Terra Dotta ISSS Student takes everything our clients love about Terra Dotta's classic ISSS and makes it simpler, easier to configure, and easier to manage.
For Staff: An all-new workspace is designed for efficiency. Review, approve, and process requests and data changes from all sources in one place. Enjoy an easy, intuitive setup and configuration of the student experience along with data-driven workflows to assign requests to the right advisor.
For Students: A tailored, easy to understand experience where the right information and tools are presented at the right time.
Learn more about ISSS Student.
Criteria for Transitioning to the ISSS Student
We currently encourage all Terra Dotta ISSS clients to begin the process of configuring ISSS Student. As of the publishing of this article, certain conditions are not fully supported. Clients who fall into the following categories should follow the steps in this document, but may need to wait a little longer before their final transition:
- Clients utilizing Terra Dotta for admissions applications
Terra Dotta is releasing continuous updates to ISSS Student, introducing additional capabilities and functionality and we expect to support all of these scenarios soon
Getting Started
This step-by-step guide will assist you in preparing to transition to ISSS Student. Terra Dotta clients will be able to complete the steps outlined in this article on their own to prepare for ISSS Student without interrupting current processes.
Prior to cutting over, you will need assistance from Terra Dotta support in order to integrate ISSS Student with your Student Information System (SIS). The steps for the SIS integration are completed on the Terra Dotta end, and in most cases, do not require help from your campus IT department.
If you are considering transitioning, please open a support request and Terra Dotta will work with you to review the process and help evaluate the optimal timing for your organization's transition.
Step One: Create Stage Configurations
The Stage Configuration Wizard makes configuration easy with an intuitive interface for administrators to create custom experiences for students specific to their visa-type and their stage in the Student Lifecycle. From the Invited Stage through the Archived Stage, information and instructions for students are set up in the Stage Configuration. Stages can be configured by visa type, campus, and education level and components within the stage can be conditional by primary major and country of citizenship. All of this is accomplished with an intuitive, drag and drop interface.
Design and configure the student stages for the various stages. Here you can display announcements and important information to students as well as access to program, personal, and financial details and where students can initiate requests. Note: review and configure the default configurations that were set up 'out-of-the-box' in your production site.
Read about:
- Overview
- Invited Stage
- Pre-Arrival, Check-In, Continuing, Post Completion/Graduated, and Archived Stages
Step Two: Create and Configure Requests
Request Configurations allow ISSS Admins to create and configure all of the requests that students will be able to complete in the various stages of the Student Lifecycle. A Request is an action process that can be initiated by both the student and the ISSS Admin to update information, apply for OPT/CPT, or provide any additional information to the ISSS office. Requests can also come in from updates from your integrated SIS.
As a rule, you will need to create a new request to correspond to each of your existing programs. Note that we have provided numerous common out-of-the-box SEVIS-Mapped requests. These can be configured to your institution's needs.
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Step Three: Set up Student Request Assignments
Once requests have been initiated, whether by the student, the DSO, or coming in from the SIS; these can be assigned to ISSS Admins to be reviewed and processed via the Student Request List. This new hub consolidates all requests in one place for more efficient processing. Review, approve, or dismiss, requests from students and from Student Information System updates before batching or submitting via RTI Connect. Configure how requests are assigned through the Student Request Assignments.
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Step Four: Configure Site Design in Site Settings
Customize your ISSS Student pages with your organization's colors and logo in the Primary Color, Secondary Color, and Login Page Logo Image fields.
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Step Five: Configure F-1 and J-1 Student Templates
The Templates page of ISSS Student allows you to configure templates to use when creating new F-1 and J-1 students. These templates are configured with personal, program, contact, financial information, or site of activity that can be used to pre-fill common information when creating new students. For example, if you have multiple J-1 students with the same site of activity, you can pre-populate this field in your J-1 Student Templates in order to save time.
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Step Six: Customize and Create Email Templates
The Email Templates page contains out-of-the-box email notifications for students that can be configured to meet your institution's branding and language requirements. Email Templates are customized emails that are designed to fit different email notification needs of your institution. Templates allow the ISSS Admin quick access to send standardized emails to students for a variety of reasons.
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Step Seven: Review SEVIS Settings and SEVIS Assistant Privileges
The SEVIS Settings page contains all information pertaining to DHS School Codes and where officers and assistants for campus sites can be configured. Review the SEVIS Settings page to ensure that the staff members of your institution that need access to ISSS Student have been set up as P/DSOs, A/ROs, and SEVIS Assistants.
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Step Eight: Set up the Modern Login
The Modern Login experience is a sophisticated login and user registration portal that creates a compelling entrance into all that awaits your staff and students in Terra Dotta ISSS.
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Step Nine: Going Live
Once you have completed the steps in this document, you are almost ready to go live. When you open your support request to configure your SIS integration, your support agent will be able to provide final cutover details.