If you don’t find the answer to your question here please write to [email protected].
What is PWS or SBWS?
PWS (PORTAL Web Services) and SBWS (SANDBOX Web Services) streamline your admissions process by allowing students and their families to inquire and apply online. Inquiry and applicant information is transferred into PORTAL or SANDBOX under your control when you retrieve the data.
Additionally, with PWS (PORTAL only) you can publish students’ process status via a secure website so that families know exactly what you have received and what is outstanding. If you choose, you can also publish your decision letters online. Note that SBWS (SANDBOX) does not have Notifications, and does not publish decision letters online.
With PWS (PORTAL) you also have the ability to create online recommendation forms that teachers can submit electronically. These are retrieved and stored in the child’s Inquiry record.
Who maintains our online forms?
We host your inquiry form and your application on our server and provide you with web links to place on your website. When an interested family or student clicks the link, they are taken to a page on our server. These pages are styled to blend into your website to maintain school branding.
Can I customize the look of our inquiry form and application?
We suggest different treatments for inquiries and applications.
We recommend that your inquiry form be placed in an iFrame on your website. This allows the inquiry form to have the look and feel of your website. It also prevents the need to alter the inquiry form if your website design changes. If this is not possible, your form will display a banner of your choosing and appropriate links that mirror, as closely as possible, your website navigation.
Posting your application in an iFrame is not recommended, however, due to security concerns. Instead, we attempt to blend the application into the design of your website.
Can I have multiple inquiry forms and/or applications?
Yes, but each requires its own setup and multiple forms will result in multiple setup fees.
What if I want to make changes to my inquiry form or application?
If you want to make changes to your forms once they are “live,” you may be able to do so yourself. Changing a label, making a field required or not, changing the values associated with a field, and deciding where the data will reside in PORTAL or SANDBOX once you retrieve are all changes that you can make via the FileMaker Pro files on your campus. If you need to add questions or pages, or otherwise change the layout of your form, or add or change a word limit for an essay question, we will need to do this for you. Any changes that we must make are billable by the hour.
How do I know that an online inquiry form or application has been completed?
You will receive an email notification that a form has been submitted or an application has been completed. You determine the content of this automatic email as well as define the recipient. Likewise, you determine the content of the email the student/family receives when they complete an inquiry form or application.
Can I determine when our inquiry form and application are available to students and families?
Yes, you can by merely taking the links off your website. You should then notify us to make the form(s) inactive so that anyone who has bookmarked the form won’t be able to navigate back to it..
What is the process of setting up an online application or an inquiry form?
Setting up an online application or a inquiry form is a multi-step process. Once you send us your forms for review, we discuss the various aspects of your forms with you so that we understand all the components. After we have a good understanding, we build them. You then have an opportunity to review the forms for any details we may have missed. Finally, the forms are moved to our production server and you post the URLs on your website. They are then available to the public.
After the forms are live, we configure the new PWS or SBWS module. For PORTAL, we merely send you the new PWS files to host on your server. SANDBOX may require a data freeze. If so, you will send us your SANDBOX files, we complete the work and then send SBWS and SANDBOX files back to you. The data freeze is about half a day at most. Newer versions of SANDBOX may not require a data freeze. We will be sure to let you know if your implementation requires a data freeze.
How long does it take to create our application and/or inquiry form?
It takes about a week for us to create your forms. If you can gather the necessary information and review your forms in a timely manner, we can generally get you up and running within a three-week period. Doing so requires that you and your staff are available to review forms, provide feedback, and be available for training.
What do I need to get started?
If you have a current inquiry form, we will use that as a guide in building your new one. If you don’t have one we’ll discuss with you what information you wish to gather.
To get started on your application requires a little more up-front work. We need a copy of your application in PDF format or you can direct us to your current online form. If there are additional forms required as part of the application process, such as teacher recommendation forms, family questionnaires, etc., we like to see these as they inform the application process. Once we have all your application we will schedule a phone conversation with you to discuss the various components. When we have all the information we need, we will begin the development of your online application.
Once your forms are built and on our development server, your review begins. Your annual subscription begins at this time.
So I’ve completed the review/revision stage, what happens next?
When you have reviewed your forms and we have modified anything that needs modifying, they are moved onto our production server. At this point we are ready to begin training. There is a bit of homework you will need to do once we have completed the first training but with a little work, your forms can be posted to your website.
Will the Admissions Office be in data freeze during the implementation process?
With SANDBOX you most likely will be in data freeze but we will let you know if this is necessary. PORTAL requires no data freeze.
How do I assist families with accounts?
Please refer to this iR Common page for further information.
How do I receive training?
Training is composed of two, web-based sessions with us, you and your staff. The first session is about 1.5 hours, the second is about an hour. The first session is with your files on our computer. After its completion we send you the new files to host on your FM Server. The second training is done with you manipulating your hosted files.
What’s an iFrame?
An iFrame places an external webpage or document into a page on your site. This gives the visitor to your website the illusion they have not navigated away from the school’s website. You will need to work with your IT Department and/or your web company to determine whether or not an iFrame is appropriate for your inquiry form. We do not recommend placing your application form into an iFrame.
How much information can I include on my inquiry form?
The Inquiry form is meant to allow families to quickly let you know who they are and to request information. You want to include enough information to enable PORTAL or SANDBOX to create or update records but not so much that the form is difficult to complete for your families. Remember, the inquiry form is not saved and the family needs to complete it all at one time. There are fields that need to be on your form: child bio data, the grade they are applying to, the year they wish to attend, at least one parent name, and home address information.
What information can I gather on my online application?
Almost anything. We strive to replicate your current application but there are some limitations when putting your application on the web. During our discovery process we may suggest different ways to phrase questions or arrange information to better enable the display of your application and/or the import of your application data into PORTAL or SANDBOX.
What information is brought into PORTAL or SANDBOX?
Your application generally asks for far more data than is normally stored in PORTAL or SANDBOX; but you decide. If you choose, you can bring in all the information on your application. Applications can be printed so you may choose to rely on the printout for certain data.
All the information on your Inquiry form however needs to be brought into SANDBOX or PORTAL as these cannot be printed.
Do I have the ability to print applications?
Yes. You can print all applications—complete or not—via the PWS or SBWS interface.
Do I have the ability to see applications in progress?
Yes. You can see applications in progress via the PWS or SBWS interface.
I have more than one application. Is this a problem?
No. However, each application requires a setup fee and a yearly subscription fee. We recommend that if you are able, you merge the applications into a single application. We can also work with you to strategize on how to do this.
What about a domestic application and an international application? Or different questions depending on the grade for which the applicant is applying. How do you accommodate these?
We suggest one application if you have both domestic and international students. If you ask for additional information for your international applicants we can create a page just for those questions. If you have different information you wish to gather based on the grade for which the applicant is applying, we can configure your application so that applicants see only the questions pertinent to that grade. There are some limitations, so please inquire about your own circumstance.
We have three campuses, a Lower School, Middle School, and Upper School. Each school uses the same application but processes its admissions separately. How can this be set up with Online Applications?
Unfortunately, each campus would have to be set up separately and identified as a separate school. PWS or SBWS allow a school to have only one address, phone number, contact email address. To facilitate multiple campuses, each campus must be set up as a unique school. They can have identical applications, but the applications must be processed separately. This will require separate setup and yearly subscription fees for each campus.
Can I control what information is required in order for an application to be submitted?
Yes. Using the PWS/SBWS interface, you are able to set whether or not an individual question is required in order for application or inquiry form to be submitted.
Can applicants complete an application over a period of time?
Yes. Applicants can work on their applications over any period of time they choose. They can save an application at any time to return to it at a later date. You can see the updated data every time you retrieve.
Do families with more than one child applying have to complete multiple applications?
Yes. Every child applying to the school must have a unique application. However, parents can apply for multiple children through a single account and interface.
What if there is more than one family (household) associated with an applicant?
The application form can ask for as many household configurations as you wish. However, because of how PORTAL and SANDBOX process family data only two households can be bought into FAMILIES: Family 1 (considered the custodial family) and Family 2. Each household can have up to two adults.
Not all of the information on the application is coming into PORTAL or SANDBOX. Why?
What data is imported into PORTAL or SANDBOX is determined by you in the Source Map. We work with you during training so that you can control this.
How do we go about making changes to our online application?
Changes are first made on the copy of your application that resides in our test environment. If the changes are straightforward, we will directly migrate them to your live form and notify you when the changes are complete. For more complex changes, we may ask you to review the changes on the test server before migrating them to your live form, or send you a screen shot of the edited page. Once your forms are live, the databases for the test forms no longer stay in sync with your live application, so there will be differences when you log in to the test form.
What if I want to update our PDFs or online recommendations or change our process status for our PORTAL application?
You control the posting of your PDFs and/or Online Recommendations via the PWS interface. Changing process status is part of training but you do not need us to update your forms.
We have an application fee waiver option for applicants in need. Can we waive the application fee online?
Yes. You can add a waiver code in the PWS/SBWS interface. When the applicant gets to the payment screen he or she can enter the waiver code to bypass payment. This information is not available to the public so you will need to provide this code to those students or families who are granted a waiver. This waiver code cannot be individualized.
Our international application fee is different than our domestic application fee. We have different fees based upon the grade to which the applicant is applying. Can PWS/SBWS facilitate this?
Yes. The PWS/SBWS interface allows you to set separate application fees for domestic and international applicants. You can also set fees based on the grade being applied to. However, there can be only one fee for all international students, it cannot be differentiated by grade.