Registering New and Existing Students for new program terms

Hi Meg!

At the last organization that I was at, we had a similar issue. We had applications coming in for a summer camp that we host, and we had the same problem, where the native intake forms only allow new Tier 1 records to be created. To combat this issue, we actually had to use three third-party applications:

• JotForm - This is a tool that allows you to make forms. It’s like Microsoft Forms or Google Forms, but in my opinion, it is the best web-based form builder. 
• Zapier - This is an automation tool that allows you to connect applications that don’t normally talk to each other. In this case, we used it to transfer the answers that were input into our Camp Application on JotForm directly into Apricot. 
• Sidekick Solutions - In order to use Zapier with Apricot, we had to pay an annual fee to license their “Connector” application because Zapier doesn’t actually interface directly with Apricot. Basically, we had to pay them to give us a tool that allowed Zapier and Apricot to talk to each other.

Using Zapier with Apricot allowed me to set it up so that incoming applications actually checked for pre-existing records in our system, based on duplicate check fields. I think I set the duplicate check fields to name and email address for the adult records, and name and birthday for children’s records. This made it so that whenever an application came in, Zapier would automatically check our database to see if the record already existed, and then if it did exist, I set it to update the existing record, and if it didn’t exist, I set it to create a new record. 

I don’t know if I am allowed to link to other websites on here, but if you Google the following, the first result should be an FAQ page about all of this on Sidekick Solutions’ website:

Zapier FAQs for Bonterra Case Management (Apricot) Automations

I will say, it was a pretty complicated project, and unless you are pretty tech savvy, I would suggest either working with a consultant on this or finding another way to deal with it. 

Let me know if you have any questions!

Best,

Hollie

Thanks so much Hollie. It’s a shame it’s so complicated and requires additional platforms for it to work smoothly. But this does confirm that there really is not a great work around for this directly in Apricot! Thanks for sharing. I wonder if other folks have other similar work arounds?

Hi Meg! What type of program are you working with and what’s the volume of enrollments?

We have a few programs that re-enroll for new school years. We’ve gone through a few iterations all of which have pros and cons. For a while we were using school rosters to generate enrollments but it took too long to get the rosters so we had to stop doing that. Now all of our school-based programs close out their students at the end of the year and re-enroll them for the new year. We have typically 1 staff member at a school so that staff member is in charge of managing their enrollments. This has worked relatively well for us because the caseload is manageable enough by the end of the school year to close everyone out. Typically there’s only a few students rolling over from summer into fall and the new fall enrollments happen over a month or two.

From a technical side, we have a tier 1 referral form set up as a referral form (Apricot intake form w/ external link). Staff use that for triaging referrals then when the student is going to start services, they create a client profile and an enrollment record for them. For consents we’re currently using Connect and direct messages because our staff mostly interact with the students during school and rarely see the parents in person. It’s worked relatively well, particularly the direct messaging, but definitely has some challenges. If a parent sets up a password, they can update the student’s main info in their profile (name, DOB, phone, email, address)

We have a couple programs that work in cohorts also. They have found that meeting in person to complete paperwork works best and set up an intake appointment before the group starts. Then everything is done in Apricot with the client sitting there to sign and answer questions.

Hope this helps!

Best,

Naomi