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Using Graduate Data Fields

 

Overview

Graduate Data Fields, or GDFs, are the data types that MarchingOrder will use to identify your graduates, communicate with them and create your ceremony files. Common examples include Full Name, Degree, Major and Honors. These fields are managed in the Graduate Data Field menu on the MarchingOrder Assistant. 

MarchingOrder requires certain standard GDFs for all ceremonies. Additional GDFs can be created and managed by the ceremony coordinators using this menu. 

Each GDF corresponds to a column header on your graduate import template, which you will use to import your list of graduates into the MarchingOrder site at the start of your ceremony term. The values included in that template will be used by MarchingOrder to create your graduate records, printed materials and display and audio files. They can also be used to organize and filter your graduates for strategic communications and to personalize their graduation experience by inserting things like Name or Major into their registration form, onto guest tickets and into emails. 



GDF list in excel

Using Graduate Data on Your Registration Form

To allow graduates to review the data you have on file, follow these steps to display certain GDFs on the registration form. Then graduates can confirm that the existing data is accurate, or take action to have it updated. 

  1. Select Add Question on the registration form.
  2. Select Single Line Text and insert a description of the data in the Question Field.
  3. Click the Graduate Can Edit/Graduate Cannot Edit button until it says Graduate Cannot Edit.

    4. Important: We do not recommend giving graduates the ability to directly edit data. Instead, we recommend you offer a contact email or other action where they can request a change to be made and a ceremony coordinator can review the change before editing MarchingOrder data.

  4. In Pre-Populated With, choose the appropriate GDF from the drop down menu. 

    5. This will now present the data to the graduate on their registration form, alongside instructions for how to take action if any is necessary. 
    
    Edit Question

Linking GDFs in Emails

In the email template toolbar select the Insert Placeholder dropdown. 
Scroll down and select the GDF you want to link into the email.

Placeholder


Linking GDFs in Guest Tickets

In the guest ticket toolbar select the Insert Placeholder dropdown. 
Scroll down and select the GDF you want to link into the email.


Insert Placeholder

Pre-Defining Values in your GDFs

Graduate Data values can be pre-defined in the GDF menu, which can be helpful for categories like Degree and Major to avoid errors and ensure consistency in your data for display and announcement.

  1. In the Graduate Data Fields section, select the GDF where you would like to use predefined answers.
  2. Click Add Multiple Answers and list your answers in the text box.
  3. Click the Save Multiple Answers button.
  4. Click Save.

    5. 
    Update Grad Field

    In the above example, MO Assistant will not allow any graduate to be uploaded to the site that does not have one of the three answers in the Degree column: Associate, Bachelors, Doctoral.