It is often necessary for study abroad offices to locate applicants who take side trips or excursions while studying abroad through an outgoing program. A Risk Management program can be used to capture travel destinations and dates, emergency contacts, and other information needed when students take 'Side Trips.'
The side trip program provides a means by which study abroad participants can report their plans to be away from their primary location while abroad. The application will ask them to select their destination(s) and enter departure and return dates. A questionnaire may also be used to gather additional information such as emergency contact details.
Like all risk management programs, the side trip program will not be accessible through public program searches and listings. To provide access to the side trip registration, the administrator must create an entry point to the application in an appropriate location. A common choice, illustrated below, is to place an application button or hyperlink on the applicant's program application page in the post-decision and abroad phases.
Administrators can use the Locator Search ( Applicants > Locator Search) to find participants in outgoing programs and side trips who are, or will be, in a specific location on a given date or date range. From the Locator Search results page, administrators can then communicate quickly and efficiently with participants or other contacts through a batch email, SMS text message or other means.
CRITICAL NOTE: The only side trip applications found by the Locator Search are those having a status of ' accepted' or ' committed' and whose application or program has a Start Date and an End Date.
Creating a Side Trip Program
Enable feature - The Risk Management program type must be activated through Settings > System Features.
Enable multiple applications - On the Settings > System Features > Process Options page the 'Enable applicants to have multiple applications for the same program in the same application cycle' setting must be checked off in order to allow applicants to register more than one side trip in any application cycle.
Program settings - From Programs > Create New, create a new program called "Side Trip." Select "Risk Management" as the program type and 'Committed' as the default status of new applications.
Brochure - Brochure content is usually minimal, containing brief instructions and directing applicants to register their side trip details by clicking 'Apply Now.'
Terms - If your existing terms do not adequately describe the periods when side trips may run, you can create a new term such as "Registration" to be applied to the side trip program.
Parameters - If desired, program parameters that are used for outgoing, incoming, or scholarship programs can also be used for risk management programs. This can be useful for reporting and query filter purposes, for example: running a query to find all students who went on an outgoing and/or risk management program with a certain program parameter.
The aspect of program parameters to remember when applying them to risk management programs is that the nature of a risk management program is more dynamic than a standard program - since the locations and dates may vary between applicants (even the nature of events within the applications themselves may differ), the assigned program parameter values should be considered closely to assure that the applications generated for the program will truly reflect the assigned values.
The aspect of program parameters to remember when applying them to risk management programs is that the nature of a risk management program is more dynamic than a standard program - since the locations and dates may vary between applicants (even the nature of events within the applications themselves may differ), the assigned program parameter values should be considered closely to assure that the applications generated for the program will truly reflect the assigned values.
Questionnaires - Applicants are automatically prompted to enter travel destination and dates. To gather additional information, you may create a risk management questionnaire ( Process > Questionnaires > Risk Management). Make sure to apply the questionnaire to the existing application cycle process maps. Materials can also be assigned but are not normally appropriate for side trips.
Applicant parameters - If faculty or staff will be registering for side trips, they will be required to answer all mandatory applicant parameters. You may disable the deployment of those parameters by disabling the setting "Applicant Parameter Requirements" on the Settings tab of the program builder. That will allow people to register their travel plans without requiring them to enter applicant parameters such as 'Major' and 'GPA.'
Creating Entry Points to Side Trip Applications
Option 1: Create a button to the side trip application page
- Open the program builder of the side trip program.
- On the Settings tab, obtain the HTML code for the 'Apply Now' button. If desired, change 'Apply Now' to a different name. In the illustration below, the name was changed to 'Register Side Trip.'
- Copy the HTML code of the 'Apply Now' button to your clipboard.
- Exit the program builder of the side trip program.
- Open the program builder of the relevant study abroad program.
- On the Settings tab for the outgoing program, paste the HTML code into the appropriate 'Applicant Instructions' field(s). You may add instructions as well.
- Update.
^ Applicant view of button appearing on program application page
Option 2: Create a hyperlink to the side trip brochure
- The 'Apply Now' ('Register Side Trip') button will by-pass the brochure page. If you want the applicant to read the brochure content before registering, you should deploy a hyperlink to the side trip brochure page.
- Open the program builder of the side trip program
- On the Settings tab, copy the access URL to your clipboard.
- Exit the program builder of the side trip program.
- Open the program builder of the relevant study abroad program.
- On the Settings tab of the outgoing program, in the appropriate 'Applicant Instructions' field, enter your instructions, using the sample text below as a guide and replacing the yellow-highlighted URL with the URL from your clipboard:
Register your side trip information by following the instructions found on the <a href="http://studyabroad.terradotta.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Programs.ViewProgram&Program_ID=10234&Type=R" target="_blank">side trip brochure page</a>.
- Update.
^ Applicant view of text and hyperlink appearing on program application page
Administering Side Trip Applications
Administrators can find side trip applications through an advanced search (Applicants > Advanced Search), making sure to select 'Risk Management' as a 'Show' criterion. By opening an applicant's side trip application and selecting the 'Risk Management' tab, the administrator can then edit the location and date entries made by the applicant.