During admissions season, the front office is the first point of contact for most enquiring families - and often the last line of defence before an application goes cold. Families who do not hear back promptly move on. Applications that sit without a response or a next step create backlogs that pile up fast.

This guide is written for front office and administrative staff who handle admissions queries, manage OpenApply day-to-day, and are often the ones who actually keep the pipeline moving - even if the formal admissions decisions sit with someone else.

This guide covers some operational and communication best practices that typically sit with admissions or front office staff. Decisions about offers, rejections, and waitlisting should always be made by the relevant decision-maker.

Types of Enquiries and How to Handle Each

"We are interested in applying - where do we start?"

Send the family the direct link to your school's OpenApply application portal. Do not send a general website link and ask them to find it - the fewer steps between an enquiry and the application form, the better. If your school has an information pack or a fee schedule to share at this stage, attach it to the same response. Log the enquiry in OpenApply as a new prospect if your school tracks pre-application enquiries.

"We started an application but cannot find it / cannot log back in"

Search for the family in OpenApply by parent email address. If the account exists, resend the login link or password reset from the applicant's profile. If no account exists, the application may have been started under a different email address - ask the parent to check which email they used. If you still cannot find it, it is possible the application was never fully submitted; ask the family to start again and reassure them the process is quick.

"We submitted our application - what happens next?"

Check the application in OpenApply and confirm which stage it is currently in. Give the family a clear, honest answer about the next step and the expected timeline. If the application is waiting on missing documents, tell them specifically which documents are outstanding. Do not give vague responses like "it is being reviewed" - families who receive non-specific answers follow up repeatedly, which creates more work for you.

"We uploaded our documents but the system says they are missing"

Open the application in OpenApply and check the documents section. Uploaded documents can sometimes appear as missing if the file type was not accepted, the upload timed out, or the file was uploaded to the wrong section. If the documents are genuinely there, the display issue may need to be flagged to FariaSupport. If they are not there, confirm with the family which document types are accepted (PDF is almost always safest) and ask them to re-upload.

"We have not heard anything in three weeks"

Find the application, check its current stage, and confirm whether the stage owner has taken any action. If the application has been sitting in one stage without movement, this is a workflow issue - flag it to the Admissions Director rather than making up a timeline. Give the family an honest response: acknowledge the delay, provide a specific date by which they will hear, and make sure the relevant person actually follows up by that date.

Keeping the Pipeline Moving: Your Daily Checks

During peak admissions season, a quick daily review of the OpenApply pipeline takes around 10 minutes and prevents the backlog situations that are much harder to manage later.

• Check for new applications submitted overnight - confirm each one has been assigned to the correct stage and that the automated acknowledgement email fired correctly; if it did not, send a manual acknowledgement so the family knows their application was received
• Check for applications with outstanding documents past their deadline - send a reminder to the family; a brief, friendly message is more effective than a formal chaser and takes the same amount of time to send
• Check for applications that have not moved in more than five working days - flag these to the relevant stage owner; stalled applications are the most common source of family complaints during admissions season
• Check for any families who have replied to automated emails - automated emails sometimes generate replies that land in an inbox nobody is monitoring; confirm where OpenApply reply-to emails are directed and check that inbox daily

What to Log and What to Escalate

Front office staff are often the institutional memory of an admissions process - logging what you have communicated to families protects you and the school if a query is disputed later.

Log in OpenApply (in the application notes or communication thread):

• Any phone calls you have with a family about their application - date, summary of what was discussed, and any commitments made
• Any manual emails you send outside of OpenApply's automated system
• Any documents received in person or by post that were then uploaded to the application

Escalate to the Admissions Director when:

• A family is asking about the outcome of their application or pressing for a decision timeline
• A family is unhappy with how their application has been handled and the conversation is becoming difficult
• An application has unusual circumstances - late entry, incomplete information, or a request for an exception to standard requirements
• A family is asking about capacity or whether a place is available for their child's year level - do not speculate on this

Tips From Staff Who Do This Every Day

• Create a simple response template library - the five enquiry types above account for the majority of queries you will receive; having a pre-drafted response for each that you personalise slightly saves significant time during busy periods
• Never promise a timeline you cannot control - telling a family "you will hear within two weeks" when the decision sits with the principal commits someone else to a deadline they may not keep; use language like "the admissions team aims to be in touch within two weeks" and flag the commitment to the relevant person
• Know the application portal URL by heart - you will give it out dozens of times during admissions season; having it in a pinned note or your email signature saves time
• At the end of each day during peak season, take two minutes to note anything unusual - a family who called twice, an application with a missing document that the family insists they uploaded, a stage that seems stuck; a brief running log means you have context when the query resurfaces

In Summary

• Respond promptly and specifically - vague responses generate follow-up queries; specific ones resolve them.
• Do a brief daily pipeline check during admissions season: new applications, outstanding documents, stalled applications, and reply-to emails.
• Log every significant communication in OpenApply so there is a record if a query is disputed later.
• Know your escalation boundaries - admissions decisions, capacity questions, and difficult conversations belong with the Admissions Director, not the front desk.

If you are encountering an OpenApply issue you cannot resolve - a broken document upload, a login that will not work, an automated email that is not firing - raise it with FariaSupport through your school's plan. You do not need to be the system administrator to log a support request.

Related Articles

• Getting Your OpenApply Setup Ready Before Admissions Season Opens
• Why Applicant Families Aren't Completing Forms: What Support Sees and How to Fix It
• How to Communicate System Changes to Parents, Staff, and Students