Application Process Preparation

Audience: This page is intended for Providers, not for Applicants.

This page provides provides information about the steps that a provider should take PRIOR to any defined application period (such as a Renewal period, or a Wait List Renewal period).

Before your first cycle

The items in this section only need to be performed once, during the first year that you process applications of this type (Wait List Renewal, Application, Renewal) using the software. In the future, you only need to do these steps if you want to make changes to your process.

• Configure your application form

Make sure that the online application shows the appropriate fields, requires the appropriate fields, and restricts updates to the appropriate fields. You can do this by going to the Application Type page, clicking the Edit button next to the appropriate application type, and then clicking the Preview button next to the appropriate situation.

• Configure your communication to the applicants

You will want to send out some sort of communication to your applicants to let them know to submit their application, and to provide instructions for how to do so. You can configure this letter by going to the Communication page.

In your communication, you should provide instructions about how to access their renewal application:

• For people receiving your notice by e-mail, use the mail merge field #AccessLink#.  This will insert a link into the e-mail communication that will take the applicant directly to their renewal form, if the renewal status is "Incomplete".  If the status is not incomplete, this link will bring the applicant to the Online Mooring home page for your harbor, with their application shown in the "My Applications" area.
• For people receiving your notice by regular mail, provide them with a link to your Online Mooring home page:  http://my.OnlineMooring.com/<ProviderName>  (replacing <ProviderName> with the actual name of your harbor).  They will need to enter an Access Code to access their application(s), and you can include the access code in your letter by using the mail merge field #guid#

Standard communications provided by Online Mooring provide this information.

Before each cycle

• Verify that you are done processing the applications  from the last cycle

If there are any applications that have an "Under Review" Application Status, they were never approved/rejected during the last cycle.  If you process all of your applications at the same time, then you should approve/reject all of these applications.

If there are any applications that have an "Incomplete" Application Status, this means the applicants never submitted their application from the last cycle.  If you process all of your applications at the same time, you should cancel all of these applications.

• Verify that the Outstanding Balances Report shows correct numbers

The Outstanding Balance report will list all charges that have not been paid, according to the records in Online Mooring.  When the applicants complete their next application, Online Mooring will try to collect the outstanding balance, in addition to any new fees (if any) for the new application.

If the balances on this report are correct, this behavior is fine.  If the balances are not correct, you will get many questions and complaints.  The Outstanding Balance report help lists the possible problems and how to correct them.

• Verify that your configuration is correct

If your fee schedule have changes since the last time you ran this process, the fee formulas will need to be updated on the Actions page.  Please contact Online Mooring help to get these changed correctly.

• Specify which applications can be renewed

Applicants can complete an Application when the status of their application has the word "Allowed" in it. This allows you to control which applications can be submitted.

You can set the status to this value by going to the Application Action page and adding an "Allowed" action and specifying the start date and end date of the renewal period. Note that you can do this on individual applications or in bulk.

• Notify applicant(s) to submit their application

Send a communication to the applicants that need to submit their application, using the product. You can do this by clicking on the e-mail address on the Application Summary page. This will bring you to the Communication page, where you can select a message template and send it out.

To do this in bulk, go to the Application Search page, select an Application Status of "Allowed" and click Search. This will give you a list of all applications where the applicants can currently submit their application. Then, click on the Communicate link at the bottom of the page to initiate a communication to each of the applicants in the list.