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Data Sources

Learn how to add, edit, and manage your school's Data Sources.

Written by Michael Stephenson

Overview

Data Sources are the backbone of your dropdown, radio, and checkbox fields within Element451. This tool is how you manage the values in each lookup field, which are used on your forms, landing pages, applications, and more.

Accessing Data Sources

Navigate to Data + Automations > Data Sources.

Data Source Types

When you navigate to the Data Sources page in your Element451 instance, you'll see 9 different tabs, each representing a data source type.

System Data Sources

Pre-made data sources that cannot be changed. System data sources correspond to pre-existing system fields, like citizenship, country list, or gender. They are denoted by [SYS] in the title. By default, all dropdown, radio, and checkbox fields in Element451 are connected to a system data source.
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Regular Data Sources

These data sources are used to build an entirely new and custom data source to fit your institution. If the system data sources do not fit your needs, you can substitute them with a regular data source. Additionally, if there is data you would like to collect that is not offered by a system data source, you can create a regular data source to capture that data.

  • It is common to denote a regular data source with your institution's name, like this [SCHOOL-NAME] in the name. Doing so will help regular data sources be distinguished from system data sources.

  • Regular data sources can also scope their rows. Add a Filter Many column to control which applications, student types, campuses, terms, or schools each row is available for. See the Filter Many column type below.

Follow the steps in the next section to create a regular data source.

Majors, Terms, Degrees, Campuses, Tests, Schools, and Courses

These are the master lists of all of your institution's majors, terms, degrees, campuses, tests, and schools. Learn how to individually add or import groups of majors, terms, or campuses.

Reference Data Source

Reference Data Sources are sub-groupings of your Majors, Terms, Degrees, etc. They are narrowed down by specific properties within those categories (e.g., Fall 2024 Majors).

📌 Note: Reference data sources are helpful if you would like to build a form that only looks at majors that are available only in a certain term or only active terms going forward rather than all terms (including past terms).

Follow the steps in the next section to create a reference data source.

Creating New Data Sources

Creating a Regular Data Source

A Regular Data Source will allow you to build a new data source from the ground up. Read more about them above.

  1. From the Regular Data Source Tab, click Add Data Source on the bottom left.

  2. Configure the settings. You will see three tabs: general, columns, and defaults.

    • General

      • Enter a name for your data source.

      • Specify if it is active or inactive.

    • Columns

      • Add the number of columns necessary to store all the qualifiers of the data points. Label and Value are the two most common columns used.

      • Each column has a Type: String, Number, or Filter Many. Choosing Filter Many turns the column into a per-row scoping control and asks you for a Source. See the Filter Many column type below.
        ​

    • Defaults

      • Use as code: Select the column you want to be used as a unique identifier.

      • Use as label: Select the column that you want to display on the student-facing form.
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  3. Lastly, click Done to create your regular data source and begin using it with your dropdown, radio, or checkbox fields. Learn more about Fields.

The "Filter Many" Column Type

Reference data sources such as Majors and Terms scope their items through an Available For panel. Regular data sources do not have that panel. To scope their rows, add a Filter Many column instead.

  1. Open the regular data source you want to scope.

  2. Add a column and choose the Filter Many column type.

  3. Pick the dimension the column references: Applications, Student Types, Campus, Terms, or Schools.

  4. Edit each row and select the values that row should be available for.

How it behaves:

  • A row with an empty Filter Many value is available everywhere. Scoping only narrows.

  • Scoping is per row. One shared data source can be bound to a dropdown on several applications, and each row appears only on the applications set on that row.

  • You can add more than one Filter Many column if you need to scope by more than one dimension.

  • Those five dimensions are the complete list. A row cannot be scoped by a major, a degree, or a test.

📌 Note: a Filter Many change takes effect as soon as you save. Available For values on the reference data sources behave differently: those results are cached for up to roughly 30 minutes, so a change to a Major or School may not appear in a form right away.

Creating a Reference Data Source

  1. Navigate to the corresponding tab of the data source that you want to create (majors, terms, campuses, etc.).

  2. Add your majors individually or import a group of your institution's majors, terms, or campuses.

  3. Click Add Reference Data Source on the bottom left.

  4. Configure the settings. You will see two tabs: general and data.

    • General

      • Enter a name for your data source.

      • Specify if it is active or inactive.
        ​

    • Data

      • Use the "filter data" section to select the properties that you want to filter down your list of majors, terms, or campuses. In this example, we are making a data source containing all active majors (see screenshot).
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  5. Once you specified your properties, click Done to create the data source and begin using it to populate your dropdown, radio, or checkbox fields. Learn more about Fields.

Filtering Data Sources: Field Order and Which Pairings Exist

Two things have to be true before a filter will work:

  1. The driving field must be answered first. It can sit in an earlier section, an earlier step, or on the registration form, but it cannot come after the field it filters. If the order is reversed, the filter has nothing to read and the drop-down appears empty.

  2. The pairing has to exist. A data source can only be scoped by the dimensions it actually carries, and those differ by source. There is no single left-to-right order that applies to all of them. Open an item's Available For tab to see what it offers.

Data source

Can be filtered by

Majors

Application, Term, Campus, Degree, School, Student Type

Degrees

Application, Term, Campus, Student Type

Schools

Application, Campus, Term, Student Type

Terms

Application, Campus, School

Campuses

School

Any regular data source

Whichever dimensions you add as Filter Many columns: Applications, Student Types, Campus, Terms, Schools

Important Things to Know

  • If the pairing you want is not listed, use Filter another field? on the other field instead. Terms cannot be scoped by Major, for example, but a Major carries its Terms, so you set the filter on the Major field and point it at Term.

  • 📌 Tests are filtered, never filtering. You can scope which tests appear using the dimensions above, but no data source can be scoped by a test.

You should also review your Available For properties. For example, if Accounting is available in Spring 2026, you'll need to add that term within the Accounting Major settings.

For setup and troubleshooting, see Field Filtering and Troubleshooting Field Filtering.

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