Important Note: This article discusses classic functionality. For information on the modern applicant experience, refer to the Applicant Experience Knowledgebase article.
This article covers the following topics related to Itinerary Records:
- What are Itinerary Records?
- Application Itinerary Records
- Program Itinerary Records
- How Application Itinerary Records are created
- Cascade Wizards
- Queries and Reports
What are Itinerary Records?
Itinerary records are used to determine when an applicant is actively participating in a program, when an applicant has completed her/his participation in a program, and, if the itinerary record has a location assigned, where the applicant will be between the record's start and end dates.
There are two types of itinerary records. One is an application itinerary record, and the other is a program itinerary record. Both types of itinerary records will always have a start date and an end date, but program itinerary records require a location to be assigned, and they are created to be specific to an application cycle (term and year).
Application Itinerary Records
When an application has dates during which the applicant will be actively participating in the application's program, the dates of participation are found in the application itinerary records that have been created for that application.
An application can have many application itinerary records assigned to it. Application itinerary records will always have a start date, an end date, and a location. Start and end dates are allowed to overlap in itinerary records.
When an application has application itinerary records, the earliest start date will be the date on which the application enters the 'abroad' phase of the application process. The 'returnee' phase of the application process will begin on the date after the latest end date. All calculations for abroad and returnee phase reminders as well as when the user enters the alumni phase (if enabled) and the length of time that SIS mapped parameters get refreshed will be based off these two dates as well.
The applicant will see any application itinerary records assigned to her/his applications both on the applicant home page in the 'Applications' panel as well as on the application pages in a panel called 'Itinerary'.
Above: view of itinerary from Applicant homepage.
Below: view of itinerary from Application page.
If the application's program type permits the applicants to add, edit, or delete application itinerary records at a designated phase, the appropriate button for adding records, an edit pencil, and/or the delete icon will appear in the 'Itinerary' panel of the application page when that point in the application process has been reached.
When an administrator views an application that has application itinerary records, the earliest start date and latest end date will appear in the header of the application admin interface.
The administrator can also view the full itinerary by going to the 'Itinerary' tab which is accessible when the admin has the following permission:
Applicant admin > Application admin: Itinerary
On this tab, the administrator can edit the existing application itinerary records by clicking on the edit pencil in the 'Actions' column of this list. When editing an application itinerary record, the admin can remove the location from the record, select from one of the locations currently assigned to that application's program, or assign a different global location from the site. If the Terra Dotta Location Web Service has been enabled on the site, the admin can also run a search for a city not currently created in the site's global locations list and add it to the application itinerary record (this also creates that location in the global locations list).
The administrator can also delete application itinerary records by clicking on the red 'X' in the 'Actions' column.
New application itinerary records can be added to the application by an administrator by clicking on the 'Add Application Itinerary Record' link at the bottom of the list on this page.
Program itinerary Records
Some program types have designated locations and dates on which all applicants will be participating. For these program types, there will be an 'Itinerary' tab in the program builder accessible to admins with the following permissions:
Program Admin -> Program builder: itinerary (view)
Program Admin -> Program builder: itinerary (add)
Program Admin -> Program builder: itinerary (edit)
The program itinerary records for a program are used as the template for the application itinerary records when an applicant applies to that program.
When viewing the 'Itinerary' tab's listing, all program itinerary records for that program will be displayed grouped by the application cycle to which they apply. The current year's groupings will be expanded, but previous years can be viewed by clicking on the grouping.
To add a new program itinerary record, the application cycle should be selected from the drop-down menu at the bottom of the page and the 'Add Itinerary Record' button clicked. It is only possible to create a program itinerary record for an app cycle if there is a program date record for that app cycle. If an application cycle is not appearing, it may be necessary to go to the 'Dates' tab of the program builder and create the program date record first.
When creating a program itinerary record, it is necessary to have a start date, an end date, and a location selected. The location must be one that is currently assigned to the program on the 'Locations' tab of the program builder.
A program itinerary record can be edited by clicking on the edit pencil in the listing or deleted by clicking on the red 'X' in the listing.
There is no limit to the number of program itinerary records that can be created for a single application cycle.
How Application Itinerary Records are created
The application itinerary records get generated for an application in multiple ways and not always when the application itself is created. Here are the methods by which an application gets application itinerary records assigned to it:
1.) Automatically through the program itinerary records, on creation of the application
When an application is created (whether by the applicant or an administrator), there will be a check to see if the application's program has any program itinerary records for the application cycle to which the user is applying. If there are program itinerary records found, application itinerary records will be made as copies of those program itinerary records.
In addition to this, if there are no program itinerary records found but there is a program date record with start and end dates for that application cycle, a location-less application itinerary record will be generated in the application with those start and end dates.
2.) Manually by the applicant
Some program types (Risk Management / Travel Registration) permit the applicant to add application itinerary records by providing start and end dates and, optionally, a location. Depending on the program type, this may only be possible on initial creation of the application or it may only be possible once a specific phase of the application process has been reached.
3.) Manually by the administrator
Administrators with access to the 'Itinerary' tab of the application admin interface have the ability to add application itinerary records to an application at any time in the processes.
4.) Through a cascade wizard due to a program-level change
Since some programs will not have complete itinerary information available when the programs start accepting applications, it is possible that there will be changes made at the program-level that will result in the need to also create application itinerary records for the existing applicants. See the next section for the details of how these cascade wizards check existing applications.
5.) Automatically due to a change in the application's program and/or application cycle
Whenever an administrator changes an application's program or app cycle on the 'Status' tab of the application admin interface, it will be necessary to remove all application itinerary records from that application and generate new ones using the program's itinerary/date records for the app cycle of the application.
Cascade Wizards
While all processes utilize the application itinerary records to determine an applicant's location and phase, these application itinerary records are often generated through the program's itinerary records or program's date records. It is common for these program-level records to either not be available at the time the applications are being started or to change during the application process. For this reason, we have a number of cascade wizards in place so that any updates to the program date records and program itinerary records can have those changes pushed out to the applications as well.
1.) When creating/editing a program date record
When an administrator is creating a program date record on the 'Dates' tab of the program builder, there are a couple of methods by which the data can be cascaded out.
First, if the program has a single location assigned to it, there will be a checkbox on the 'add' form that allows the admin to generate both a program date record and a program itinerary record with the start and end dates being entered. This is to prevent the need to create both a program date record and a matching itinerary record. This option is check by default.
Additionally, whenever a program date record is added or edited and there are start and end dates in the date record, the admin will be presented with a list of all applications for that program in that application cycle that have no application itinerary records and given the option of creating a location-less application itinerary record with matching start and end dates.
2.) When deleting a program date record
Whenever an administrator deletes a program date record, the administrator is presented with a list of all applications for that program in that application cycle that have application itinerary records with no location ID# assigned, and given the option of deleting those application itinerary records as well since those records might have been generated by that program date record.
3.) When creating/editing a program itinerary record
Whenever a program itinerary record is added or edited, the administrator is presented with a list of all applications in that application cycle for the program. It is possible that those applications will either need to have the program itinerary record added to their application as an application itinerary record or, if they have an application itinerary record previously created by the program itinerary record being edited, have an existing application itinerary record updated with the changes. The admin will have the option of updating both the program itinerary record and application itinerary records at the same time.
4.) When deleting a program itinerary record
Whenever a program itinerary record is deleted from a program, the administrator is presented with a list of all applications in that application cycle for the program that have an application itinerary record that had been created by the program itinerary record being deleted. The admin with have the option of removing the application itinerary records from those applications as well as from the program.
Queries and Reports
Whenever an application's itinerary is modified by the addition, editing, or deleting of an application itinerary record, there is a 'last update' date assigned to that application record. The application query tool Application Admin -> Advanced Search allow you to query your applications based on this date. The criteria can be found in the 'Application Parameters' section of the query form in the 'Application Activity' list.
Applications can be queried by specific dates of the last update or by using the 'In the last' option to search based on a relative timeframe such as 'In the last 5 days'.
When searching applications based on the 'Region', 'Country', or 'City' criteria in the advanced search, the results will be based on the applications that have those location options in the application itinerary records.
The locator search will also be exclusively using the application itinerary records as the criteria when search for applications that will be in the 'abroad' phase in a designated location during a specific timeframe.
When generating Excel and Text Exports from the search results page, the column 'Itinerary_Locations' will display the locations in any application itinerary records of the application record.
The report wizard provides an option called 'Itinerary' in the 'Additional Information' output column options that will display all the application itinerary records for the application.