Overview
Element451 makes it easy to build Applications that are branded and customizable and offer an easy-to-navigate experience for students, underpinned by powerful features such as SnapApp and the ability to submit early once required fields are complete.
Applications are hosted within a dedicated Application Site, ensuring students have 24/7 access to check their status, upload documents, and review their checklist, making the application process as straightforward as possible.
This guide will walk you through building an application that leverages advanced functionalities.
Understanding Steps, Sections, and Fields
Steps
Think of Steps as distinct pages within the application process, each designed to collect specific information. For instance, Steps might include titles such as 'About You,' 'Education History,' 'Academic Plans,' and 'Emergency Contact Info.' They organize the application flow and help applicants progress logically.
Sections
Within each Step, you'll create Sections to group related Fields. This not only enhances the applicant's experience by categorizing information (e.g., Personal Information, Contact Details, Residency) but also aids in keeping the application organized and easy to navigate.
Fields
Fields are the individual questions or data points you want to collect from the applicants. They are the building blocks of your application, allowing you to gather all necessary information efficiently.
Step 1 - Initial Application Creation
Navigate to Applications > Applications > All Applications.
Click the + New Application button in the top right corner of the header.
Configure the settings:
📌 Note: the settings you configure here are all available again after creation. Open the application and find them in the left-hand menu under Settings: General, Availability, Identity Verification, Applicant Experience, Fee & Deposit, Submission Prevention Rules, Autoresponder Messages, and PDF Output.
General
General
Application Name: Enter a descriptive name for your application. As shown in the screenshot below, this name will be visible to students when they choose which application to submit, making it a crucial element for identification.
Description: Describe the Application. This field is intended for internal use, providing your staff with context.
Enable SnapApp: Toggle this option to offer a condensed version of the application, SnapApp. SnapApp displays only the required fields to the applicant, simplifying the application process. Enabling this feature includes an option for applicants to toggle SnapApp on or off based on their preference, as shown in the screenshot below:
Default Application: If you enable SnapApp, select the default version of the application that applicants see upon initially accessing it. This setting configures the toggle to either FullApp or SnapApp by default.
Alert When Required Fields Are Complete: Activate this option to present a popup notification to the applicant once they complete all required fields. The popup will give them the choice to either submit the application immediately or continue filling in any optional information, as shown in the screenshot below:
Allow New Registrations: Controls whether new applications can be started from the application site. When turned off, students can still sign in to view and edit their existing applications, but they won't see this application in the "Start Your Application" list.
📌 Note: This setting is best used when importing applications from another vendor and providing students access through magic links or pre-generated accounts.
✨ Pro Tip: You can also remove the "Start Application" button from the Application Site Home Page by editing the "Billboard App with CTA" content block and toggling off "Registration Button" under Customization > Elements.
Should Applicants be able to Withdraw Application: Permit applicants to withdraw their application directly from their Application Dashboard. This feature empowers applicants by giving them control over their application status.
Hide Blank Responses: Hides fields with no submitted value in the generated PDF, resulting in cleaner, more relevant documents.
Note: Field headings (section labels) will still appear to provide context about each application section, even when the individual fields beneath them are empty. This ensures you always keep track of what information was requested.
Hide Unused Conditional Fields: Hides fields that were never shown to the applicant due to conditional logic, along with hidden fields, in the generated PDF.
📌 Note: Both PDF toggles are off by default, so generated PDFs include all fields unless you opt in. Keep in mind that hidden fields can still contain data (for example, prepopulated country codes or fields populated via API for conditional logic), so enable these only when you want a more condensed PDF.
Show Application Status: Opt to show the current status of the application on the Application Dashboard. This transparency helps applicants track their progress and understand their application's standing.
Show Documents Section: Decide whether to display the documents section within the application's sidebar. This section can be used to request specific documents from applicants.
Will International Students Apply Using this App: When enabled, this setting instructs the AI Fraud Detection Agent to expect international IP addresses, ensuring they aren't incorrectly flagged as fraudulent.
Registration Rate Limit: Sets how many applications can be submitted per minute from the same IP address. The default limit is 2, but you can increase this by entering a custom value.
✨ Pro Tip: Use this setting during high-volume events, such as fairs or open houses, when multiple applicants may share the same network and need to apply at once. After the event, it's best to revert to a lower limit to maintain standard traffic controls.
Submitted Status Sidebar Text: This setting allows you to display custom text in the sidebar once an application is submitted. You can use this space to provide helpful information, next steps, or essential notifications to applicants post-submission.
Icon
Icon
Choose an icon for your application to display next to its name on the Application Site.
Payment Info
Payment Info
The payment info section allows you to enable payments and collect an application fee if required to submit an application.
Active: Use the Active toggle to enable application fee collection.
Discounts: Turning this toggle on permits discount codes to be used on this payment. Discount codes are configured in General Settings. To learn more about configuring discount codes, visit our Discount Codes article.
Personal Check: Turning this toggle on permits applicants to select a 'Mail a Personal Check' method instead of using a credit card. Note that Applications is the only module that allows credit card payments. If selected, you will also need to provide the following information:
Paid to: To whom should the check be made out?
Address: Provide the address where the check should be mailed.
Payment Description: Describes the product or service purchased only for internal use.
Credit Card Provider: If you have multiple credit card providers, you will be prompted to select one.
Account: Input an account number or name for internal tracking.
Payment Type: There are four payment types to choose from: fixed, conditional, calculated, and user-defined.
Additional fields will appear to configure the specific settings depending on the Payment Type chosen. You can explore our article, Payment Types, to gain further insight into each type and how to configure them.
If you wish to use payment rules, you will need to select the Conditional payment type.
Required to Submit: If payment is a prerequisite for application submission, toggle this setting to Yes. This ensures that the application can only be submitted after payment.
Payment Dialog Title: Add help text that appears on the modal/dialog box under the "Application Fee" title.
This space supports adding links, which is great for including your payment/refund policies and more. See the screenshot below:
Deposit
Deposit
If you wish to collect a deposit on this Application:
To apply an existing Deposit, select one from the dropdown menu.
To create a new Deposit, click Add Deposit.
Configure the Deposit Settings. For help creating deposits, review the Global Application Settings article.
Identity Verification
Identity Verification
Enable Identity Verification: Toggle this option on to enable Identity Verification for the application.
Element451's Identity Verification adds an extra layer of security to your application process by confirming the identity of your applicants using verified documents and selfie checks, all powered by the industry leader in payment and ID verification, Stripe. This feature is designed to combat application fraud and works alongside tools like the Bolt AI Fraud Detector Agent to ensure that your applicants are who they say they are.
Identity Verification is available to partners with Element451's AI Workforce Admissions Team as a Usage-Based Pricing Feature.
You can read more about the Identity Verification feature here.
After configuring the Application settings, click Add in the top right corner to Save your Application. The Application editor will open, allowing you to begin customization.
Step 2 - Add Steps + Sections
Applications are organized into Steps, which act as separate pages in the process, and Sections within each Step, which group the Fields that collect information from the applicant.
Building the form itself now has its own article, covering how to add, edit and reorder Steps, how to create Sections including repeatable ones, how to add and configure Fields, and how to set up the custom Step and Section sidebars that give applicants instructions.
Step 3 - Configure Application Content
The Content section of the lefthand menu allows you to configure the following application components. Click on a heading to expand the details.
Dashboard
Dashboard
The Dashboard is the application start screen or the first step in the application process. Applicants will see the Dashboard immediately after starting an application and completing the Application Registration Form.
Greeting Messages: Greeting messages are displayed in the Dashboard header and are customized based on the applicant's status, so applicants see stage-appropriate messaging as they progress. You can configure a separate greeting message for each of the following statuses: Admitted, Default, In Review, Conditional Offer, Submitted, Denied, Deferred, Waitlisted, Deposited, and Withdrawn.
Each greeting has a default title and description provided by Element451, but you can click the pencil to edit the greeting.
Tokens can be used to personalize the greeting.
The Admitted, Conditional Offer, and Deposited greetings have an added feature that allows you to show a package button. This feature is used in conjunction with Decision Packages and Microsites. Read more on Linking the Admitted Student Dashboard to the Microsite.
The Admitted and Conditional Offer greetings also include a Show Confetti toggle. Confetti displays by default. Turn the toggle off if the celebratory graphic is not the right fit for a particular decision (for example, a needs-based or diversity scholarship offer) or for your brand. The setting is applied per application, so existing greetings keep their confetti unless you turn it off.
Good to know: Application dashboard greeting messages support the use of URL tokens, which display as hyperlinks.
Information Cards: Element451 allows you to enhance your Application Dashboard with various Information Cards, including Documents, Text, Deadlines, and Checklists. Additionally, you can apply conditional logic to control visibility for different users.
Checklist Card: This card displays checklist items tied to the application, which can be managed under Applications > Decision > Decision Settings > Checklist. It is vital for tracking application requirements. Read more on the Decision Checklist.
Text Card: This card displays essential information or guidance related to the application or the application process. This card remains visible until a decision is released.
Documents Card: This card showcases the applicant's uploaded documents after submitting the application. It becomes visible after the application has been submitted. Upload fields from the application are automatically added here after submission; upload fields marked Hidden are excluded.
Deadline Card: This card features a customizable deadline, which is ideal for highlighting application or scholarship due dates. Visibility continues until a decision is released or the specified deadline is reached, whichever happens first.
Sidebar and Paragraphs: The Dashboard has its own sidebar, which applicants open from a button in the top right corner of the dashboard header. Use it for information applicants may want at any point in the process, such as deadlines, required documents, or who to contact for help.
🚨 Important: Unlike the Step and Section sidebars, the Dashboard sidebar has no activation toggle. It is always available, so add a title and at least one paragraph before publishing.
Click the pencil icon on the Sidebar Title row to set the Title applicants see at the top of the sidebar, and the Button label shown on the button they click. Leave the button label empty to use the default, Tips and Info.
Click + Add Paragraph to add a block of content with a Title and Text. Add as many paragraphs as you need.
You can also add sidebars to individual Steps and Sections. See Custom Step + Section Sidebars for details.
Application Registration Form
Application Registration Form
The Application Registration Form allows students to quickly create an account to start or continue their application, upload necessary documents, and check their application status, all in one place.
This form is customizable and tailored to meet your institution's needs. Element451 automatically adds the following fields to streamline the process: email, password, first name, last name, date of birth, term, campus, and intended program of study.
🚨 Important: The email, password, first name, and last name fields must remain on the registration form.
To add additional fields to the registration form, click + Add Field.
To preview how the fields display to the applicant, use the show preview toggle.
✨ Pro Tip: When sharing your application site URL, you can pre-fill the registration form fields by adding query parameters. For example, use ?user-application-term=[insert term guid] to automatically select the application term. In the example URL below, we highlight some example parameters and their values:
Request Information
Request Information
The Request Information feature within Applications allows students to easily request documents or information from third parties within an application (e.g., transcripts, fee waivers, test scores, letters of reference). You can add an Information Request to your application(s) with just a few clicks. The request automatically emails the third party/recipient upon application submission.
Submission Form
Submission Form
The Submission Form is designed to gather essential information from applicants before finalizing their applications. It's strategically positioned to ask sensitive but necessary questions such as "Have you ever been expelled or academically dismissed from school?" or "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?", queries that institutions may need for legal compliance or internal criteria.
Additionally, this form offers the flexibility to add fields that require the applicant's consent or agreement. Leveraging conditional logic, these fields can be dynamically tailored, ensuring that applicants only see questions relevant to their specific circumstances, thus enhancing the submission process.
The process for adding fields to the Submission Form is the same as Steps and other Forms.
The responses to the submission form questions will appear on the application preview and PDF.
Supplemental Forms
Supplemental Forms
Supplemental application forms are helpful for institutions that need to collect additional information from applicants after submitting a primary application. These can be used for several use cases, such as residency verifications, enrollment agreements, etc.
Submission Prevention Rules
Submission Prevention Rules
📌 Note: Submission Prevention Rules now appear under Settings in the left-hand menu rather than Content. The rules themselves work the same way.
With the application submission prevention feature, you can prevent users from submitting applications using custom criteria. While users are already prevented from submitting applications if they do not fill out the required fields or have already submitted an application for the same term and major combination, this feature allows further customization of these rules.
Step 4 - Settings
The Settings section of the left hand menu holds every configuration option for this application. Click a heading to expand the details.
General: name, description, SnapApp, and the other identity settings from application creation.
Availability: whether the application is accepting submissions, and when.
Identity Verification: default state and the Rules that apply to this application.
Applicant Experience: the applicant-facing options for this application.
Fee & Deposit: application fee and deposit configuration, previously separate Payment and Deposit settings.
Submission Prevention Rules: condition-based rules that block submission. This moved here from Content.
Autoresponder Messages: the default messages sent to applicants.
PDF Output: the PDF generation options, previously separate settings.
🚨 Important: Autoresponders require activation at two levels. The autoresponder must be enabled in Application Settings and the specific autoresponder message must be set to Active within the application in order to send.
Availability
Availability
Availability is the single source of truth for when this application accepts submissions. It holds two cards, Status and Schedule. Changes are saved with the Save button at the top right of the page.
Status
These controls govern whether the application is on at all. They behave as they always have; they are now grouped here.
Active: turns the application on. When off, the computed state is Inactive and no one can submit, regardless of the dates you have scheduled.
Allow New Registrations: switch this off when you are importing registrations from another system and do not want new ones created in Element451.
Registration Rate Limit: optional. How many people can apply per minute from the same IP address. The default is 2.
Will International Students Apply Using this App: tells AI Fraud Detection whether to expect international addresses.
Schedule
Set when the application opens and closes. Add a window for each intake, such as fall, spring, and summer. Leave a field empty to keep that end open-ended. The timezone the card is using is shown at its top right.
Each window has:
A number and a name, with its current status beside them, for example Window 1 · New Intake · Active
Open Date, Open Time, Close Date, and Close Time
A Repeats annually toggle, which recurs the window on the same dates every year, so an annual nursing intake only needs configuring once.
Its own Late Submission Rules, covered below
Use + Add window to add another intake, and the trash icon on a window's row to remove it.
How the dates behave:
No dates at all: the application stays open indefinitely while Active is on.
An open date in the future: the application becomes available on its own at that date and time.
A close date: the application stops accepting submissions at that date and time.
One end left empty: that end is open-ended.
📌 Note: a closed application behaves exactly like an inactive one from the applicant's point of view. There is no separate closed-application experience to configure.
Late Submission Rules
Sometimes an intake should close for the general pool while a specific group can still submit. Late Submission Rules allow selected applicants to submit after the window closes, with readmission applicants being the common case.
Rules belong to a window, not to the application. A late exception on your fall intake has no effect on spring. Each window keeps its own set.
A window with no rules yet shows an empty state and an Add button.
You define who a rule applies to with conditions, the same way you do for Submission Prevention Rules and Identity Verification Rules.
Rules stay in effect only until the next window opens. A closed window remains the current one until the following window begins, and that is what allows its Late Submission Rules to keep working past the close date. As soon as the next window starts, the grace period ends. If your fall window is followed by a spring window, late submissions on fall stop the moment spring opens.
Application Status
Because availability is driven by the Active toggle and your scheduled windows, the status is computed and read-only. It is no longer a manual Active/Inactive control. The same four states appear on the application header chip and in the Status column on the All Applications page.
Inactive: the Active toggle is off.
Scheduled: Active is on and the open date is in the future.
Active: the application is currently accepting submissions.
Closed: the close date has been reached and submissions are no longer allowed.
Hover a Scheduled chip to see the open date.
🚨 Important: status is calculated from your open and close dates alone. Late Submission Rules are not part of that calculation, so once a window's close date passes the application reads Closed even while applicants matched by a rule can still submit. Do not rely on the status chip to tell you whether a late group still has access; check the window's rules instead.
What Applicants See
Availability changes what applicants can see on your application site, not only what they are allowed to submit. Because there is no closed-application screen to configure, it is worth knowing exactly what happens on the applicant's side before you let a window close.
A closed application is hidden, not labeled. It drops out of the "Start Your Application" list rather than appearing with a closed notice. Inactive and Scheduled applications are hidden the same way.
Applications already in progress disappear too. If an applicant started an application and the window then closes, that application is no longer visible on their dashboard, and they cannot open or submit it. They are not shown a message explaining why.
A Late Submission Rule is what keeps it visible. An applicant matched by a rule on that window continues to see the application they already started and can still submit it. Applicants who do not match the rule lose access to it.
Matched applicants cannot start a new application. Late Submission Rules only permit submitting an application that was started before the window closed.
✨ Pro Tip: before a window closes on applicants who are partway through, either add a Late Submission Rule covering the group you want to let finish, or message them ahead of the close date. Once the window closes, the application simply disappears from their view, so a closing deadline is worth communicating in advance.
Things to Know
Allow a minute or two after saving. Changes to application settings, including window dates and Late Submission Rules, take one to two minutes to take effect. If you are testing, wait before concluding something is not working. This is easiest to misread when an application is closed and you are checking whether a Late Submission Rule lets the right group through, because the application will still behave as fully closed until the change propagates.
Autoresponder Messages
Autoresponder Messages
Default autoresponder messages are managed in Global Application Settings, where each autoresponder type can be globally enabled and its default message content defined.
The same autoresponders are also available within the settings of each individual application. From there, you can customize the message content and settings for that specific application. If an application-level version is customized, it will be used instead of the default message. If no customization is made, the system will fall back to the default message from Application Settings.
Regardless of whether the message is customized at the application level, the autoresponder must be set to Active in both Application Settings and the individual application in order to send.
You can identify application-level customizations by the word "edited" appended to the autoresponder title in the application-level settings.
You can modify the following eight autoresponder types at the application level, tailoring each to meet your institution's specific needs:
Application Preview
Application Submitted
CC Payment Successfully
Deposit CC Payment Successful
Password Reset Request Secondary Email Notification
User Password Changed
User Password Reset Request
User Registered to Application
📌 Note: Profile change notification emails are no longer an application autoresponder. They now send automatically as a system message and cannot be disabled or customized in Application Settings. This notification is triggered only when a student updates their information using the Edit Profile function on the application site; changes made by staff, imports, or backend processes do not trigger it.
The other three autoresponders in Application Settings relate to Information Requests, which can be customized or fine-tuned by Request Type.
According to your preference, these messages can be personalized and delivered through email, SMS, or both.
You can also enable or disable these messages at any time. For added convenience, a feature allows you to send a preview to yourself. This lets you see exactly what the applicant will receive, ensuring that every communication is perfectly crafted.
To activate/deactivate an autoresponder, use the Active toggle.
Don't forget to confirm it's also active in Application Settings.
To edit an autoresponder, click the three vertical dots, then Edit Message.
To send a preview, click the three vertical dots, then Send Preview Message.
Managing Applications
From the All Applications page (Applications > Applications > All Applications), you can edit, duplicate, delete, and reorder your list of Applications.
To edit an Application, click the three vertical dots, then Edit.
Every setting for an application lives in the left-hand menu, organized into Steps, Content, and Settings. General, icon, fee, and deposit settings are under Settings.
To duplicate an Application, click the three vertical dots, then Duplicate.
To delete an Application, click the three horizontal dots, then Delete. You'll be asked to confirm your action.
To reorder your Applications, click and drag the Application to the desired place using the up and down arrow icon. If you have multiple applications available to a student, the other here is how it will appear to the student on the Application Site.
The Status column shows each application's computed state: Inactive, Scheduled, Active, or Closed. It is read-only, because status is driven by the Active toggle plus the window dates you set in Availability. Hover a Scheduled chip to see its upcoming date.
Troubleshooting
Q: Why is X term (or major, degree, etc) not showing up as an option on this application?
A: We automatically filter out majors, terms, degrees, and other options that are not available for a particular application. Make sure to check the data source to confirm that the term, major, degree, etc., has a value in the "Available For" tab.