Lottery Preparation Checklist (Step 3 of 3): Review your Mock Lottery Results

Learn how to review mock lottery results for accuracy

What's included in this article?

• Export your original lottery results
• Identify Not Placed applications
• Configure Saved Views for your Lottery Lists
• Review lottery results for placement order, cutoff numbers, and sibling placements
• Publish results
• Accept and Decline offers as a Guardian and as an Admin
• Practice making manual placements/adjustments
• Confirm Post-Lottery Automatic Placements

Reminder: Communications will never be sent from your sandbox site, but communications will get logged for you to confirm that they would have been sent. Always look for the orange banner to confirm you are in your sandbox site.

Export Your Original Lottery Results

Before publishing (or testing) lottery results, we recommend that you export and save a copy of your original lottery results before offers are made and movements occur.

• Click the Export Lists button from the Lotteries & Placements page

• Download the CSV lottery results and save locally for your organization to capture original placements as a result of the lottery run, before movements occur.

Identify Not Placed Applications

After running a lottery, applications that were not included in the lottery run may be identified by navigating to the Applications module and using the `Not Placed` filter + the Programs included in your lottery run.

Review this help article to learn the top reasons why an application could be categorized as `Not Placed`.

Configure a custom view of your lottery lists using the Saved Views feature

• Do you hold a live lottery and need to hide student names? Configure a view that only shows student ids and lottery status.
• Create a saved view that displays the priority names, sub lottery, and other key elements you want to reference when reviewing your lottery results. 

Review lottery results for placement order, cutoff numbers, and sibling placements

Once your mock lottery run is complete, you should review and confirm the following items:

• Confirm the accurate placement of students in your desired order per your lottery design (i.e. priority, date submitted, score, etc.)
• The highest eligible priority on a student’s application will determine their placement during the lottery (which sub-lottery to be grouped within, then weights and entries are considered if in use)

• Confirm that the count of offered students matches the cutoff number set before running the lottery (and/or priority quotas set in your lottery design, if in use)

 

Publish Results

Remember: no communications will be sent from your sandbox environment, but communications will be logged.

• Publish Lottery Run: will publish lottery results for all Programs and Grades selected in your lottery run
• Publish by Grade: will only publish the lottery results for the grade level where the button resides

 

Accept and Decline offers as a Guardian (Login as Guardian) and as an Admin

•  
  • Confirm the Placement Accepted (green checkmark) and Placement Declined (red X) statuses are reflected on your Offered List
  • Check in the student’s Application Changes History to confirm that actions are logged
  • Check in the student’s Application Communications Log to confirm the corresponding notifications to be sent 
  • Check the Guardian Message Center to confirm lottery notifications were logged

Confirming lottery statuses are reflected on Offered List

Confirming that guardian for student Katie West declined the offer on 12/6/23

• Test that accurate Sibling placements/movements are occurring
  • Once Sibling A accepts an offer, confirm that Sibling B (in same account) then moves up his/her grade-level waiting list into the priority group with Siblings Attending
    • Confirm the log of this movement in Sibling B's Application Changes History
• If Auto-Decline is enabled, confirm expected Accept/Decline behavior by taking the following actions:
  • If using Auto Decline upon Offer, did the student’s other applications (higher or lower ranked apps per your setting) get declined when an Offer was made?
    • Check in the student’s Application Changes History to confirm the actions are logged
    • Check in the student’s Application Communications Log to confirm the corresponding notifications to be sent 
    • Check the Guardian Message Center to confirm lottery notifications were logged
  • If using Auto Decline upon Accept, did the student’s other applications (higher or lower ranked apps per your setting) get declined upon accepting an offer?
    • Check in the student’s Application Changes History to confirm that actions are logged
    • Check in the student’s Application Communications Log to confirm the corresponding notifications to be sent 
    • Check the Guardian Message Center to confirm lottery notifications were logged
  • If using the setting, auto-roll up applications from the waiting list to the offered list (only when another application on the offered list is declined), did the next application from the waiting list roll up to the offered list as expected upon a decline?
    • Check in the student’s Application Changes History to confirm that actions are logged
    • Check in the student’s Application Communications Log to confirm the corresponding notifications to be sent 
      • The system will publish the new offered status and notify the guardian
    • Check the Guardian Message Center to confirm lottery notifications were logged

Practice making manual placements/adjustments

Use the Adjust Placement action to make a manual change to the lottery status or list placement for a student

Options to move student from Offered List <> Waiting List, or from one Placement Status to another 

•  
  • Check in the student’s Application Placement History to confirm the manual movement is logged
  • Check in the student’s Application Communications Log to confirm the corresponding notifications to be sent 
  • Check the Guardian Message Center to confirm lottery notifications were logged
• Manually add or remove a priority from an application that was run in your mock lottery to confirm if the application moves to the new sub-lottery group
  • Check in the student’s Application Placement History to confirm the manual movement is logged
  • Check in the student’s Application Communications Log to confirm the corresponding notifications to be sent 
  • Check the Guardian Message Center to confirm lottery notifications were logged

 

Confirm Post-Lottery Automatic Placements

• If the setting “Auto-add eligible applications to the lottery list after the initial lottery is run” is enabled, does a new, submitted application move onto the lottery list when the application status is marked as Eligible?
  • Are you using a notification to admins or to guardians when an application status changes, i.e. eligible<>ineligible? 
  • Check in the student’s Application Changes History to confirm that this action is logged
  • Check in the student’s Application Communications Log to confirm the corresponding notification would be sent 
  • Note: the order of when you mark applications as eligible is critical, as that is the order that applications are added to the next available spot on the lottery list (offered or waiting list).
    • If you have the setting below enabled, did the post-lottery eligible application land in the proper priority group?
• If using the setting, Always Keep Lottery Lists Grouped by Lottery Design*, did the auto-added eligible applications land within the expected priority group on the lottery list (offered or waiting list)?
  • Check in the student’s Application Changes History to confirm that this action is logged
  • Check in the student’s Application Communications Log to confirm the corresponding notification would be sent 

*If you would like to enable this setting "Always Keep Lottery Lists Grouped by Lottery Design" for lottery season, please contact your Customer Experience Manager to understand the impacts and to run test scenarios in sandbox.

We encourage you to run several test lotteries in advance of your lottery day. Please reach out to Technical Support to request that your sandbox site be refreshed from production so you can test anew.