Configuration keys are used to establish a global setting for your entire database. Generally, each configuration key is set once and not changed unless a change in an institutional need is required.

To view or modify your configuration keys, go to Database → Configuration Keys.

🔔 Important!

These keys should be updated with caution and only when necessary.

Changes to configuration keys can take up to 15 minutes to be reflected across all web nodes.

General Settings

Organization Name

Name of the organization or department/function of the institution represented by the database.

Organization name appears on internal Slate pages such as in the footer and externally in automated communications such as system emails and Slate payment receipts.

Example: Slate University / Slate University School of Business / Slate University Student Success / Slate University Advancement

Default setting: Slate Model

First Day of Week

The first day of the week as displayed on all database calendars. This setting impacts calendar-type widgets, calendar-type form fields and the Event/Scheduler page calendars.

Default setting: Monday

Homepage Redirect

Redirect external website visitors when they access the root page of your Slate database URL. Populate this setting to create a redirect when the root path is accessed.

Example: Slateuniversity.edu yields no active web page so users will be routed to site hosted by your organization such as slateuniverityadmissions.edu

Banner for Administrative Pages

A database-specific text description appears across all administrative pages to selected users who access more than one institutional Slate database. The banner appears in production, test, and time warp environments for users with the exclusive permission of Administrative Database Banner.

Example: upon login, user with permission sees banner for “Slate University Undergraduate” or “Slate University Graduate” to distinguish database sessions.

Default setting: no banner

HTML Color Palette Override

Configure a palette of up to 24 colors which display in the WYSIWYG HTML editor. Enter a list of 6-digit HTML color codes to add to the palette.

Refer to Custom Color Palette article for the list of 24 default palette colors and adding new ones.

Example: 990000,0b486d,2a3a96

Citizenship: Permanent Resident Override

Permanent Resident checkbox appears on an application when a country other than the database default for citizenship is selected for Primary Citizenship.

The Permanent Resident checkbox can be disabled or the “Permanent Resident” label can be replaced with custom text.

Adding custom text does not impact default behavior, it only changes the field label.

Default setting: checkbox appears, and value calculated

Citizenship: Country Override

The country determining domestic citizenship database-wide. Consult this document for the Slate method of calculating Citizenship.

Default setting: United States

Address: Default Country Override

The country to which addresses default throughout the database.

Default setting: United States

Phone: Default Country Override

The country to which telephone numbers default throughout the database.

Default setting: United States

Year Start Override

The month and day defining the start of the institutional year. Default is set to calendar year start of January 1st.

Enter the month and day format as MM-DD.

Default setting: 01-01

Record Minimum Year Override

The oldest year available in the record profile selector.

Change the oldest available year in the selector to ≥1800 by choosing from the dropdown menu. Consider the oldest available year when importing historic records alumni or giving records.

This setting impacts only the Profile tab of a Record.

Default setting: 1900

Gravatar Photos

Gravatar photos appear on the Dashboard of a record when the owner of the email address has uploaded a photo to their Gravatar.com account. Slate only displays images rated "G" on Gravatar.

Default setting: Enabled

Application: Direct School Deletion Behavior

Select whether the direct deletion of a school record by an applicant should reassign school-scoped materials such as transcripts, to a folio-scoped material or to Batch Acquire instead of automatically deleting the material.

Default Setting: Delete Materials (Default Behavior)

Reader Settings

College Board Landscape: Enable

Technolutions Staff Only – Enables receiving High School Performance Information data from the College Board.

Default setting: Disabled (Default Behavior)

College Board High Landscape: DI Code

Technolutions Staff Only – Sets the College Board High School Performance Information code.

Default setting: Not Set

College Board High Landscape: Average Neighborhood Score

Technolutions Staff Only – Sets the College Board High School Performance Information average neighborhood score.

Default setting: Not Set

College Board High Landscape: Average High School Score

Technolutions Staff Only – Sets the College Board High School Performance Information average high school score.

Default setting: Not Set

Download PDF

Enabling this setting allows a user the ability to download PDFs within the Reader.

Default setting: Enabled (Default Behavior)

Record Dropdown

Users with Reader permission can click on the record name within the Reader to display additional information about the record.

Default setting: Enabled (Default Behavior)

Reader Code Page

Specify the code page for PDF rendering.

Default setting: Standard (Default Behavior)

Branding, Privacy, & Ping Settings

Mobile Template

Override the Slate default mobile template with a file path directed to a custom mobile responsive branding template. Save the file to this path: /shared/build.xslt

Default setting:  Slate default mobile template

Embed Script on Slate Pages

Add custom script, such as Google Analytics, to Slate pages. The script will be added to the element of Slate pages. When adding script, omit the tags.

Default setting: No script

Embed Ping on Slate Pages

Enabling this key embeds Ping on Slate pages and forms. By default, this configuration is disabled. Ping is an analytics service that records remote web access to Slate pages and associates that access history with person records. Ping data is aggregated every hour and Ping access is matched to Slate person records nightly. More information about Ping can be found here.

Default setting: Disabled

Ping Deep Track

An opt-in behavior to Ping that enables deep user tracking and conversion event tracking in Slate. When enabled, Slate rewrites click-tracking links in outbound messages in several key ways; this synchronization of tracking enables Slate to more immediately attribute browsing activity back to a person record before, for example, they submit a form.

Default setting: Not set

Ping Consent Text

Enter a consent statement for use as text pop-up for site visitors. This statement is intended to display an institution’s description of data use and privacy policy.

Choose the countries where consent should be obtained and add unique statements for different regions via the ‘Ping Consent Countries’ Configuration Key. To add unique statements for different regions, add a key along with a comma-separated list of the Slate country codes for which consent should be obtained. If set to "NONE", no statement will be displayed. Updates take 15 minutes before reflecting on all web nodes.

For institutions using a custom text popup for GDPR consent, Ping consent is typically left inactive. For more information, see our GDPR Resource Guide.

Default setting: Not set

Ping Exclude Networks

Networks listed here are excluded from Ping data capture. This configuration key will accept IP addresses or CIDR subnets separated by commas. Clients on these IP addresses are not provided the JavaScript used to track navigations.

Example CIDR subnet: 123.45.67.0/24

Default setting: Not set

Ping Consent Countries

Select countries for which Ping Consent text displays.The select list begins with options for All Countries and EU/EEA.  To select multipleoptions, use ctrl-click and shift-click buttons.

Default setting:  No countries selected

Form Consent Text

Enter a GDPR consent policy statement to display upon form submission. To obtain the necessary consent, this feature inserts an interstitial pop-up when a user clicks "submit" on a form, prior to form data submission.

For more information, see our GDPR Resource Guide.

Default setting:  Disabled

Form Consent Countries

Select countries for which the Form Consent text displays. The select list begins with options for All Countries and EU/EEA. To select multiple options, use ctrl-click and shift-click buttons.

Default setting:  No countries selected

Security & SSO Settings

Default User Country

The country from which most users log in to the database. Users logging in from outside the default user country trigger a security checkpoint notification.  When the security checkpoint is triggered, a confirmation email is sent to the email address of the user logging in as well as users with the Security Administrator exclusive permission.

Select the default user country from the dropdown list of countries.

Default setting: United States

Require VPN Access: Allowed Subnets

Restrict Slate access for administrative users to only those who are on your campus network. Users can log into Slate only if they are either physically on your campus or are using a campus VPN to route their traffic through the campus network.

IMPORTANT: This change will affect all Slate logins via your SSO. If you use your SSO to authenticate applicants, persons, or datasets, they will also need to be on your campus network. This may prevent logins from prospective students or alumni and should be activated with caution.

Enter your allowed IP address or subnets (in CIDR notation) separated by commas, if you need to set multiples.

Default setting: blank

Service CAS Attributes

Applicable to databases using CAS authentication only

Comma-separated list of values that can be relabeled by appending a colon and the title after the ID. The list can include “ref” for the Person ID, "round" for the application Round Name, or the id of any custom Person-scoped field. The only Application-scoped value that CAS Attributes can send is round. All the other values being sent must be Person scoped.

Example: ref:SlateID,round:AppRound,pidnm:BannerI

Default setting: Not Set

Service CAS Use ID

Applicable to databases using CAS authentication only

By default, Slate returns the primary email address for a Person record. If this value is set to ApplicationGUID, Slate instead returns the ApplicationGUID in 32-character format.

Select the field(s) that should be used to determine the sent value. If more than one field is selected, Slate will send the first field with a value, evaluated in the specified order.

Default setting: email is used

Mobile Security Extension

Mobile users are asked via a pop-up to extend a session in lieu of automatic timeout. When selected their logged in session persists.

Default setting: Disabled

External Domains for Allowed Scripts

You can enter a comma-separated list of external domains that are allowed to host scripts.

Default setting: blank

Allowed Service Domains List

If Slate is being used as a CAS identity provider, expand the list of allowed domains by entering a comma-delimited list of domains as the value.  By default, only the subdomains of the parent domain are allowed.

Enter a comma-delimited list of services.

Default setting: blank

Subnets: Increase Form Submission Rate Limit

Slate enforces rate limits on form submissions which helps reduce spam submissions and preserve the overall stability & security of your Slate database. One element of this rate limiting is to track the IP address from which the form is submitted.  The form submission rate limit can be increased for specific IP addresses.

Enter a comma-delimited list of allowed subnets for which the form submission rate limit should be increased. This list should be limited to campus IP addresses as best practice.

Example:198.51.100.0/24

Default setting: blank

Note: Only available for users with Security Administrator role

Enable Permission Requests

Enables users to submit requests for additional permissions when encountering a forbidden message.

Default setting:

Security Provider

Select the security provider being used for authentication.

Default setting: Not Set

Note: Only available for users with Security Administrator role

Security Metadata

Technolutions Use Only

Default setting: Not Set

Security Name ID Policy

There are a few ways a to send the userID of the person logging in to Slate. One of these is called NameID.

Besides the default option, which is Not Set, you can select one of two NameID policies: Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) or Oracle Access Manager (OAM).

Most systems use NameID in the ADFS format. These include:

• Any Microsoft system, such as the original ADFS, or the more recent Entra ID

• Google

• Okta

OAM has a slightly different, rarer format.

Default setting: Not Set

Security Login

Technolutions Use Only

Default setting: Not Set

Security Logout

Technolutions Use Only

Default setting: Not Set

Security SSO

Technolutions Use Only

Default setting: Not Set

Security SSO Create

Technolutions Use Only

Default setting: Not Set

Security Slate Passthrough

Technolutions Use Only

Default setting: Not Set

Security SSO Register

Technolutions Use Only

Default setting: Not Set

Security Endpoint

Only available for users with Security Administrator role

Default setting: Not Set

Security Endpoint

Only available for users with Security Administrator role

Default setting: Not Set

Security Service Account

Only available for users with Security Administrator role

Default setting: Not Set

Security Service Password

Only available for users with Security Administrator role

Default setting: Not Set

Security UID

Note: Only available for users with Security Administrator role

Default setting: Not Set

Security Validate

Note: Only available for users with Security Administrator role

Default setting: Not Set

Security Entity ID

Note: Only available for users with Security Administrator role

Default setting: Not Set

Security Attribute

Note: Only available for users with Security Administrator role

Default setting: Not Set

Security Certificate

Note: Only available for users with Security Administrator role

Default setting: Not Set

Security Disable Encryption

Note: Only available for users with Security Administrator role

Default setting: Encryption Enabled (Default Behavior)

Security Sign Metadata

Note: Only available for users with Security Administrator role

Default setting: Disabled (Default Behavior)

Slate Payments Minimum Amount

Enter a dollar & cent value (for example, 10.00) to set a minimum amount for all Slate Payment transactions.

Default setting: Not set

Record Account Settings

Person Security Checkpoint

By default, Slate employs login checkpoints when a user attempts to log in from an unrecognized location. This can be disabled with this configuration key. See our article on Login Notifications and Checkpoints for additional information.

Default setting: Default Behavior

Account Registration - Redirect to Form Registration

By default, Slate requires first name, last name, date of birth and email address to create a student account for access. If you wish to collect additional data points, you can configure Slate to send users to a form and gather additional data such as an expected entry term or address information.

Default setting: Default Behavior

Account Registration - Show Birthdate

By default, Slate asks for a person's date of birth during account registration and when creating a password using a PIN. Some institutions choose to not collect birthdate during the account creation process for security purposes.

Default setting: Show Birthdate Enabled (Default Behavior)

Apply Page Redirect

By default, each instance of Slate has a webpage which displays links to create a Slate application. An example of such a URL is https://slateuniversity.edu/apply. If an organization does not use Slate applications, a student's browsing session can be redirected to a web address of your choice. Commonly, this would be an admissions-related webpage. Without setting this URL, students will be able to land on the page to start an application. Note, that if no active application periods or rounds exist, the student will not be able to create a Slate application.

Default setting: Default Behavior

Social Login - Facebook

Allows students to log in using their Facebook credentials.

Default setting: Disabled (Default Behavior)

Social Login - Google

Allows students to log in using their Google credentials.

Default setting: Disabled (Default Behavior)

Social Login - LinkedIn

Allows students to log in using their LinkedIn credentials.

Default setting: Disabled (Default Behavior)

External Login – Slate.org (Managed on Slate.org Sharing Settings Page)

Read Only - Indicates that items in your Slate instance have been shared to Slate.org. This is configured in the Slate.org settings within your database.

Default setting: Disabled (Default Behavior)

Deliver Settings

Default Sender Email

A default email address can be set for the database. In the Default Sender Email, provide the email address associated with the database. In the Name section, a name can also be provided.

Example: admissions@slateuniversity.org Name: Slate University

Default Mailing Template

All new emails created within Deliver will start with the selected template.

Select a template from the dropdown list of Deliver templates.

Default setting: Default Behavior

Emergency Stop

When enabled, all non-transactional communications will cease. When disabled, mailings will resume as normal. Any record that meets the live query's filter criteria will receive a message during the next scheduled time for that mailing to run.

If a record met the filter criteria for a live query during the time that the Emergency Stop was enabled, but it no longer meets the criteria when Emergency Stop is disabled, then a message for that record will not be sent.

Default setting: Disabled (Default Behavior)

Import Settings

Merge (First+Last+Birthdate)

When importing person records to Slate, existing records are automatically matched using First Name, Last Name, and Email Address, and if no match is found, an attempt to match using First Name, Last Name, and Birthdate values are used. While uncommon, it is possible for two different people to share the same First, Last, and Birthdate values. To eliminate this matching criteria entirely, enable this key. This is not recommended for most institutions and will result in an increased number of duplicate records, which would have otherwise automatically matched. If disabled, duplicate records can be later reviewed in the Consolidate Records tool. For more information, see our Matching Criteria for Person Records and Consolidate Records documentation.

Default Setting: Enabled

Ad Hoc Import Metadata Form

Add a form to Upload Dataset for use when importing an ad hoc file. The form can be used for collecting information, such as source type and cost, or for displaying notes. Forms with a scope of Source Metadata will appear in the dropdown as an option.

Default setting: Not set

QuestBridge Folder

If your institution receives applications from QuestBridge, this value will be set by Technolutions to enable the delivery of application data.

Default setting: Not set

Common Application Folder

If your institution receives applications from Common App, this value will be set by Technolutions to enable the delivery of application data.

Default setting: Not set

Common Application – Multiple Accounts

If your institution receives applications from multiple Common Application accounts, this value will be set by Technolutions to enable the delivery of application data.

Default setting: Not set

Coalition Application Folder

If your institution receives applications from Coalition, this value will be set by Technolutions to enable the delivery of application data.

Default setting: Not set

Universal College Application Folder

If your institution receives applications from the Universal College Application, this value will be set by Technolutions to enable the delivery of application data.

Default setting: Not set

Royall Application Folder

If your institution receives applications from EAB (formerly Royall), this value will be set by Technolutions to enable the delivery of application data.

Default setting: Not set

Gateway to Prep Folder

If your institution receives applications from Gateway to Prep, this value will be set by Technolutions to enable the delivery of application data.

Default setting: Not set

StandOut Admissions Network Folder

If your institution receives applications from StandOut Admissions Network, this value will be set by Technolutions to enable the delivery of application data.

Default setting: Not set

AMCAS Certificate

A standard source format for AMCAS integration is currently under development.

Default setting: Not set

AMCAS Host

A standard source format for AMCAS integration is currently under development.

Default setting: Not set

AMCAS Institution ID

A standard source format for AMCAS integration is currently under development.

Default setting: Not set

AMCAS Year

A standard source format for AMCAS integration is currently under development.

Default setting: Not set

Database Configuration

HTTP Subdomain

Technolutions Use Only

Sets the root URL of your Slate instance.

Default setting: http://[YourSlateURL]

HTTPS Subdomain

Technolutions Use Only

Sets the secure root URL of your Slate instance.

Default setting: https://[YourSlateURL]

Admissions License

Technolutions Use Only

Enables Slate for admissions use.

Default setting: Enabled for admissions databases

Advancement License

Technolutions Use Only

Enables Slate for Advancement use.

Default setting: Enabled for advancement databases

Student Success License

Technolutions Use Only

Enables Slate for Student Success use.

Default setting: Enabled for Student Success databases

FTP Folder Override

Technolutions Use Only

Allows for an alternate destination for files being imported into Slate.

Default setting: Not Set

Early Access Features

Early Access Features configuration keys are occasionally used when new features are available within Slate. Rather than automatically enabling in all production environments, database managers can enable these new features at their discretion.

To activate an Early Access Feature, click the box next to the feature you want to enable and click Save. Once enabled, wait roughly 15 minutes for these changes to be reflected within your database.

Please see the Early Access Features Configuration Key document for additional information.

Default setting: Not set

Register URI

Slate offers a comprehensive event list available though a URL of https://slateuniversity.org/register. This event registration page within the database can be disabled to help promote the use of event portals. Set this to 0 to disable this feature.

Default setting: Not Set