Summary
ApplyOS takes a provider from “we are running an intake” to “these people are enrolled” without the spreadsheet in the middle. It publishes an intake to a public microsite, collects applications against a form you designed, checks eligibility automatically, moves applicants through a pipeline, issues offers and converts accepted offers into enrolments.
The conversion at the end is the point. An admissions system that hands you a list to retype has not saved anybody anything.
Who This Guide Is For
- Administrators and registry staff who run intakes
- Academic managers who set entry requirements
- Marketing staff who point people at the application
Prerequisites
- A programme, and an offering or intake to recruit for
- Your entry requirements written down
- Provider branding configured, since applicants see it
Step 1: Open an Intake
Navigate to Admissions → Opportunities.
An opportunity is the thing people apply to: a programme intake, with a closing date, a site and a number of places. Attach the programmes it admits to.
Step 2: Build the Application Form
Navigate to Admissions → Forms.
Ask for what you will actually use. Every field is a reason for somebody not to finish the form, and an application nobody finishes is a learner you never met. Identity number, contact details, prior learning, documents — then stop.
Forms are versioned. An applicant who started on version 2 stays on version 2; changing the form does not retroactively invalidate applications in flight.
Step 3: Set the Eligibility Rules
Navigate to Admissions → Rules.
Rules check an application against your entry requirements automatically — age, prior qualification, documents present. A rule produces a result and a reason, not a rejection: eligibility is advice to the person deciding, and it is shown with its reasoning so they can override it knowingly.
Step 4: Publish the Microsite
Your intake gets a public application page at /apply/your-provider-slug.
Check it before you advertise it. The page will refuse to open and tell you what is missing if the intake is not ready — no open opportunity, no form, no branding. That refusal is deliberate and it is better than a page that accepts applications you cannot process.
Tip: Send the link to yourself and complete a full application as an applicant would. Ten minutes here saves the intake.
Step 5: Screen and Score
Navigate to Admissions → Applications.
Applications arrive in the pipeline. Work them through the stages: verification of documents, eligibility review, interview if you interview, decision. Scoring is available where you need to rank more applicants than places.
Filter by verification state to find the applications waiting on a document rather than on a decision — that is usually the largest group and the fastest to clear.
Step 6: Make Offers
Navigate to Admissions → Offers.
An offer has a response deadline. Track acceptances and declines; a decline is as useful as an acceptance because it releases a place while there is still time to fill it.
Step 7: Convert to Enrolment
Navigate to Admissions → Conversion.
Accepted offers convert into learner records and enrolments. This is the step that ends the double-capture: the data the applicant typed becomes the learner record, rather than being retyped from it.
Check conversion output against the register. Anything that failed to convert usually failed on a required field the form did not ask for — fix the form for next intake.
What Good Looks Like
- The public application page has been completed end to end by somebody on your staff
- Eligibility rules exist and their reasons are readable
- Declines are recorded, not just acceptances
- Enrolments are created by conversion, never retyped
Common Mistakes
- A long form. Every extra field costs applicants.
- Advertising before testing the microsite. The 422 readiness list exists to catch this; read it.
- Treating an eligibility result as a decision. It is advice with reasons.
- Retyping accepted applicants into the learner register. Use conversion.