Uploading Materials

Updated 09 Apr 2025
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📚 Part of the series Application Building Phase 1: Core components

As established in Materials Overview, materials can be uploaded to the person's record in the following ways:

The applicant uploads the material on their Applicant Status Portal
The material is dropped off in person and is scanned, then entered administratively
The material is uploaded as part of a batch using the Upload Dataset tool

In this article, we cover these avenues in more detail.

The applicant uploads materials to their Applicant Status Portal

Persons with a submitted application in Slate upload materials through their Applicant Status portal:

Upload materials

The Upload materials list displays material types that have the Access setting configured to Available for upload through the student self-service website.

An uploaded item will be added to the Materials tab on the person record.

Uploaded materials that have been set to Available for upload through a student self-service website or associated with a checklist item will display above the upload button in a bulleted list. See example:

Applicants doesn’t have Transcript upload option

To enable transcript upload on an application:

Go to Database → Application Editor.
Select the application configuration you'd like to modify from the list.
Select Academic History (aca) from the list.
From the list Configuration Group, select General Settings. A popup appears.
Scroll down to Upload Transcript. Select Enabled.
Click Save.

Applicants will now see their school-specific materials available for upload on their applicant status page.

However, students will also be able to upload these transcripts within the "Academic History" pop-up window (where they add each school to their application) as well.

Enabling this setting is all-or-nothing: it's either available for upload in both places, or neither.

Uploading materials on behalf of the applicant

Once a material type has been created in Slate, it's possible to upload documents on the Materials tab on a record:

Go to Records.
Search for and select a person record.
Select the Materials tab.
Select New Material.
Configure the following settings:
Record: Associating a material with the Folio means that the item will fulfill checklist items for any application associated with the record. Additionally, the material will appear in the Reader for any application associated with that record. If the material is associated with an application, then the item will only fulfill checklist items for that application and it will only appear in the Reader when reading that particular application.
Material: Select the proper Material type.
Memo: Add a memo (optional).
Source: Select one of the following options:
PDF / Document: Uploaded document will be converted into a PDF
Scanner: Select a scanner preset from the list. Opens Slate Desktop.
File (no conversion): Uploaded document will remain as-is and will not be converted into a PDF.
Upload Document: If uploading a file, click Choose File and select the file that should be uploaded to the person record.
Select Save.

The material appears on the record’s Materials tab.

If a material was uploaded to the wrong person record, go to the Materials tab, select the data row for that material, and select Edit. The material can then be reassigned to a different record.

File-based materials

Slate can preserve the file contents when uploading materials. For example, you can upload a PowerPoint presentation as a .ppt document and Slate will preserve the format.

When uploading materials, select the Source option of File (no conversion). This will upload and store the file without attempting to perform a conversion on the contents.