Enrollment applications are how families apply to your school through Lazarus. You build an application form, invite families or share a public link, collect their information and payment, and then review and accept the students you want to enroll. This guide orients you around how applications work before you create your first one.
The Big Picture
An enrollment application in Lazarus is really two things working together:
- The application form — the reusable template you build once. It holds your questions, your pricing, and your settings. You'll often have one form per school year, or several if you run different programs.
- The submissions — the individual applications families fill out and pay for. Each family that applies creates a submission tied to your form.
Everything you configure on the form side shapes what families experience on the submission side. Get the form right, and the rest of the process runs smoothly.
The Application Lifecycle
Most schools move through the same sequence:
- Create an application — Give it a name, link it to a school year, and choose how you'll price it.
- Set your pricing — Add one or more price tiers, such as an early-bird rate and a standard rate, or make the application free.
- Build your form — Start from the default contact fields and add your own custom questions.
- Adjust your settings and emails — Write your welcome message, customize the invite and decision emails, and confirm which payment methods you accept.
- Invite families or share your link — Send email invitations to specific families, or post a public application link on your website.
- Review and process submissions — As applications come in, review them, then accept or reject each one. Accepted families flow into your Families list.
You don't have to finish every step in one sitting. A form can be saved, edited, and refined before you ever share it.
Where to Find Everything
Click Applications in the left sidebar. The page is organized into three tabs:
- Dashboard — Your inbox of incoming submissions, with metrics and filters so you can work through applicants by status, type, or form.
- Application forms — Where you create, edit, duplicate, and archive your application forms.
- Settings — Global settings that apply to all of your applications, including email templates, payment methods, and fee handling.
Key Concepts to Know
A few ideas come up throughout these guides:
- Pricing mode — You decide whether a form charges per student (each student on the application pays) or per household (one flat price covers the whole family). You'll choose this when you create the form.
- Field scope — Custom questions can be asked once per household or once per student, depending on whether the answer is the same for the whole family or specific to each child.
- Application status — Every submission moves through a set of statuses: Pending, Submitted, Accepted, Rejected, or Withdrawn. These drive your Dashboard filters and determine which emails families receive.
Before You Start
Two things should be in place before you create your first application:
- A school year — Applications must be linked to a school year, so set one up first if you haven't. See Create Your First School Year in the Getting Started guide.
- Stripe connected — If you plan to charge an application fee, connect Stripe so you can accept payments. See Connect to Stripe. If your application is free, you can skip this for now.
Tip: If you're brand new to Lazarus, work through the Getting Started guide first. This series picks up where step six — "Create an enrollment application" — leaves off.
