Welcome Email.pdfFirst Year Onboarding Application Documentation

The purpose of the page is to provide documentation for the implementation of a custom Onboarding Application for first year undergraduate enrollees.

Overview

With the move of the Admissions Application system to Slate, the Office of the First Year wanted to

• Create a unified, central and consistent application which allowed first-year enrollees to see and keep track of the tasks that needed to be completed prior to start of the Fall term. 
• Allow OFY to maintain the content associated with the tasks (like description, due dates, links etc.)
• This application is used for a specific time period, starting in June through September.

Critical Dates

• Application goes live in early May (May 11th in 2021) through early September
• OFY is usually ready with the content for the application in April

User Interfaces

There are 2 main interfaces

1. Admin Interface

1. The Admin Interface is is used to manage the content  (heading, links, start and end dates) for each task etc. 
2. As of Oct 25, 2021, OFY cannot manage the content, they email the changes to IS&T who edit the content
3. When changes are saved in the Admin interface, they are instantaneously propagated to the student interfaces
4. Tasks are divided into the following categories
   1. Academic
   2. Advising
   3. Medical
   4. Orientation
   5. Training
   6. Other
5. Each category can have multiple tasks, and each task has several content items that can be edited
   1. Title - Title
   2. Sub heading - usually used to indicate that a task will be available on a certain date
   3. Category - See 1
   4. Audience - used to distinguish between International and US/Permanent Resident
   5. Description - Details about the task 
   6. Contact Number - Phone number to contact as needed
   7. Contact Email - email to contact as needed
   8. More Information URL - Link to forms a student has to fill out or website with more information
   9. Start Date - Start date for task display
   10. End Date - End date for task display
   11. Optional - Mandatory or Optional
   12. Possible AnswersResponses - Options a student can select - Completed, Not Completed, No Applicable

2. Student Interface

1. The student interface has web and mobile application
2. This is used by students to view their tasks and check off when done
3. Once the tasks are done, they are automatically hidden from View and can be viewed again via the 'Show Completed' toggle
4. Categories are color coded with associated tasks for easy tracking. When a task is overdue, a red exclamation is displayed next to the name of the task
5. Students have a welcome page and individual task pages 

Application URLs

1. Student Interface 
   1. Web
      1. Dev: https://onboarding-dev.mit.edu/
      2. Prod URL - https://onboarding.mit.edu/
   2. Mobile 
      1. Can be downloaded through the Atlas Mobile application
2. Admin Interface
   1. Dev URL: https://onboarding-admin.atlas-apps-dev.mit.edu/
   2. Prod URL: https://onboarding-admin.atlas-apps.mit.edu/

Access and Roles

Admin web app and Student web and mobile applications use Touchstone for Authentication. All undergraduate first year enrollees should have access to the student application once they register for a kerberos account. Access to the Admin application is restricted by TBD

Support Tasks

• Make content changes prior to the onboarding application going live (April/May). Changes can come on a rolling basis for a few weeks as different tasks become available and due
• Test and make sure students can access the application

Project Team Information

OFY:

Elizabeth Young: ecy@mit.edu

Michael Santoro msan@mit.edu

IS&T:

Technical Lead: Werner Sweigers (werners@mit.edu)

Project Manager: Zahida Taher (ztaher@mit.edu)

Project Manager: Doug Walsh (douglasw@mit.edu)

Annual Tasks Enhancements

1. Update onboarding with new content
2. When do they want onboarding to begin?  The availability of Onboarding is based on a ate field in the back end.  Need to get this information from OFY and let Doug Walsh know
3. OFY sent an email to let enrollees know that Onboarding is available  (see sample from last year)
4. Send us (IS&T) a list of First Years - Ask Admissions (Ben/Molly)
   1. Many first years already have Kerberos accounts b/c we generated them accounts as part of CPW.  We want a full list and we will send account registration to any first years that did not attend CPW
   2. We have the ability to send an SMS message to students with a link to account registration.  If thy can send us phone numbers we can also send an SMS.  Sometimes the email re: account registration goes to spam but we don’t have that issue with SMS
5. Reporting
   1. Send a request to the developer on how many students completed tasks/etc.

Project Enhancements

The following features were desired by OFY as part of the original project intent which could not be completed because of the aggressive project timeline

1. Ability for OFY to edit content for tasks
2. Ability for OFY to view completion progress for tasks - e.g. how many students have completed each task, list of students who have/have not completed a task