Decision reasons let you consolidate decision codes while capturing high-level explanatory information about a particular decision.

Adding a decision reason can be a practical data point when querying decision-related information and narrowing down search results, and providing more specific information about a student's decision.

⭐ Best Practice

Decision reasons are optional but useful when clarifying a business process. Consider skipping this step early on and revisiting decision reasons after creating decision letters and reply forms.

Say a student has been admitted by the dean of admissions. You could assign the decision code of Admit and the decision reason of Dean Admit. Doing so makes it easy to quickly identify records that have been admitted with specific explanations.

Using this same example, providing a decision reason can give further insight into the admission decision and help distinguish between students who have been accepted through the standard admissions process and those whom the dean has specifically admitted.

Adding a decision reason

1. Go to Database → Decision Reasons.

2. Select Insert.

3. Enter the following decision reason configurations in the dialog box:

   • Decision Code: Select the decision code that will be the parent code of the decision reason. Each decision reason can only be associated with a single decision code.

   • Reason: Give the decision reason a clear name.

   • Export Key: Optionally, configure an export value that can be used in exports to external systems, including your SIS. We recommend skipping this setting now and revisiting this item when beginning work on data exports.

4. Select Save.