Entering a New Lead

Enrollment leads are typically entered into BigSIS through an inquiry form. There are two inquiry forms available: one public form that can be placed on your school’s website (see example here), one internal Quick Add Lead form that may be used by your office staff. The former allows the public at large to visit your website and initiate the first contact with you on their own terms by filling out the inquiry form by themselves. The latter allows your staff to log a new enrollment lead for someone else in their stead, such as when a parent calls on the phone to inquire rather than fill out your public inquiry form or when you meet a prospect and want to log them into BigSIS to keep track of them. 

How an enrollment lead is entered, whether entered by the public at large or entered by one of your office staff members for someone else doesn’t matter, all leads ultimately end up in the same place. Inquiries submitted from the public inquiry form will be marked as such whereas those submitted by a staff member for someone else can be marked otherwise in the field titled "Lead Source" (see 'Using the Quick Add Lead form to enter a new lead'). To look up the source of an existing lead, open up the lead record, find the button titled "View/Edit Additional Lead Info" and locate the field titled "Lead Source."

NOTE: You can set up Alerts for when a public entry is submitted: Setting up Alerts

How to use the Quick Add Lead Form to Enter a new Lead

1. Go to Admissions/Leads > Quick Add Lead (alternatively, you may go to Admissions/Leads > Leads, then click +New)
2. Proceed to fill out the form with the lead's family in mind.
   1. Definitions and Common Issues With Certain Fields
      • Academic Year: If the academic year you are looking for is not showing up in this field, then that means it has not been set up yet. Instructions for setting up a new academic year may be found by going to the People table (People > People Records) and clicking on the Help button. WARNING: If someone else at the school typically handles the setup of new academic years, we highly recommend contacting them for assistance before embarking on this yourself.
      • Program: You must select an academic year first before any programs will be listed here. If, even after selecting a new academic year, you are still unable to see the program you would like to select, then that means the program has not been set up correctly for the selected academic year yet. Contact the super admin at your school for assistance on resolving this. If further assistance is needed after that, please contact support@bigsis.com.
      • Heard About: This field is for marketing purposes. You may use this field in the future to query for the most effective ways that prospects have heard about your institution.
      • Lead Source: This field is used to identify how the lead was created. All leads created from the public inquiry form will have a lead source that reflects this fact. However, when instead you or a staff member fills out the Quick Add Lead form, you may select any lead source you want from this drop-down to identify the fact that this lead is coming from a different source than the public inquiry form. Some schools prefer to have just two options, one to identify those leads that came from the public inquiry form and one to identify those that came from the internal Quick Add Lead form. Other schools prefer to have more options (e.g., phone call, walk-in, mailed inquiry form, etc.). If you wish to add a new option, just type it into the field. The next time you or one of your staff members uses the Quick Add Lead form to create a new lead, your new option will be available as well. Keep in mind, these additional options are only available from the Quick Add Lead form so all inquiries from the public inquiry form will continue to have one and only one source but leads created from the Quick Add Lead form may have as many options as you choose.
      • Family Type: Used for internal purposes and for querying. This field is optional. Use it (or not) as you see fit, perhaps to identify the lead as a lead for a new or returning family. You may add new values to this drop-down by simply typing them in.
      • Student Identification: If you wish to manually create student ID numbers, you may type it in here now. BigSIS can automate this instead if you choose. If you have more questions about this process, please contact us by emailing support@bigsis.com. Do NOT put social security numbers in here. This field is not encrypted and may potentially appear in the teacher portal.
      • Government Identification: This is a secondary type of ID you may use. We also advise not storing social security numbers here because this field is not encrypted. However, this field is only available in the BigSIS admin, so it is a little more secure than the Student Identification field.
      • Lead Internal Custom Form: Any fields that display here come from your Lead Enrollment Configuration. If you would like to add internal use custom fields to this form, you may do so from the Lead Enrollment Configuration for the academic year you have selected.
      • Parent/Guardian Information: Only one set of fields is required. If the person already exists in your database, do not create a new record for them. Instead, select 'Existing Person' when entering their information and select an existing person from your database, otherwise you may end up with duplicate records. Also be sure to use the 'Existing Household Address' option if the person's address already exists in the system, again to avoid duplicates.