slate twice daily using the Schedule Manager. File matches to data already in Slate from the CAS API and stored in the CAS Evaluation Details entity. Purpose is to update the status of the evaluation if/when it is received in WebAdMIT/PTCAS.

Export: Verified Application Data (Export)

Sent to Slate by the admissions staff using manual file transfer in Schedule Manager after reviewing prerequisite courses and approving application as “complete.”

Field value for GPA will include “0.0” if there is no GPA, and static mapping each name and type for each GPA will generate an entitiy row even if there was no GPA value sent, so each applicant will always get 4.

Report: Prerequisite Courses (Report)

Sent to Slate by the admissions staff using manual file transfer in Schedule Manager after reviewing prerequisite courses and approving application as “complete.”

File is pre-set “report” provided by WebAdMIT and cannot be edited. Includes both student-selected prerequisite courses and those approved by the program.

In the file, “prerequisite” is the field used to differentiate student vs. program selected. Program-approved is always given value of “Preqreq GPA - Program Selected.” The student-selected is identified by the display name of the program in PTCAS (e.g., “Tufts University - Boston, MA Prerequisites”).

WebAdMIT/PTCAS Configurations for Data Exports

PDF Manager: Full Application PDF

This PDF file is used to generate the Full Application material for Slate. It includes almost all of the data from the CAS application, but does exclude some sections (most notably race/ethnicity). It also excludes the panels that are used to create the CAS Transcript material for Slate, so that information is included in a separate material/PDF.

PDF Manager: CAS Transcript

This PDF file is used to generate the CAS Transcript material for Slate. It includes the panels and sub-panels that are specific to the CAS-verified courses, the CAS-calculdated GPAs, and the prerequisite course information.

Slate Source Formats

The source formats used for the WebAdMIT API files are all named “WebAdMIT API - PTCAS [Name of Import]” in Slate. There are five total; the evaluation and verified app source formats are shared for all programs, but prerequisite course formats are unique to each program.

Evaluation Received

Imported Fields (red used for matching)

• CAS/Liaison Person ID

• CAS/Liaison Application ID

• Reference Last Name

• Reference Occupation

• Reference Institution

• Reference Evaluation Status

  • Accepted

  • Completed

  • Requested

Actions Triggered

No additional action is taken by this source format.

Verified App Data

Imported Fields (red used for matching)

• CAS/Liaison Person ID

• CAS/Liaison Person ID

• CAS/Liaison Application ID

• Overall Total GPA (Name, Type, Value)

• Undergraduate Total GPA (Name, Type, Value)

• Graduate Total GPA (Name, Type, Value)

• Science and Math GPA (Name, Type, Value)

• Science GPA (Name, Type, Value)

• Prerequisite Program GPA (Name, Type, Value)

Actions Triggered

• Activity Code: Admin - Program Prerequisites - Minimum Required for Review Fulfilled added; this activity is used to fulfill the 8 of 10 Required Prerequisite Courses checklist item.

Prerequisite Courses

Imported Fields (red used for matching)

Actions Triggered

Slate Batch Acquire

Slate Rules (Automations)

Cycle Notes by Year

2023 - 2024

• Application Form ID = 6861

• This was the first cycle we setup the full API data and document transfer, supplemented by the WebAdMIT API

• Transferring additional documents from WebAdMIT (through the server managed by Bruce Krasnoff for TUSM and a PowerShell script) was added mid-year.

2024 - 2025

• Application Form ID = 7198