Admissions and Recruitment
Peak season does not have four days
Once the decision reaches the student system, every question about who is admitted, deposited, registered, housed, and at risk of melting is answerable from the record you already own. Argos gives admissions counselors that view without a ticket to IT and without dumping it all back into the CRM.
Running Argos at community colleges, private institutions, and public university systems
The situation
The decision posts, and the counselor loses sight of the student
The CRM carries a prospect through the decision. After that the student lives in the student system: admitted, deposited, registered, housed, aid file complete or not. Every one of those is a melt signal, and the counselor who built the relationship is the last person to see it.
01
The decision leaves the CRM and the counselor goes blind
Deposited but not registered, registered but no housing, aid file still open. Each lives in the student system, and getting it back into the CRM is a ticket, a field mapping, and an extract somebody has to maintain.
02
The checklist letter is a merge, and it goes out a few thousand times
Every time a document arrives, somebody regenerates the letter telling the student what is still missing, during the weeks the office has the least time to do it.
03
Four admissions cycles run on one team
Traditional, non-traditional, graduate, and dual enrollment each have their own calendar, their own documents, and their own deadlines. The same two people run all of them, and the reporting was built for one.
04
Last year's stop-outs are a list nobody has pulled
Students who left in good standing with credits on the record are the cheapest enrollment you will find this year. They are sitting in the student system, and nobody has the query.
Governed self-service
Every admitted student, from decision to first day, on one list
Your report writer builds the melt watch once: admitted and deposited, registered or not, housing assigned or not, aid file complete or not, transfer credit evaluated or not. Each counselor opens their own view of it, filters it, and exports it without seeing the schema or holding a database login.
The list arrives on a schedule, so the counselor is working the gaps on Monday morning instead of asking for a report on Wednesday. Prior-year comparisons run from the same objects, because last year's admitted class is in the same record.
- Melt watch built once and permissioned to counselors, with deposited, registered, housing, and aid status side by side
- Transfer credit evaluation status shared with the registrar, so a transfer admit is not waiting on a decision nobody can see
- Same-date-last-year comparisons from the student record, without a spreadsheet
- No ERP login required, with unlimited users under the institutional license
- Dashboard Designer builds and shares the admitted-class dashboard from the browser, readable on a phone
“What used to take 2-3 days and multiple people is now one step that takes 5-10 minutes.”
Ryan Barrameda · Admissions System Manager · Fashion Institute of Technology
Argos X
The follow-up question, answered before deposit day
The dean asks how many deposited students have not registered, by college. The VP asks how that compares to the same week last year. In peak season there is no four-day window for a report request.
Argos X puts the admitted class in a browser. Explore Data filters and sorts the list, Pivot Mode reshapes it by college, residency, or program, and Argos Data Agent answers a plain-language question against the same governed data with the SQL shown. None of it leaves the record the counselor already trusts.
- Explore Data and Pivot Mode to reshape the admitted class without a new report request
- Argos Data Agent for the plain-language follow-up, with the SQL visible
- Dashboards published for the enrollment management group and the cabinet from the same objects
- Dashboard Designer, Explore Data, and Pivot Mode are included with Argos at no additional cost
- Argos Data Agent is licensed separately, in Core and Advanced tiers
“Our Admissions Summary Dashboard is a favorite at the leadership level. They can get a quick glance at trends and demographics anytime, with confidence in the data.”
Ryan Barrameda · Admissions System Manager · Fashion Institute of Technology
FormFusion and Argos
The checklist that tells a student what is still missing, without the merge
The document an applicant reads most often is the one telling them what the file still needs. It is also the one most often assembled by hand during the busiest weeks of the cycle, and it goes out again every time something arrives.
Where your ERP already runs the process, FormFusion takes that output and turns it into the finished letter, with your branding and the fields the baseline template cannot carry, delivered into the portal or by encrypted email. Where there is no delivered process for a document, Argos produces it from the record and delivers it on a schedule: the aid-file reminder, the registration nudge, the housing deadline notice the CRM never sends because the CRM never sees them.
- FormFusion, on the Ellucian-delivered processes: missing-item checklist letters, deposit confirmations, scholarship notifications
- Argos, for the communications your ERP has no process for: aid-file reminders, registration and housing nudges to admitted students, generated and delivered on a schedule
- Conditional content, so one process handles every variant of the checklist
- Neither requires the other. FormFusion works with the delivered processes; Argos offers more flexibility.
Four cycles, one team
Graduate, non-traditional, dual enrollment, and traditional, on their own calendars from one set of objects
A graduate program collects more documents and decides on a rolling basis. Dual enrollment runs on the high school calendar with a partner and a parent in the loop. Non-traditional admits arrive every term. Traditional admissions has a deposit day. The same office runs all four, and most reporting was built for the fourth one.
Argos lets your team define each cycle once, on the population and the calendar that cycle uses, and lets the counselor who owns it run the list. The re-engagement list comes from the same place: students who stopped out in good standing in a prior term, with credits on the record, ready for a call before the next term opens.
- Graduate admissions with document completeness and rolling decisions tracked by program
- Dual enrollment by partner high school, with the agreement and approval status the partner asks about
- Non-traditional and returning-adult admits reported on the term they start, not the fall cycle
- Stop-out re-engagement lists from prior terms, built once and run before every registration window
- Cohort definitions saved once and run the same way in a later year, for the federal and state submissions that ask for applicant, admit, and enrollee detail
“Letters are generated as PDFs and uploaded into Slate automatically, replacing an Excel-based manual process while the office was operating with reduced staff.”
Heidelberg University · Enrollment and Financial Aid · Heidelberg University
The admitted class, from decision to first day
Deposited, registered, housed, aid complete: every status a counselor needs, on one list, from the student system you already own. See it in a demo.
In their words
Enrollment teams, during the season
Recruitment and admissions work that had been running on manual effort, automated at each of these institutions.
Outcome
Letters are generated as PDFs and uploaded into Slate automatically, replacing an Excel-based manual process while the office was operating with reduced staff.
Heidelberg University
Enrollment and Financial Aid
“
As Registrar, my mantra is to automate any and all functions where possible.
Steve Voudouris, Registrar
Holmesglen Institute of TAFE
Student Administration
Automated daily communications replaced mailed notices and invitations, improving timeliness and student response while cutting postage and paper.
“
The access to better data has unlocked creativity within our teams. People are now asking, 'How could this be better?'
Colin Hilton-MacFarlane, AVP for Institutional Research and Effectiveness
Stetson University
Enrollment Management
Reporting on one set of definitions instead of competing sources of truth, with student communications produced from the same data.
“
People are not only getting the information they need, but they're learning how to think about data as well.
Jon King, Business Intelligence Analyst
Lansing Community College
Enrollment Services
Governed self-service reporting across enrollment functions, with report access decoupled from ERP accounts.
Related
The offices on the other side of the decision
Registrar and Enrollment Services
Transfer credit, registration, and the lists both offices run every term.
Financial Aid
The aid file that has to close before the student is enrolled.
Student Success and Retention
The same indicators, after the first day of class.
Private Institutions
Where every admit is a net revenue question.
How it fits
Where this sits in an enrollment office
With your CRM
Your CRM owns recruitment through the decision: the prospect, the communication flows, the campaign. Argos picks up when the decision posts to the student system and answers everything after it, from the record. It does not blend the two systems into one report; what it gives the counselor is the half of the student's story the CRM never sees, without an extract back into the CRM.
With Ellucian Insights
Insights aggregates across Ellucian products on a managed data layer. Argos runs against your own environment on your team's definitions, with the admitted-class list permissioned to the counselors who work it. Most institutions run both.
Versus your current process
Today the melt list is a spreadsheet somebody rebuilds from the student system each week, the graduate and dual enrollment cycles are tracked separately by hand, and last year's stop-outs are nobody's job. It is what happens when the reporting was built for one cycle.
Trust and security
You take security seriously. So do we.
The Trust Center is published and the HECVAT is available on request, so a reviewer can start before anyone schedules a call.
Permissions are enforced, never overridden
A report can only be opened by someone your team has permissioned to run it, and a view is built for the role that needs it.
Authentication
LDAP group sync and SAML SSO configured once at the MAPS layer, with permission tiers set per product in the same place, by the same team.
Production performance
Query queuing and priority keep reporting load from competing with the transactional system during peak.
Data handling
FERPA-aligned practices, encryption in transit, and AES-encrypted password-protected document delivery. For Argos Data Agent, masking or redaction of sensitive fields.
Minors and dual enrollment
Views built for high school partners carry only what the dual enrollment agreement covers, and are permissioned to the partner alone.
Documentation
Trust Center, and a HECVAT (the standard higher education security questionnaire) on request.
Frequently asked questions
Questions we get asked first
We run a CRM. Do we need this?
If your CRM carries the student all the way to the first day of class and your counselors can see registration, housing, and aid status inside it, you need less of this. Most CRMs stop at the decision. Argos covers what happens after it posts to the student system, without an extract back into the CRM. Offices without a CRM build a good share of the recruitment workflow in Argos too.
Does Argos join our CRM data to the student system?
No. Argos reports on each system through its own connection. It does not merge CRM records and student records into one row. What it does is give the counselor the student-system half of the picture, which is the half the CRM does not have.
Is this a CRM?
No. Your CRM owns recruitment. Argos answers what happened to those students once the decision posted.
Can a counselor see only their own admits?
Access is granted per folder and DataBlock, so a view built for one group is permissioned to that group and nobody else can open it. Your team controls that in one place, and the same model covers dashboards and Argos Data Agent. A view is built for the audience that needs it.
Can we compare to the same date last year automatically?
Yes. The comparison lives in the report object instead of being rebuilt each morning, because last year's admitted class is in the same student record.
How current is the melt list?
Straight from the data source, with no extract to refresh, which matters most during peak.
Can we track graduate admissions separately?
Yes. Each cycle is its own population and calendar, defined once by your team. Graduate programs get document completeness and rolling-decision tracking by program; dual enrollment gets the partner-school view.
Can we find students who stopped out and re-engage them?
Yes. Students who left in good standing with credits on the record are a list your team defines once and runs before every registration window, delivered to the counselor who owns the outreach.
What is included with Argos, and what is licensed separately?
Dashboard Designer, Explore Data, and Pivot Mode are included with Argos at no additional cost. Argos Data Agent is licensed separately, in Core and Advanced tiers.
What happens to applicant data when someone uses Data Agent?
Argos Data Agent operates under Zero Data Retention, honors existing permissions, and supports masking and redaction of sensitive fields. It runs against governed objects instead of the raw database.
Do we need Argos to use FormFusion?
No. They are separate products used for different things. FormFusion works with the Ellucian-delivered processes and turns their output into the finished document. Argos offers more flexibility and answers questions against your data. Neither requires the other.
Can we assemble historical applicant and admit data for federal submissions?
Yes, to the extent the student system captured it. Cohort definitions run the same way in a later year. What was never captured cannot be recovered by any tool.
How does this coexist with Ellucian Insights?
Insights aggregates across Ellucian products on a managed data layer. Argos runs against your own environment on your team's definitions. Most institutions run both.
Do users need a Banner or Colleague login?
No. Licensing is per institution with unlimited users, and report access does not require an ERP seat.
What does it cost, and can we talk to an enrollment team like ours?
Licensing is per institution rather than per user, and price is driven by institution size and product mix rather than headcount. Argos, Argos X, FormFusion, and IntelleCheck all carry unlimited users and unlimited connections, with no per-connection or per-report charge and nothing billed for people who only read reports. The one exception is Argos Data Agent Advanced, which is licensed per seat. Data Agent Core is unlimited. Tell us your FTE and which products you are weighing and we will give you a real figure on the first call, then put you in touch with an institution of roughly your size and ERP. Ask them about support while you are there. It is in-house, and it is the thing customers raise unprompted more than anything else.
Next step
The melt list, before it is a melt number
Every admitted student with a gap between deposit and first day, on a list the counselor opens Monday morning. Get a demo.
Ellucian Partner Award
2025: Customer First
Ethos Connected
since 2020
Ellucian partner
22 years