University Southern California

The Problem
With fierce competition and a potential student market "shopping" within a tight timeframe, how can educational institutions better manage the process of attracting, responding and capturing new students?  Business automation tools provide the optimal solution. They lay the foundation for integrating and managing all information involved in the admissions process, from acquisition to servicing to retention. However, these solutions must also deliver cost reductions and continuous service improvements.  This means the right information gets to the right person at the right time – regardless of interaction channel, i.e. voice, fax, e-mail or the web. The ‘winner’ will be the enterprise that can modify their business processes better, smarter, faster.  The Challenges The admissions process is an involved interdepartmental transfer of documents that capture the experience of a student’s life, career and aspirations. In addition, the demands on graduate admissions have increased steadily making the process even more labor intensive and costly. The decision to admit an applicant is made after careful, multi-layered analysis involving manual
processes that can cause delays, misplaced applications and archiving difficulties. Traditionally, when a candidate’s application is received it is logged and placed into a file along with letters of recommendation, a processing fee, official transcripts, essays or other relevant documents. And these may arrive at different times.  Once the file is finally complete, it can take anywhere from 48 hours to 10 days for it to leave the Admissions Office and reach the appropriate department(s). Photocopying, re-checking paper files and periodic staff shortages are only a few of the reasons for delays. And, once the admissions process has been completed and a decision rendered, a cumbersome and space-intensive archival and storage process begins. 

The Solution
An intelligent, expedient innovation that will leverage existing investments and various technologies, seamlessly integrate information from multiple sources, and deliver it automatically to the appropriate next step. Whether that next step is a machineto-machine interaction or requires the discretionary judgement of a knowledge worker.  And this innovation is VisiFLOW® from Datamax Technologies, Inc., the benchmark solution for high-volume, transaction-based process automation needs. Driving this technology is VisiFLOW’s powerful Workflow engine, which unites the entire business process automation function.
• It captures documents – Imaging, Fax, OCR, Bar Codes, EDI, forms, web, and mainframe reports.
• It processes documents – routing, complex decision rules, legacy access, escalation, and quality assurance.
• It archives documents – COLD, Indexing, Document management … and much more.
VisiFLOW provides substantial value by delivering new technology modules
to the customer in such a way that these modules are immediately usable, rather than requiring intricate application programming and complex third party integration.  VisiFLOW delivers mission-critical automation for the admissions process and many others. It’s the most complete and easy-to-use solution in the industry.  Experience the impacts of VisiFLOW.
• Simplify the admission process. Its electronic system will intelligently capture, process, archive, and report on prospective and current undergraduate and graduate application documents.  The electronically re-designed system is much more than an University of Southern California Attracts Students with Quality Admissions Process enhancement to an institution’s document management process, it will drive faster, more efficient decision-making relating to prospective candidates.
• Improve the speed, quality and accuracy of service to applicants,
admitted students, staff and faculty. Its capabilities not only eliminate many of the disadvantages of handling paper documents; it increases the ways the information can be used. With VisiFLOW, documents are readily available to the workflow, which means documents can be viewed instantly and simultaneously by multiple users. In addition, converting from a paper to an electronic format saves enormous storage costs, avoids lost or misfiled documents, and preserves the integrity of the original.
• Manage workloads more efficiently by browsing real-time and historical statistical information, including scanning, indexing, and quality assurance, and reports. The power of the architecture is evident in its ability to provide an integrated view of the steps, work-in-process and queues across departments or through the entire enterprise.