A tracking step is a visible indication of where an application is on the enrollment journey process. All applications progress through the Tracking Step journey and can be associated with only one Tracking Step at a time. Tracking Steps can be used as a filter in the Traveler, Application or Form Dashboards to quickly find travelers in a particular phase of their enrollment journey.
There are 3 things that inform application-related tracking steps:
- An Application
- Application status
- Term dates
Based on the 'Show Exact Dates' setting, the accuracy of the tracking step for the application will be impacted. For example, an admin add a Spring 2025 Term with traveler dates of Jan 15, 2025 - May 5, 2025.
If 'Show Exact Dates' in toggled ON, all applications in the Committed status will appear under the On-Site Tracking Step from Jan 15, 2025 through May 5, 2025.
If 'Show Exact Dates' in toggled OFF, all applications in the Committed status will appear under the On-Site Tracking Step from Jan 1, 2025 through May 31, 2025.
Via recommends that once traveler dates are confirmed, that admins with permission toggle 'Show Exact Dates' to ON. To learn more about the Show Exact Dates toggle, click here.
A Traveler without an application will be in the Interested Tracking Step. Travelers remain in the Interested Tracking Step until they start an application. Once a Traveler starts an application, they will move to the Applying Tracking Step and then progress through the rest of the Tracking Steps based on application status and program term dates.
Tracking steps update automatically and cannot be manually changed by an Admin or a Traveler. There are 5 application-related tracking steps:
- Applying
- Pre-departure*
- On-site*
- Alumni*
- Deferred/Withdrawn/Closed
*indicates a step that is contingent upon the application status being Committed
Applying
All applications for a future program & term are associated with the Applying Tracking Step if in any of the following statuses:
- Incomplete
- Submitted
- In Review
- Waitlisted
- Conditionally Accepted
- Conditionally Approved
- Approved
- Nominated
- Not Accepted
- Accepted
Pre-departure
An application automatically moves from Applying to Pre-Departure once the status of the application to a future term (the program start date is in the future) is changed from any status to Committed.
On-site
A Committed application automatically moves from Pre-Departure to On-site when:
- The program start date is in the past
AND - The program end date is in the future
Alumni
A Committed application automatically moves from On-site to Alumni when:
- The program start date is in the past
AND - The program end date is in the past
Deferred/Withdrawn/Closed
An application automatically moves from any tracking step to Deferred/Withdrawn/Closed when:
- The application status is updated to any of the following statuses regardless of term dates:
- Deferred
- Withdrawn
- Transferred
OR - The term timing of the application is on-site or past and the application status is any of the following:
- Incomplete
- Submitted
- In Review
- Conditionally Accepted
- Waitlisted
- Nominated
- Conditionally Approved
- Approved
- Accepted
- Not Accepted
Travelers can have more than one Tracking Step, given they have more than one application. For example, a Traveler with an application in the Committed status for a program with a start date in the future is in the Pre-departure Tracking Step. If that same Traveler also has an application in the Committed status for a program with an end date in the past, the Traveler will also be in the Alumni Tracking Step.