How to Use the Roster Effectively in Your Admissions Platform
The roster is a powerful tool within your admissions platform that allows you to manage applicant data efficiently. This guide will walk you through how to use the roster to view applicants by academic year, add new enquiries or applicants manually, filter for specific criteria, and perform bulk actions.
Understanding Academic Years on the Roster
When viewing the roster, the selected academic year determines which applicants are displayed:
To view applicants for a specific academic year (e.g., 2025–2026), ensure that the dropdown or filter is set to that year.
Selecting "All Academic Years" will display every applicant in the system, regardless of the year they applied for.
Tip: Always double-check the selected academic year when searching or performing actions to avoid confusion or errors.
Manually Adding Enquiries or Applicants
You can manually add enquiries or applicants on the admin side without requiring families to create accounts themselves. This is especially helpful when:
A family visits the school in person and provides their information.
You’ve collected applicant details and want to enter them into the system proactively.
You prefer to create a lead without notifying the family immediately.
Note: Applicants added manually will not receive an automatic notification unless you choose to send the welcome email immediately. Click here to learn more about the welcome email.
Using Filters to Find Specific Groups of Applicants
The Filter feature allows you to narrow down applicants based on various criteria. This helps you quickly locate specific segments of your applicant pool.
Tip: Combine multiple filters to create highly targeted views (e.g., female applicants for Grade 1 in the 2025–2026 year).
Tip: Save a filter if it is frequently used.
Performing Bulk Actions on Applicants
The Roster in OpenApply offers a range of bulk actions that can help streamline communication and improve efficiency when managing groups of applicants. Once you've filtered or selected a set of applicants, you can take action on them all at once, saving valuable time.
Reminder: Always review your selected applicants before applying a bulk action to avoid unintended changes.
1. Tag Applicants
Apply tags to all selected applicants to help with filtering and categorization later. For example, Staff Child, Learning Support, EAL and etc.
Tip: Tags can be used as filters to quickly locate specific groups of applicants later.
2. Send Checklist Reminders
Send automated reminder emails to selected applicants with any outstanding checklist items. You can customized the email template at Settings > Admissions > Status & Notification > Checklist Reminder.
Note: It is not possible to send reminders for specific checklist items—reminders are triggered if any item is pending.
3. Export Data
Export applicant data for the selected group. For more instruction, please click here.
4. Lock/Unlock Forms
Manage the ability for parents to update submitted forms. By default, submitted forms are locked to prevent changes to critical fields like enrolment year or anticipated grade. You can unlock forms in bulk, but this is not recommended unless absolutely necessary, as it may affect data integrity.
5. Bulk Enter Email Address
Input email addresses for multiple applicants or students at once. This is useful when schools issue institutional email accounts after enrollment.
Note: OpenApply does not generate or assign email addresses automatically.
6. Send Messages
Send bulk messages to selected applicants. This feature is ideal for sending important updates or announcements. For more instruction, please click here.
7. Send Reference Requests (If Feeder School Module is enabled)
Send reference request emails in bulk to feeder schools. Only available when the Feeder School module is enabled. For more instruction, please click here.
8. View Orphaned Students
Identify and manage "orphaned" applicants—students who began an application but did not reach the parent details page. These applicants do not have associated parent accounts due to an incomplete submission. You have several options:
a. If the parent returns on the same device, they can continue the application.
b. Enter the parent's name and email manually to allow the family to log in and proceed.
c. If there's no follow-up after a period, you can choose to delete the orphaned record.
9. Assign Applicants to Agents (If Agent Module is enabled)
Assign selected applicants to an agent (e.g., an external education consultant who has an OpenApply agent account). Once assigned, you can filter applicants by agent on the roster.
10. Assign Applicants to Representatives
Assign applicants to internal staff members responsible for their application. You can later filter applicants by specific representatives or those without one assigned. This feature is useful for workload distribution and follow-up.
11. Edit on roster or edit in bulk
Use the Edit function to update fields such as grade, status, and other applicant details for all selected applicants directly from the roster. This allows you to make changes efficiently without editing each profile individually. Use the Bulk Edit function to edit all selected applicants in bulk without manually entering for each individual. Click here for a more detailed tutorial.
By mastering the roster’s features—such as filtering, manually adding applicants, selecting academic years, and using bulk actions—you can significantly enhance operational efficiency, ensure consistent communication with applicants and families, and maintain clean, accurate data throughout the admissions process.