In 1998, WSU launched Web-based admission applications. Over half of all undergraduate applications are now received electronically. While providing an attractive service to students, processing electronic applications was very similar to that for mail-in applications: they were downloaded, printed, and queued for manual processing where all data was keyed for a second time by admissions staff.
A similar situation existed for prospective student information requests, which at that time were received via Web-based e-mail forms, printed, and queued for manual processing. During peak periods, information requests could sit for weeks while hot prospects turned cold waiting for a response from WSU.
In both cases, manual processing was required to match demographic data for the applicant or prospective student against the central "associate" file to determine if the person was already on file or a new WSU ID should be created. The rudimentary search tool that was used provided only a name browse and Social Security Number (SSN) lookup, resulting in a high number of unmatched associates and subsequent duplicate records created.
The challenge was to build an intelligent, automated service that could do the matching quickly and effectively.
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