Graduate Open College
Application Tool
(GOCAT)
GAF Users and Super Users
Version 2.0
BSP Training Team
Business Services & Projects
Table of Contents
1
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................. 1
1.1
Overview of the GOCAT Process ................................................................ 1
1.2
Examples of applications being processed by GOCAT ................................ 2
1.2.1
An Open application prior to being processed by GOCAT .................... 2
1.2.2
An Open application after it has been processed by GOCAT ............... 3
1.2.3
An application which has been rejected by the first choice college....... 4
1.3
2
Logging into GOCAT ........................................................................................ 6
2.1
To log into GOCAT ............................................................................... 7
2.1.2
To log into OSS and open the navigator ............................................... 7
Adding a new Group ........................................................................... 10
3.1.2
Editing an existing Group .................................................................... 11
3.1.3
Deleting a Group ................................................................................. 12
Managing Group Membership........................................................................ 14
Opening the College Group Membership form........................................... 14
4.1.1
Assigning a College to a Group .......................................................... 15
4.1.2
Removing a College from a Group ..................................................... 16
Managing Course Exclusions ........................................................................ 18
5.1
6
Opening the College Group Definition form ................................................. 9
3.1.1
4.1
5
Logging in as a User .................................................................................... 8
College Group Definition .................................................................................. 9
3.1
4
Logging in as Super User ............................................................................ 7
2.1.1
2.2
3
Conventions Used In This Manual ............................................................... 5
Opening the Course Exclusions form ......................................................... 18
5.1.1
Adding a Course and College to Exclusions List ................................ 19
5.1.2
Editing A Course and College in the Exclusion List ............................ 20
5.1.3
Deleting a Course and College from Exclusions List .......................... 21
Unallocated Applications ............................................................................... 23
6.1
Opening the Unallocated Applications form ............................................... 23
6.1.1
7
Forcing a college to be allocated to an application ............................. 24
Viewing Pool Information ............................................................................... 26
7.1
Opening the Allocation View and Pool Reset form ..................................... 26
7.1.1
Summary information .......................................................................... 28
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8
7.1.2
Detail................................................................................................... 28
7.1.3
Audit information ................................................................................. 29
Manually Closing a Pool ................................................................................. 30
8.1
Opening the Allocation View and Pool Reset form ..................................... 30
8.1.1
9
Closing the Pool.................................................................................. 31
College Allocation Process ............................................................................ 33
9.1
Viewing the log file ..................................................................................... 33
9.2
Notifying UABs of allocations ..................................................................... 33
9.2.1
finding out where applications have been allocated ............................ 33
9.2.2
Notifying UABs of allocations .............................................................. 35
9.3
Running the College Allocation Process Manually ..................................... 38
10 Appendix .......................................................................................................... 40
10.1
Using the Interactive Report functions ....................................................... 40
10.1.1
Searching for a Record(s) ................................................................... 40
10.1.2
Specifying the Number of Rows Displayed ......................................... 41
10.1.3
Additional Menu Options ..................................................................... 41
10.2
Managing UAB requests to opt out of GOCAT........................................... 43
10.2.1
10.3
To Open the Program Groups Form ................................................... 43
Opening up a Program of Study to a College............................................. 46
10.3.1
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To Open the Basic Program Form ...................................................... 46
3
INTRODUCTION
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Overview of the GOCAT Process
On 1 September 2010 the Graduate Open College Application Tool (GOCAT) was
introduced to enable graduate applicants to either specify a college preference or opt
for an open college application whereby they do not have to make any choice of a
college. Applicants no longer have the option to specify a second-choice college.
(Please note that although applications which have been submitted without a college
preference are referred to internally and on OSS as ‘open’ applications, guidance to
applicants refers to ‘college preference’ or ‘no college preference’, so as not to add
to the use of Oxford-specific terminology.)
Applications where a college preference has been specified will be processed using
the current process. Applicants who have submitted an open college application and
are in receipt of a UAB offer will have a college automatically assigned to their record
depending on the program of study and availability of places. The option of
overriding a college choice for funding purposes will continue to be available.
Applicants who are rejected in the first instance, whether they have specified a
college or have submitted an open college application, will be reallocated to a
second college automatically as part of the GOCAT process.
UABs may opt out of the process, either for all their PGT applications, all PGR
applications, or both PGT and PGR. In this case, UABs will continue to manage
their applications as before, ie: enter a DGS_SELECTION rating if the first college
rejects the applicant.
All applicants who are rejected by the second college will automatically be included
in the Clearing House process, unless the UAB has opted out of the Clearing House.
Colleges who want to accept an applicant onto a course which they do not normally
offer will be able to do so. The course will then be manually excluded from the
program offerings to ensure no other applications are received for that
college/course.
Colleges will be grouped together with a pre-defined number of places available at
each college. These groups will then be combined to create a pool. Applications will
be randomly assigned a college from the available spaces in the pool, taking into
account the course, and the college(s) which offer that course. This allocation
process will continue until all spaces are filled, after which the pool will be closed and
a new one created.
For example, a pool may consist of 104 places, broken down as follows:
Group A: 10 colleges with 6 places per college = 60 places
Group B: 12 colleges with 3 places per college = 36 places
Group C: 8 colleges with 1 place per college = 8 places
Any college which is not member of a group will not be included in the GOCAT
process. ie: if a college has opted out of the process it will not be allocated to a
group.
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INTRODUCTION
The GOCAT process will be managed by GAF staff and there will be two
responsibilities: GOCAT User and GOCAT Super User.
GOCAT Users will be able to:
 Manage course exclusions
 Force allocation of unallocated applications
 View allocation and pool reset information
In addition to the above, GOCAT Super Users will also be able to:
 Manage College group definition
 Manage College group membership
 Manually close a pool
 Run college allocation process
1.2 Examples of applications being processed by GOCAT
1.2.1 AN OPEN APPLICATION PRIOR TO BEING PROCESSED BY GOCAT
When an open application is first downloaded/entered onto OSS the value in the
Location field will OPEN.
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INTRODUCTION
The Ratings form shows an entry of Rating Type of OPEN, and a Rating Scale of
APP_CHOICE.
1.2.2 AN OPEN APPLICATION AFTER IT HAS BEEN PROCESSED BY GOCAT
After the UAB has entered an offer onto OSS, the GOCAT process will assign a
college to the application. In the example shown, Exeter College has been assigned
to this application, and the Location field has been updated accordingly.
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INTRODUCTION
This application was initially submitted as an open application, and on 23 August
2010 the GOCAT process closed the OPEN rating type, and entered a new rating
type of SEH and a rating scale of OPEN_ALLOCATION.
1.2.3
AN APPLICATION WHICH HAS BEEN REJECTED BY THE FIRST CHOICE COLLEGE
This application was rejected by the applicant's first choice college (BNC), and the
GOCAT process has then automatically assigned JESUS to the application with a
Rating Scale of OPEN_ALLOCATION.
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INTRODUCTION
1.3 Conventions Used In This Manual
Indicates additional useful information.
Indicates an important piece of information, take
particular care to read the information in these boxes.
Bold Text
[F4]
File > Open
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Indicates menu names and window titles.
Keys on your keyboard are indicated in bold text
enclosed in square brackets [ ].
Moves through a navigation path are indicated with a
>. In this case you would click on the File menu, then
select Open
5
Logging into GOCAT
2 Logging into GOCAT
 To Access OSS
 Open Internet Explorer
 Type the following in the Address bar: https://www.studsys.ox.ac.uk/
The Single Sign-on sign-in window will be displayed:
Enter the following details in the corresponding fields:
 User Name: enter your Webauth user name
 Password: enter your Webauth password
 Click on
The University of Oxford Single Sign-On Confirmation box will be displayed:

Click on
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Logging into GOCAT
A list of responsibilities which have been allocated to your login will be displayed.
You will have been allocated one of the two shown below:
2.1 Logging in as Super User
Super Users may either log directly into GOCAT, or log into OSS and open the
Navigator. This latter option enables users to either run Requests or continue to the
GOCAT.
2.1.1 TO LOG INTO GOCAT

Select the Oxford GOCAT Super User responsibility

Click on
The Graduate Open College Application Tool Menu will be displayed:
2.1.2 TO LOG INTO OSS AND OPEN THE NAVIGATOR

Select the Oxford GOCAT Super User responsibility to display the options
available

Select any option except GOCAT. (eg:
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7
Logging into GOCAT
The Navigator will appear:

To open GOCAT click on GOCAT

To run a request click on Request
2.2 Logging in as a User

Select the Oxford GOCAT User responsibility to open the User Graduate
Open College Application Tool Menu.
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College Group Definition
3 College Group Definition
This option is only available to the GOCAT Super
User Responsibility
Colleges will be grouped together with a pre-defined number of places available at
each college. The College Group Definition function allows super users to define a
new group, edit an existing group or delete a group.
3.1 Opening the College Group Definition form

Log into GOCAT, see section 2 above

Select the GOCAT Super User Responsibility

Select College Group Definition in the Graduate Open College
Application Tool Menu

Click on
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College Group Definition
The College Group Definition form will be displayed:
3.1.1 ADDING A NEW GROUP

Open the College Group Definition form, see section 3.1

Click on

Enter a group code, eg: D

Enter a group description, eg: Group D

Enter the number of pool spaces. This should be between 1 and 9.

Click on

Click on
to return to the Graduate Open College
Application Tool Menu
and a new blank line will be added:
to save the changes
The following warning will be displayed:

Click on OK to return to Graduate Open College Application Menu or
Cancel to continue editing.
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College Group Definition
3.1.2 EDITING AN EXISTING GROUP

Open the College Group Definition form, see section 3.1

Make the required changes

Click on Click on

Click on
to return to the Graduate Open College
Application Tool Menu
to save the changes
The following warning will be displayed:

Click on OK to return to the Graduate Open College Application Tool
Menu or Cancel to continue editing.
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College Group Definition
3.1.3 DELETING A GROUP

Open the College Group Definition form, see section 3.1

Select the Group(s) to be deleted by ticking the box to the left of the Group

Click on
The following message will be displayed:

Click on OK to confirm, or Cancel to continue editing
If a group is deleted, college membership of that group
will also be deleted.
 Click on
to return to the Graduate Open College
Application Tool Menu
The following warning will be displayed:
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College Group Definition

Click on OK to return to the Graduate Open College Application Tool
Menu or Cancel to continue editing.
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Managing Group Membership
4 Managing Group Membership
This option is only available to the GOCAT Super
User Responsibility
Every college which is participating in the GOCAT process must be a member of a
group. Any college who is not part of a group will not be included in the process.
The College Group Membership option is used to add or remove a college from a
group.
4.1 Opening the College Group Membership form

Log into GOCAT , see section 2 above

Select GOCAT Super User Responsibility

Select College Group Membership in the Graduate Open College
Application Tool Menu

Click on
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Managing Group Membership
The College Group Membership form will be displayed
4.1.1 ASSIGNING A COLLEGE TO A GROUP

Open the College Group Membership form, see section 4.1

Click on

Click on the drop down menu in the Group column and select the required
Group

Click on the drop down menu in the College column and select the
required College

Repeat if further Colleges are required

Click on
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and a new line will be added:
to save the changes
15
Managing Group Membership
 Click on
to return to the Graduate Open College
Application Tool Menu
The following warning will be displayed:

Click on OK to return to the Graduate Open College Application Tool
Menu or Cancel to continue editing.
4.1.2 REMOVING A COLLEGE FROM A GROUP

Open the College Group Membership form, see section 4.1

Select the College(s) to be deleted by ticking the box to the left of the Group

Click on
The following message will be displayed:

Click on OK to confirm, or Cancel to continue editing.
 Click on
to return to the Graduate Open College
Application Tool Menu
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Managing Group Membership
The following warning will be displayed:

Click on OK to return to the Graduate Open College Application Tool
Menu or Cancel to continue editing.
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Managing Course Exclusions
5 Managing Course Exclusions
This option is available to the GOCAT Super User
Responsibility and the GOCAT User Responsibility.
In exceptional circumstances Colleges may wish to accept an applicant onto a
course they do not usually offer. The course will first be added to the Course
Exclusions form to prevent the college from being allocated to other applications and
then opened up on OSS to enable the college to be allocated to the application
manually by GAF staff.
The process for adding POS exclusions must be done in this order:
1. Add a GOCAT exclusion for the college, program and attendance mode
combination
2. Update OSS to add the college to the program of study (See Appendix)
3. Do NOT update the POS database, or EMBARK to advise of this change
5.1 Opening the Course Exclusions form

Log into GOCAT, see section 2 above

Select GOCAT Super User Responsibility or GOCAT User Responsibility
The Graduate Open College Application Tool Menu will appear. The available
options will depend on the responsibility selected. This example shows the menu
options available to the GOCAT Super User Responsibility.

Select Course Exclusions in the Graduate Open College Application
Tool Menu
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Managing Course Exclusions

Click on
The Course Exclusions form will be displayed
It is possible to customise the view using the
Interactive Report function, search for a record and
download the data to a .csv file. Customised views
can be saved for future use. See Appendix for detailed
instructions on all these functions.
5.1.1 ADDING A COURSE AND COLLEGE TO EXCLUSIONS LIST

Open the Course Exclusions form, see section 5.1

Click on
The Create or modify a Course Exclusions form will be displayed:

Complete the following information
o College: Select the College from the LOV
o Course: Enter the course number or enter part of the title and click
on LOV
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Managing Course Exclusions
o Attendance Type: Select from the LOV
o Attendance Mode: Select from LOV (but must be 01 Oxford Based
Study!)
o Start Date: Enter the date the exclusion is to commence
o End Date: Enter an end date if appropriate/known

Click on
to save the changes

Click on
to return to the list of Course Exclusions.
5.1.2 EDITING A COURSE AND COLLEGE IN THE EXCLUSION LIST

Open the Course Exclusions form, see section 5.1

Click on the link
to the left of the relevant College
The Create or modify a Course Exclusions form is displayed:

Update the information as required
If the College and Course are no longer to be excluded,
enter the date into the End-Date field.
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Managing Course Exclusions

Click on
to save the changes

Click on
to return to the list of Course Exclusions.
5.1.3 DELETING A COURSE AND COLLEGE FROM EXCLUSIONS LIST
Instructions for deleting a course and college have
been included, but for auditing purposes it may be
preferable to enter an end-date instead so that it
remains on the list. See note in previous section.

Open the Course Exclusion form, see section 5.1

Click on the link
to the left of the relevant College
The Create or modify a Course Exclusions form is displayed:

Click on
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Managing Course Exclusions
The following message will be displayed:


Click on OK to confirm, or Cancel to continue editing.
Click on
Application Tool Menu.
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to return to the Graduate Open College
22
Unallocated Applications
6 Unallocated Applications
This option is available to the GOCAT Super User
Responsibility and the GOCAT User Responsibility.
There are two kinds of unallocated applications, those which haven’t been allocated
because there are no places in either the primary or secondary pool for that program
– these are known as ‘unallocated’, and applications that cannot ever be allocated
because no colleges accept for the program – these are known as ‘unallocatable’.
Unallocated (but not unallocatable) applications can be manually allocated to a
college. The Unallocated Applications form lists all unallocated applications and
allows users to force a college allocation to occur for selected applications.
Effectively, GOCAT creates a blank pool to allow the allocation, but the pool is used
for that forced allocation only. This will, therefore, affect the ratio of applications for
that college so should only be used in exceptional cases.
If an application is reported as unallocatable it should be referred to the Project and
Process Manager, GAF.
6.1 Opening the Unallocated Applications form

Log into GOCAT, see section 2 above

Select GOCAT Super User Responsibility or GOCAT User Responsibility
The Graduate Open College Application Tool Menu will appear. The available
options will depend on the responsibility selected. This example shows the menu
options available to the GOCAT Super User Responsibility.

Select Unallocated Applications in the Graduate Open College
Application Tool Menu

Click on
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Unallocated Applications
The Unallocated Applications form will appear
It is possible to customise the view using the
Interactive Report function, search for a record and
download the data to a .csv file. Customised views
can be saved for future use. See Appendix for detailed
instructions on all these functions.
Unallocated applications are likely to occur towards the end of the admissions cycle
when some colleges have chosen to opt out of the allocation process and the
number of new applications is small.
The status of each unallocated application may be one of the following:
CANNOT
ALLOCATE
A college cannot be allocated
PROCESSING
A college has been allocated and OSS is being
updated
INCOMPLETE
The OSS rating detail has been updated, but the
Location has not been updated
OK
ERROR
The allocation has completed successfully
The allocation has failed
If the status is CANNOT ALLOCATE, INCOMPLETE
or ERROR check the application and if necessary
manually update the record.
6.1.1 FORCING A COLLEGE TO BE ALLOCATED TO AN APPLICATION
NB: Only use this function after consultation with the
Project and Process Manager, Graduate Admissions
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Unallocated Applications
and Funding.

Tick the box to the left of the application

Click on
This will run a request to allocate a college to the application. The information will
not be included in the standard allocation log files and so needs to be circulated to
the relevant UAB immediately after the forced allocation has completed.

Click on
Application Tool Menu.
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to return to the Graduate Open College
25
Viewing Pool Information
7 Viewing Pool Information
This option is available to the GOCAT Super User
Responsibility and the GOCAT User Responsibility.
Note: only Super Users can manually close a pool.
The Allocation View and Pool Reset form displays all the information relating to the
pools including the status of each pool, details of the Groups at the time the pool was
created and the ID number of the concurrent request which created or closed the
pools. Super Users may also manually close a pool using this form (see Section 8
below)
7.1 Opening the Allocation View and Pool Reset form

Log into GOCAT, see section 2 above

Select GOCAT Super User Responsibility or GOCAT User Responsibility
The Graduate Open College Application Tool Menu will appear. The available
options will depend on the responsibility selected. This example shows the menu
options available to the GOCAT Super User Responsibility.

Select Allocation View and Pool Reset in the Graduate Open College
Application Tool Menu

Click on
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Viewing Pool Information
The Allocation View and Pool Reset form with be displayed
It is possible to customise the view using the
Interactive Report function, search for a record and
download the data to a .csv file. Customised views
can be saved for future use. See Appendix for detailed
instructions on all these functions.
The data displayed is as follows:
Summary
Detail
Audit
Pool Number
Description
Link to summary detail including the number of
available college places and the number allocated
for the pool.
Link to list of all applications that have been
allocated a college in the pool. Super Users may
also use this function to manually close a pool.
Link to information on the status of a group and the
course exclusions in place when the pool was
created.
A unique number that identifies the pool. The most
recently created pool has the highest number.
The request ID of the concurrent request that was
running the pool allocation OSS request set when
the pool was created
Status
Current - this pool will be used for a college
allocation in the first instance
Secondary - if a college allocation is not possible in
the current pool, a college allocation is attempted
from this pool
Closed - the pool is closed and will no longer be
used
Pool Size
This is calculated from the number of spaces per
college in each group and the number of colleges in
the group
The number of colleges in the pool that have been
Places Filled
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Viewing Pool Information
Created On
allocated to applications
The date the pool was created
Closed On
The date the pool was closed
Closed By
AUTO – the pool has been closed automatically
because all the college places have been allocated
[username] – the pool has been closed manually.
The field will contain the name of the user who
closed the pool
7.1.1 SUMMARY INFORMATION
This form displays summary information on the pool, how many college places it
contained, and how many of those places have been allocated to date.

Click on
form.

Click on
to open the Allocation View - Pool Allocation Summary
to return to the Allocation View and Pool Reset form
7.1.2 DETAIL
The form lists the applications that have been allocated a college in the pool. Super
Users can also use this form to manually close a pool. (See Section 8 below)
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Viewing Pool Information

Click on
to open and view the details in the
Allocation View - Pool Allocation Detail form
.

Click on
to return to the Allocation View and Pool Reset form
7.1.3 AUDIT INFORMATION
The screen lists the group definitions and the course exclusions that were in place
when the pool was created.

Click on

Click on
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to open the Allocation View - Pool Audit Details form
to return to the Allocation View and Pool Reset form.
29
Manually Closing a Pool
8 Manually Closing a Pool
This option is only available to the GOCAT Super
User Responsibility
It may be necessary to manually close a pool before all the places have been
allocated. For example, a pool may become ‘stuck’ if the only colleges with places
left in the pool do not accept for the programs of the unallocated applications. The
secondary pool will start to fill places for the programs of the unallocated
applications, but the primary pool cannot close until the final place is filled, and this
could eventually result in increasing numbers of unallocated applications. In this
circumstance the best course of action may be to close the primary pool manually so
that the unallocated applications are allocated in a new pool.
Pools may also need to be closed if they have become ‘stagnant’. This is likely to
happen when the number of applications to be allocated each day is very low,
usually at the beginning or end of the application cycle. If there is a low volume of
applications, some colleges may not be allocated any applications for a long period.
This is most likely for the ‘low’ group where they have received their allocations from
one pool and will not receive any new ones until the next pool is created. This
shouldn’t be an issue as these colleges have chosen to not receive a high level of
applications. If a college in the ‘high’ group has filled all of its places very early in the
pool, perhaps because it is one of only a few colleges which accept for a particular
program, the pool may need to be closed to restart the flow of applications to that
college.
The final reason a pool may need to be closed is if there has been a significant
change to the college groups and group membership, eg if a lot of colleges have
opted out from receiving applications because they are full. This change in setup will
only be reflected once a new pool is created. If the volume of applications being
allocated is low, which is likely at the point in the year when colleges are opting out,
a new pool may not be created for some time. By manually closing both the primary
and secondary pools you are forcing the new setup to be enforced immediately.
The manual closing of a pool should only be used if absolutely necessary as it will
affect the overall number of applications allocated to a college during the admissions
year. For example, if Christ Church College is set up to receive 6 applications, but
has only received one when the pool is manually closed, the college will not receive
the agreed number of applications for that particular pool. All pool closures should
be discussed with the Head of Graduate Admissions.
8.1 Opening the Allocation View and Pool Reset form

Log into GOCAT, see section 2 above

Select GOCAT Super User Responsibility
The Graduate Open College Application Tool Menu will appear.
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Manually Closing a Pool

Select Allocation View and Pool Reset in the Graduate Open College
Application Tool Menu

Click on
The Allocation View and Pool Reset form with be displayed
It is possible to customise the view using the
Interactive Report function, search for a record and
download the data to a .csv file. Customised views
can be saved for future use. See Appendix for detailed
instructions on all these functions.
8.1.1 CLOSING THE POOL

Click on
to open the Allocation View - Pool Allocation Detail form
for the pool to be closed
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Manually Closing a Pool
If the pool is open the

button will be displayed
Click on
The following message will be displayed:

Click on OK to return to the Allocation View and Pool Reset form.
The pool status will change to Closed and the date the pool was closed and by
whom will also be displayed.
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Run College Allocation Process Manually
9 College Allocation Process
An automatic process is set to run overnight, and carries out following tasks:




Allocates a college to an application
Updates OSS if the allocation is successful
Creates a log of the completed tasks and emails the log to a specified
mailbox
Closes a pool if full and creates a new pool
The process can be run manually at any time by a Super User using the Run
College Allocation option. (See 9.3 below.)
This option is only available to the GOCAT Super
User Responsibility
9.1 Viewing the log file
Each time the allocation process runs a log file is created and emailed to the
following email account: [email protected]. The log contains
information on all successful allocations and any failures which may need user
intervention. Staff in GAF will use this information to notify UABs when their
applicants have been allocated to a college.
The log file is only created when the allocation process
is run, either automatically or manually. A log file is
not created when forcing an allocation using the
Unallocated Applications option.
9.2 Notifying UABs of allocations
Applicants who submit an open application will have OPEN listed on their coversheet
in place of a college. GAF need to notify the UAB once a college has been
allocated. UABs will then update the coversheet manually before sending it to the
allocated college.
9.2.1
FINDING OUT WHERE APPLICATIONS HAVE BEEN ALLOCATED
Once the GOCAT concurrent request has completed it will send an email with two
files attached to [email protected]
The two files which are attached are a log file and an allocation file. Below is shown
an example of the log file and the allocation file.
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The log file is a text file showing all the allocations which were made, the total
number of allocations which were written to OSS; any applications which were
allocated but the information was not uploaded to OSS; any other exceptions and
the details as to what errors have occurred;
An allocation file lists the applications which have been allocated, showing the
applicant’s name, program, UAB and allocated college. This list is ordered by UAB
and then by course:
The generated email will flag if there
have been problems in the subject line.
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If there have been no problems with the
request, the email will read:
9.2.2 NOTIFYING UABS OF ALLOCATIONS
Once the GOCAT process has completed and produced the log files, this information
must be passed onto the UABs.
Extracting the information:

Move the email to ‘GOCAT allocations’ to ensure only one person sends the
notifications

Open the allocation email

Save a copy of the log file (text file attachment) in G:\Admissions\Student
Systems\GOCAT\2010-11\Log Files

Open the allocation file (csv attachment)

Save an excel copy of the file
Systems\GOCAT\2010-11\allocation files

Change the name by adding the date it was received at the end:
in
G:\Admissions\Student
Use the format YYYYMMDD.
There is some data in the spreadsheet that UABs will not need. This information
needs to be hidden before the data is sent to UABs.
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
Expand all columns in the spreadsheet by clicking on the small triangle at
the top left of the spreadsheet.

Hover the mouse over the line separating columns A and B until your cursor
changes shape, then double click

Hide columns F-H by selecting all three columns, right click and select hide.
The columns will disappear from view but not be deleted.

Identify all of the allocations for a particular UAB. Hide rows above in order
to copy the headings along with the data. Highlight the rows including the
headings, right click the mouse and select copy.

Where possible, to help UABs if they wish to print off the email, reduce the
column widths as much as possible for their contents.
Sending the email:

Create a new message in Outlook using the template response 76 GOCAT successful allocations notification.txt (shown in italics below).
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Dear [UAB administrator name]
The following applications have been allocated to colleges via the Graduate Open
College Application Tool (GOCAT). These applications are either open applications
which have had a ‘grad offer’ recorded on OSS recently, or applications which have
been rejected by the first college and have now been reallocated:
[paste info from spreadsheet]
Please update the applicant(s) coversheet(s) with the allocated college name and
forward it to them. Colleges are now able to view the applications which have been
allocated to them via the Submitted Graduate Applications Data View.
For further information about Graduate Open College Applications please see the
Graduate Admissions and Funding Handbook
http://www.ox.ac.uk/restricted_access/graduate_admissions_and_funding/”
To retain the formatting carried out in the above steps, Paste Special must be used
(as opposed to Paste)

Move the cursor to the point in the text where the information is to be pasted
(shown in red above)

Click on Paste/Paste Special

The Paste Special dialogue box will appear

Select Microsoft Office Excel Binary Worksheet Object from the menu

Click OK
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The table should now appear in the email as follows:

Add a subject line to the email of ‘College Allocations’

Update the Dear [UAB administrator name] section with the appropriate
name.

Insert appropriate email address

Click on Send

Once all the emails have been sent, file
them in the GOCAT Allocations –
GOCAT Processed - appropriate month
folder, together with the automated email
and attachments.
9.3 Running the College Allocation Process Manually

Log into GOCAT, see section 2 above

Select GOCAT Super User Responsibility
The Graduate Open College Application Tool Menu will appear. The available
options will depend on the responsibility selected. This example shows the menu
options available to the GOCAT Super User Responsibility.
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
Select Run College Allocation in the Graduate Open College
Application Tool Menu

Click on
The Run the College Allocation Process will be displayed:

Click on
The following message will be displayed

Click on OK to submit the process or Cancel to return to the Run the
College Allocation Process form.
The following message will be displayed

Click on
to return to the main menu.
The log file and allocation file will be generated as with the automated process, and
UABs should be notified as detailed above.
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Appendices
10 Appendix
10.1 Using the Interactive Report functions
The Interactive Report function can be used to customise the views, search for a
record or download the data to a .csv file.
10.1.1 SEARCHING FOR A RECORD(S)
 Open the required form (see relevant section for details)
 Click in the criteria field, and type in the information required, ie: if searching for
Balliol College, type in BALL.
 Click on
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
Only Balliol College will appear in the list and details of the filter will be
displayed.

To return to the full list, remove the tick. The filter will remain displayed, but
not active.

To re-apply the filter, tick the box

To delete the filter, click on
10.1.2 SPECIFYING THE NUMBER OF ROWS DISPLAYED

Click in the Rows field and a menu will appear.

Select the number of rows to be displayed

Click on

An icon will appear in the bottom left of the form to move to the next batch
of rows, if appropriate:
10.1.3 ADDITIONAL MENU OPTIONS

Click on the Tools drop down menu for more options
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Use to specify which column(s) will be displayed
Column: Select the column the filter is to be applied to
Operator: Select operator, eg: =
Expressions: Select the required item
Select a column for a subheading. Eg: Select course to
produce a list sorted by course number.
Highlight specific columns or rows
When a customised view has been created it can be saved
for future use. Click on Save, enter a name for the view
and click on Apply. This view can then be selected or
removed at any time.
Reset the reports back to the default settings.
Displays help information
Download the data to a .csv file, which can then be saved
as an Excel spreadsheet.
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Document Information
10.2 Managing UAB requests to opt out of GOCAT
UABs may request that applications rejected by the first college are excluded from
further processing by GOCAT and this will allow a DGS to allocate a college
independently of GOCAT. This functionality is managed through the Program
Groups function.
10.2.1 TO OPEN THE PROGRAM GROUPS FORM
 To Access OSS
 Open Internet Explorer
 Type the following in the Address bar: https://www.studsys.ox.ac.uk/
The Single Sign-on sign-in window will be displayed:
Enter the following details in the corresponding fields:
 User Name: enter your Webauth user name
 Password: enter your Webauth password
 Click on
The University of Oxford Single Sign-On Confirmation box will be displayed:
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
Click on

Select

Click on

Press [F11] and in the Program Group Code field enter UAB_EXCL

Press [CTRL] + [F11] to retrieve the group
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A list of programs already excluded from GOCAT will appear in the lower half of
the form:
To add the program to the group:

Move the cursor to the lower part of the form

Click on

Add the program code or select the program code from the LOV

Click on
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to save and close the form.
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10.3 Opening up a Program of Study to a College
If a college wishes to accept an applicant for a program which it does not normally
offer, the program must first be included in the list of Course Exclusions, and then
the program of study can be amended on OSS to include the college.
10.3.1 TO OPEN THE BASIC PROGRAM FORM
 To Access OSS
 Open Internet Explorer
 Type the following in the Address bar: https://www.studsys.ox.ac.uk/
The Single Sign-on sign-in window will be displayed:
Enter the following details in the corresponding fields:
 User Name: enter your Webauth user name
 Password: enter your Webauth password
 Click on
The University of Oxford Single Sign-On Confirmation box will be displayed:
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
Click on

Select

Click on
from the list of responsibilities
The Basic Program Details form will be displayed

Press [F11] and enter the program code

Press [CTRL + F11] to search for the program

Click on
The Program Offerings form will be displayed

Ensure the correct Calendar Type and Program Offering Instance is
selected
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
Click on
The Program Offering Patterns form will be displayed

Scroll down to the required college

Tick all boxes to the right of the college
If the program is offered both full and part time, ensure the correct one is selected.

Click on
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Document Information
This document is subject to change – amendments will be apparent from a change in
version numbering.
Revision Changes
Revision
Date
Version
Number
Summary of Changes
Changed
By
20 Sep 10
V0.4
First draft to be sent to GAF for approval
AEH
10 Jan 11
V1.0
Entered final changes as requested by Sally AEH
Stubbs, GAF.
Removed the word DRAFT from all pages
5 Feb 11
V1.1
Added section on excluding a program from AEH
GOCAT at the request of the UAB
14 Mar 11
V1.2
Added changes as requested by Sally AEH
Stubbs
9 Sep 11
V2.0
Final approval by Sally Stubbs
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