21 March 2023

What is decision making and offer tracking?

Decision making is the process of making offers to applications or rejecting applications. You can view the decisions in the decision builder. Offer tracking enables you to track the progress of offers. You can view offers in the conditions flow and, optionally, override the decision status and the status of conditions. The status of conditions on the applicant portal have different names. For more information, go to What are the condition statuses on the applicant portal?

Decision making

Decision making is the process of making offers to applications or rejecting applications based on the entry requirements for courses.

The Bachelor of Civil Engineering (Honours) course has the following entry requirements:

Main decision
  • ATAR of at least 90 or an International Baccalaureate Diploma of at least 33 points.
  • ATAR units 3 and 4 study score of at least 20 in either mathematical methods or specialist mathematics, or International Baccalaureate Diploma grade 4 in mathematics.
  • ATAR units 3 and 4 study score of at least 20 in English excluding English as an additional language, ATAR units 3 and 4 study score of at least 25 in English as an additional language, or International Baccalaureate Diploma grade 4 in English.
Additional conditions
A valid student visa.

Make decisions

You can make decisions for individual applications or for cohorts of up to 50 applications. To make decisions, you choose to offer or reject applications as follows:

Offer
On making conditional offers, you can view the decision text that is sent to applicants when the decision is published and view the conditions of the main decision and any additional conditions in the decision builder. On making unconditional offers, you can only view the decision text.
Reject
On rejecting applications, you choose an appropriate offer for a rejection. You can also, optionally, choose the reason for the rejection. For example, when a course is already full. You can then view the decision text that is sent to the applicant.

Admissions staff with suitable permissions can customise decisions. For example, customise a decision to change the decision text or to change the required ATAR ranking of an academic condition. Customising a decision creates a new offer in the offer library.

Applications have a decision status that shows the progress of the application in decision making. Before making a decision, an application has the status Not started. Then, on choosing to make an offer or reject the applicant, the status is updated to Draft.

Submit decisions

After making decisions, you need to submit the decisions. Submitting a decision updates the application as follows:

  1. Adds non-academic conditions used in the main decision or additional conditions as clearance checks to the applications. Note that clearance checks are only added to applications automatically if the applications do not already have clearance checks for the additional conditions.

  2. Updates the submitted status of the application to succeeded succeeded icon. You can resubmit the decision to recalculate decisions that are already submitted. For example, when new study scores are added to the application. You can also view the event logs for submitted decisions, such as to see why the submission has failed.
  3. Calculates the decision status using the conditions in the main decision and additional conditions as follows:

    Passed
    The conditions of the main decision and additional conditions have been passed. Therefore, submitting unconditional offers sets the decision status to Passed.
    Failed
    The application failed to meet the offer conditions.
    Pending
    The conditions of the decision have not yet been passed or failed. Note that academic conditions that are calculated as Failed are shown as Pending. This ensures that applicants with predicted grades are not failed before their actual grades are known.
    Rejected
    The application was rejected.

    Attention. Note the following:

    • The submission status Submitted submitted icon may be displayed briefly, typically for a few seconds, during the calculation of the decision status. You can resubmit the decision if the submissions status does not update after a few seconds.
    • Submitted decisions are recalculated if the applicant's qualification or application points are edited.

Reset decisions

You can reset decisions or remove the additional conditions at any time until decisions are published. For example, if you notice an error or want to change the decision. Resetting the main decision updates applications as follows:

  • Resets the main decision to the offer of the course as defined in the student management system.

  • Removes any clearance checks from the application that were added when submitting the decision.

  • Removes any additional conditions.

  • Sets the decision status to Not started.

Publish decisions

Publishing decisions sets the published status to Completed and sends the decision to the preferred email address defined in the person profile for the applicant.

Attention.

The user interface for setting up email communications will be available in a future release. However, until then, email communications must be set up by Tribal professional services.

After conditional offers are published, the details of the offer conditions can be viewed by applicants on the applicant portal.

You can only publish decisions with offer libraries that are approved. On publishing a decision, the application overview is updated to show the details of decision 1, as shown in the table Decision and response summary after publishing a decision.

Decision and response summary after publishing a decision
Field Value Field Value

Decision 1

Conditional offer

Decision 1 date

14/11/2022

Response 1

Pending

Response 1 date

Pending

After publishing a decision, you can unpublish and reset the decision if, for example, you notice an error. Unpublishing and resetting a decision updates the application as follows:

  • Removes any responses to the offer.

  • Removes the decision and response summary from the application.

  • Resets the main decision to the offer of the course as defined in the student management system.

  • Removes any clearance checks from the application that were added when submitting the decision.

  • Removes any additional conditions.

  • Sets the decision status to Not started.

Attention.

Admissions does not inform the applicant that you have unpublished a decision. Therefore, you must make a new decision for the application. However, if you cannot make a new decision, you must inform the applicant directly.

Respond to offers

Respond to offers to record the response to the application on behalf of direct applicants. On responding to offers, you set the date that the offer was accepted or rejected. The application overview is then updated with the response and response date for decision 1, as shown in the table Decision and response summary after responding.

Decision and response summary after responding
Field Value Field Value

Decision 1

Conditional offer

Decision 1 date

11/11/2022

Response 1

Firmly accepted

Response 1 date

14/11/2022

After responding to an offer, you can remove the response if, for example, you notice an error.

Offer tracking

Offer tracking enables you to track the progress of offers. That is, track the status of the offer conditions. You can view offers in the conditions flow and, if required, override the decision status and the status of the conditions. You can add internal notes detailing the reason for overriding the decision

Status of the offer conditions

Offer conditions have the status Pending until the condition is Passed or Failed. For example, the academic condition for an ATAR of at least 90 is pending until the applicant passes or fails the condition. For conditions with the status Pending or Passed, you can view the qualifications or application points for academic conditions and the clearance checks for non-academic conditions that are used to meet the condition.

For example, the table Decision status passed as conditions passed shows that the decision status is Passed as the applicant met the academic and non-academic requirements. In this example the applicant obtained an ATAR of 91.50, a study score of 23 for units three and four in mathematical methods, and a study score of 20 for units three and four in English. Also, the applicant has a current student visa.

Decision status passed as conditions passed
Condition name Status Met by Description

ATAR 90

Passed

91.50 points

Main decision is passed and met by 91.50 points. The applicant received an ATAR of 90 or higher.

Mathematical methods or specialist mathematics with a study score of 20

Passed

1 qualification

Condition is passed and met by one qualification with an actual grade. For example, the applicant obtained a study score of 23 in mathematical methods.

English excluding English as an additional language with a study score of 20

Passed

1 qualification

Condition is passed and met by one qualification with an actual grade. The applicant obtained a study score of 20 for units three and four in English.

Student visa

Passed

1 clearance check

Additional condition is passed and met by one clearance check.

Offer conditions with the status Not required no longer need to be met as the applicant has met an alternative condition that satisfies the same entry requirement.

The table Decision status passed as conditions passed shows the conditions ATAR of at least 90 and English excluding English as an additional language with a study score of 20 or English as an additional language with a study score of 25. In this example, the decision status is Passed as the academic conditions ATAR of at least 90 and English excluding English as an additional language with a study score of 20 are met. As the applicant has obtained a study score of 20 for units three and four in English, the condition English as an additional language with a study score of 25 is no longer required to be met and has the status Not required.

Condition no longer required as alternative condition passed
Condition name Status Met by Description

ATAR of at least 90

Passed

91.50 points

Main decision is passed and met by 91.50 points. The applicant received an ATAR of 90 or higher.

English excluding English as an additional language with a study score of 20

Passed

1 qualification

Condition is passed and met by one qualification with an actual grade. The applicant obtained a study score of 20 for units three and four in English.

English as an additional language with a study score of 25

Not required

None

The requirement is to meet one of the English conditions. The applicant has met the condition English excluding English as an additional language with a study score of 20, therefore the condition English as an additional language with a study score of 25 is no longer required.

Override conditions

You can override the status of the conditions in the main decision and additional conditions. However, you cannot override included conditions. If you override the main decision, the included conditions are set to the same status as the main decision.

An applicant with an International Baccalaureate Diploma failed to meet the International Baccalaureate conditions of the main decision. The applicant failed because they got a grade 3 in mathematics. The applicant applied for special consideration, and the assessment decision is to offer the applicant a place. Therefore, you override the main decision to passed, which also sets the included conditions to passed.

The table Override main decision to passed shows the status of the International Baccalaureate conditions for the main decision and conditions after the main decision was overridden to passed.

Override main decision to passed
Condition Status Met by Description

International Baccalaureate Diploma 25

Passed

Overridden

Main decision forced to passed and therefore met by overridden.

Grade 4 in mathematics

Passed

Overridden

Condition set to the same as the main decision.

Grade 4 in English

Passed

Overridden

Condition set to the same as the main decision.

Student visa

Passed

1 clearance check

Additional condition passed and met by one clearance check.

Override decisions

You can override the decision status to manually set the decision status.

A good applicant has only achieved an ATAR of 88.50. Therefore, the applicant failed the condition for ATAR of at least 90. However, as the applicant achieved a study score of 25 in specialist mathematics, a study score of 25 in English as an additional language, and has a student visa, you override the decision status from Failed to Passed.

The table Override decision status to passed shows the status of conditions for an applicant that failed the conditions of the main decision, but the decision status was overridden to passed.

Override decision status to passed
Condition name Status Met by Description

ATAR 90

Failed

None

Main decision failed as the applicant's ATAR is 88.50 and therefore met by is none.

Mathematical methods or specialist mathematics with a study score of 20

Passed

1 qualification

Condition passed and met by one qualification. The applicant received a study score of 25 in specialist mathematics.

English excluding English as an additional language with a study score of 20

Pending

1 qualification

The requirement is to meet one of the English conditions. The applicant has met the English as an additional language condition.

English as an additional language with a study score of 25

Passed

1 qualification

Condition passed and met by one qualification. The applicant received a study score of 25 in English as an additional language.

Student visa

Passed

1 clearance check

Additional condition passed and met by one clearance check.

Confirm decisions after override

After manually overriding a decision, such as setting the decision status from Pending to Passed, you need to confirm the decision. On confirming the decision, the new decision is recorded on the application overview as decision 2.

The table Decision and response summary confirming override shows the decision and response values for the original decision, decision 1, which was a conditional offer, and the new decision, decision 2, which was created after the decision status was overridden.

Decision and response summary after confirming override
Field Value Field Value

Decision 1

Conditional offer

Decision 1 date

11/11/2022

Response 1

Firmly accepted

Response 1 date

14/11/2022

Decision 2

Unconditional offer

Decision 2 date

13/12/2022

Response 2

Firmly accepted

Response 2 date

14/12/2022

After confirming a decision, you can unpublish the decision. For example, if you notice an error. Unpublishing a decision updates the application as follows:

  • Removes the response to the latest offer. For example, Decision 2.

  • Removes the latest decision and response summary from the application. For example, Decision 2.

  • Resets the decision back to the previous decision. For example, Decision 1.

Decision making and offer tracking demonstration

The video Decision making and offer tracking demonstration shows the decision making and offer tracking process as follows:

  1. Make decisions
  2. Submit decisions
  3. Reset decisions
  4. Publish decisions
  5. Respond to offers
  6. Track offers
  7. Override conditions
  8. Override decisions
  9. Confirm decisions after override
  10. Complete video (decision making and offer tracking)

Decision making and offer tracking demonstration