When to use (or not use) Auto Rollup + Auto Decline/Offer Expiration

Learn the Pros and Cons of using the combination of Auto Decline and Auto Rollup Lottery Settings

If your organization is considering using one or both of these lottery settings, please read below for important information.

Auto Decline (Offer Expiration) On / Auto Rollup Off

If your organization prefers greater flexibility for families to accept offers and greater control in managing offer deadlines, we recommend that you disable or do not use Auto Rollup in combination with Auto Decline/Offer Expiration. The configuration of using only Auto Decline/Offer Expiration will give you greater control of your offer process. See this article to learn how to configure Auto Decline/Offer Expiration.

• Please note that with the greater flexibility to extend deadlines for families comes more manual updates of Auto Decline deadlines and lottery status updates from Declined to Pending status.

Auto Decline (Offer Expiration) On / Auto Rollup On

If your organization prefers a more automated process where Offer Expiration deadlines are not updated/reissued for students who miss their original deadline, then using Auto Rollup could be used in conjunction with Auto Decline.

When both Auto Rollup and Auto Decline are enabled:

• When a pending offer is auto declined by the system, if the expiration Date field is NOT in the past (time remains until the deadline date), then the next waitlisted application will be rolled up to the Offered list and auto-published to families with the deadline currently assigned in the system.
  • The expiration Date field should be monitored closely as the system will be publishing offers automatically upon auto decline, even if there is < 1 day remaining until the deadline.
    • Example: An offer could be auto rolled up and published to the family, who would have a very limited window of time to accept your offer.
    • Recommendation: Set the expiration Date field well into the future and the system will then use the Days field (earlier of the two) as the expiration deadline. See Recommended Best Practice below.

• When a pending offer is auto declined by the system, if the expiration Date field IS IN THE PAST, then the next waitlisted application will NOT be rolled up to the Offered list as desired.
  • If the expiration Date field is then updated to a future date, the Auto Rollup does NOT re-engage to move the next waitlisted application up to the offered list.
  • To move the waitlisted applications into the available seats, you have 3 options:
    • For each application, use the Adjust Placement action and select Move to Offered List
    • Use the Bulk Offer button to select the number of applications to be moved to the Offered List
    • Run another lottery pool for the group of applications to be moved onto the Offered list

• Recommended Best Practice: To keep the Auto Rollup from getting blocked/stopped by the Expiration Date field, set the Expiration Date for the very last day you would allow a student to accept a seat for that school year. The system will then look to the "Days After Published" field to drive the expiration timing for offers since it will always come earlier. This allows the Auto Decline > Auto Rollup to continue its automated process without requiring close monitoring of the Date field.