Schedule

Description

Date & Time

Status

Release No.

6.6.0


Pilot Update #2

Tuesday, October 15, 2019 - 12PM NOON

Production Release

Friday, October 18, 2019 - 5:00PM - 11:00PM PST

Release Type

Maintenance Window | Major Release


Notice: Due to a bug identified during our pilot testing period, the OpenCCC Account system will also be in maintenance mode (off-line) during the 6.6.0 release. A maintenance window will be displayed to users from 5:00PM - 11:00PM.   Thank you. 

In-Scope Applications

Description

Scope

Applications

CCCApply Standard Application (Apply)
CCCApply Noncredit Application (Apply)
CCCApply International Application (IA)
CCCApply Administrator 2.0

OpenCCC Account System

Changes to Residency Logic

No

Changes to Download Client

No - no changes to the current Download Client Jar 6.5.0



Contents


Release Scope

#

Change Requirement

Application

1

Mobile Support for All CCCApply Applications

All Applications

2

Maintenance & Support - Bugs & Other Changes

All Applications


Release Summary

The CCCApply v.6.6.0 production release is tentatively scheduled for Friday, October 18 at 6:00 pm PST.  The Production environment will be offline during the release. College staff can stay informed on the progress of release activities by clicking on "Follow" on the CCCTC System Alerts page on CCCTechnology.info.

Schedule & Timeline

  • Pilot Release (College Preview):  September 20  - 10:00 am - 4:00 pm PST

  • Production Release:  Friday, October 18 - 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm PST

Stay Informed during the release!  Follow the "CCCApply System Alerts" page - and any other category, page or individual post, on CCCTechnology.info.


Changes to the CCCApply Application

Mobile-Friendly User Interface

CCCApply Applications Are Now Mobile-Friendly!

CCCApply has completed the first phase of the CCCApply responsive-design, mobile support implementation.  All CCCApply applications have been updated for mobile devices and tablets. This work is complete and will be available for students immediately following the production release on Friday, October 18 (5pm - 11pm). 

The second phase of this effort is related to OpenCCC 2.0 redesign - which is being developed for "mobile first" interface.  This exciting upgrade is under-development now and the team is working hard to launch the revise this spring during the CCCApply spring release (dates TBD, but we are shooting for March). 

A bug (blocker) in the OpenCCC Account creation process was preventing applicants from seeing the “Create Your Account” button while using a mobile phone. This issue was resolved in this release.

Important Reminder: The current version of the OpenCCC Account system does not support mobile devices for account creation, account recovery, or edit account functionality. However, it is still possible to create an OpenCCC account using a mobile device with your mobile phone turned to landscape mode.

Good News!  CCCApply applicants won't have to wait long to a mobile-friendly OpenCCC Account system.  A new version of OpenCCC (v.2.0) is currently being designed with a "mobile first" interface. The new Account system is scheduled to be launched in spring 2021. Please watch for CCCApply roadmap updates.  


The first phase of the CCCApply mobile-makeover focuses on implementing a streamlined, mobile-responsive design to our current applications. 

Responsive design is an approach to web page creation that makes use of flexible layouts, flexible images and cascading style sheet media queries. The goal of responsive design is to build web pages that detect the applicant's screen size and orientation and change the layout accordingly. - (What is responsive design?  - A definition from Whatis.com?)

  • A streamlined, mobile-responsive design has been applied to the CCCApply applications to improve the experience for students viewing and submitting applications on a mobile device.

  • The responsive design technique implemented incorporates current UX industry standards and best practices.

  • The mobile effort addresses students' desire for college websites and forms that adapt for mobile use as an increasing share of mobile users either prefer or are dependent on smartphones for internet access.


Analytics: Mobile Device Usage in CCCApply

Google Analytics shows that 31.5 percent of CCCApply applicants are already submitting applications via their mobile phones, or tablet devices, despite CCCApply not being optimized for mobile.


CCCApply Maintenance & Support

Bug Fixes & Other Changes

For more information, contact CCCApply College Support staffsupportccctc@openccc.zendesk.com

App

Type

Fix or Change Specification

Reported By

More Information

OpenCCC

Bug Fix

Fixed: Button to "Begin Creating My Account" in OpenCCC Account is not visible when viewed in portrait mode on a mobile device.


Button to "Begin Creating My Account" not visible in Portrait mode on a mobile device

Reported by College

FIXED.  At the time of our soft launch of mobile support for CCCApply applications, OpenCCC system is still not mobile-friendly (Coming soon!) and therefore when attempting to create an account on a mobile device, some formatting is not responsive and the user must adjust by turning their phone to landscape view  However, the button that users must click to "Begin Creating Your Account" was getting obscured by the portal system footer.  This has been fixed.

All Apps

Bug Fix

Update to Country Codes:  Taiwan

Reported by Student

Previously "Taiwan" was not available as a country in the CCCApply Applications

Apply
IA

Bug Fix

Fixed the Race & Ethnicity Full value mappings to the original race ethnicity fields.

Reported by Colleges

Several colleges reported an issue with the new Race & Ethnicity values not mapping correctly to the original Race Group and Race Ethnicity fields, which are maintained until the CCCCO MIS data elements are updated to match the new expanded layout, implemented in December 2018 (Release 6.3.0).  These mapping issues have been corrected. 

For more information, or to report any continued problems, please contact College Support at staffsupportccctc@openccc.zendesk.com 

Promise
Grant

Bug Fix

Fixed the discrepancy between the number of dependents vs. household size validation in the Promise Grant application.

Reported by College

A college reported a missing validation check in the Promise Grant Application logic, between the Marital Status + Dependency Status + Household Size fields. We've added validation that will check expected min/max counts based on these three fields.

Received clarification on the official logic from Bryan Dickason at the Chancellor's Office

Pilot Release Update: The CCCApply Pilot release was updated on 10.04.19. See notes below. 


Issue: The CC Promise Grant App (BOG) was missing logic to restrict a Separated student with zero dependents from entering any value other than 1 in the Household Size field.

Per the CCC Chancellor’s Office, "For application purposes, separated students with zero dependents should be limited to a household size of 1."

IF Marital Status = Separated
AND Dependents = N
THEN Household Size must be = 1

Admin

Bug Fix

Fixed some issues with the Email Rules module in the Administrator

Reported by College

Admin users entering a command into the RULES portion, get an error when using a command that had previously been working.

Admin

Bug Fix

Fixed an issue with the Date of Birth field miscalculated in reset downloads utility

Reported by Colleges

A timezone error was the cause of this issue, in which we were seeing a discrepancy between the user's actual date of birth (per their OpenCCC Account) and the date displaying in the Reset Downloads utility in the Administrator. The timezone used during development of the Administrator 2.0 system in 2018 was causing the problem. All uses of the <birthdate> value is now consistent across all applications and admin configuration.

Admin

Bug Fix

Fixed two issues with the Email Rules - one involving logic and the other involving data values issues incorrectly documented in the Promise Grant Data Dictionary.

Reported by College

Several issues regarding the Rules module have been reported since we implemented the new Administrator 2.0 system in September 2018.  

In one instance, a college reported problems with a rule that showed correct logic but wasn't displaying correctly in the Preview window. We had a hard time reproducing that particular issue, but that investigation uncovered some recurring problematic behavior that we have subsequently written tickets for and are now being investigated for next release.

Promise 
Grant

Bug Fix

Fixed a documentation discrepancy in the Promise Grant Data Dictionary that was identifying some boolean fields incorrectly.

Reported by College

Another issue that was reported as a BOG Rules logic issue, but ended up being a documentation error in the end. 

We found that a field that is documented as a boolean field in the Promise Grant DED, should have been documented as a character string.  The field was <tanf_calworks>.

Once we identified this, we started a review across the Promise Grant DED - confirming that all fields are documented correctly against the Promise Grant database. This is going to take us several weeks, so if you come across any other inconsistencies with data values in the Rules module, or in any process, please report these to CCCApply through College Support staffsupportccctc@openccc.zendesk.com

Admin

Bug Fix

Fixed the recurring issue of a 500 Error displaying in the spam filter utility

Reported by Colleges

Multiple colleges reported getting a 500 Error when landing on the Spam Filter Summary Table screen in the Administrator.  Unfortunately, this happened shortly after our Q4 release in June, which means it's been hanging around for a while.

This issue should be resolved. We believe that the Administrator system was holding on to connections too long, thus they became stale causing the 500 error. Although we provided a work-around to college (refreshing the page cleared the error), we apologize for this inconvenience and believe the issue is fixed. 

Admin

Bug Fix

Fixed the recurring issue of a 500 Error displaying in the reset downloads utility

Reported by Colleges

Two colleges reported experiencing a similar problem, getting a 500 Error when attempting to reset applications in the Reset Downloads utility in the Administrator. 

This issue should be resolved as well, and the fix was the same as the spam filter above - the system was holding on to connections too long and they timed out. 

We provided a work-around for this error as well (refreshing the page cleared the error), and, again, we apologize for this inconvenience. 

Admin

Bug Fix

Fixed issue with the "Yes/No" data format Answer Not Saving on Supplemental Questions Page

Found during regression testing

Fixed an issue with Supplemental Questions field type = Y/N question format that was not saving responses entered on SQ  a user saves the data that was entered on the Supplemental Questions page, the Yes/No answer is NOT saved and returns blank for either radio button.

Admin

New Feature

New Spam Filter Email Notification Field

NEW college-configurable email address field was added to the College Information module in the CCCApply Administrator.

Requested by Colleges

This new email contact field has been added to the College Information module, accessible in the header in the CCCApply Administrator.  Click on the Edit button and scroll to the bottom of the page.

The new Spam Notification Email Address field will allow colleges to designate a specific or alternate email address for spam notifications to be sent to. (Previous to this release, spam notifications were sent to the email address entered in the Admissions Office Email, which was causing problems for Admissions Offices).  

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you do not enter an email address in this field, NO SPAM NOTIFICATIONS WILL BE SENT TO YOUR COLLEGE AT ALL. 

For information, contact CCCApply College Support staffsupportccctc@openccc.zendesk.com


CCCApply Spam Filter Web Service News

An update to the CCCApply spam filter web service, including the machine learning model and prediction service is planned for early October. For security purposes, we are no longer publishing information  about the spam filter service online, including release notes and other technical information. In addition, we are no longer responding to public forum posts and questions about the spam filter in our online support community, CCCTechnology.info. (We are still providing support and answering questions directly through College Support Services - see below.)

These communication changes are necessary in order to prevent spammers and other bad actors from using our technical information against us to their advantage  Until further notice, we will be emailing news and information directly to A&R Directors to forward to other college stakeholders. If you have any questions, or need any assistance with your college spam filter, please contact CCCApply College Support directly at staffsupportccctc@openccc.zendesk.com.  



Changes to the CC Promise Grant Application (BOG)

Mobile Support for the CC Promise Grant Application

Beginning October 19 (the morning after the release), students will have a mobile-friendly environment in which to submit their Promise Grant application on their cell phone, smartphone, tablet, or desktop devices.

Please post feedback in the CCCApply or Promise Grant category pages on the CCCTechnology.info support site.

*July 1, 2018 - June 30, 2019

Consistent with the number of domestic students who submitted their CCCApply applications via their mobile devices last year*, approximately 32% of students submitted their Promise Grant application using their mobile phone or tablet, even though the CCCApply applications were not developed for mobile devices. 


Changes to the CCCApply International Application

Mobile Support for the International Application

Responsive design work was completed for the CCCApply International application, as well as the Standard and Promise Grant Applications.

Streamlined, mobile-friendly design was implemented across the CCCApply International application to improve the experience for students viewing and submitting applications on a mobile device. The update incorporates current industry standards and best practices.



Changes to the CCCApply Download Client

NOTE:  There are no new or deprecated data fields in the v.6.6.0 release; therefore there are no changes required to your current Download Client, your download XML files, and no need to update your v.6.5.0 download client Jar file (transfer-client.jar).  


Colleges using the CCCApply Download Client should continue to run the jar file from the 6.5.0 release (June 2019). For more information, see the CCCApply Download Client User Guide.


Support 

If you have an issue to report to the OpenCCC Helpdesk during the 6.6.0 production release on Friday October 18 (beginning at 5:00pm) - or if have some feedback to share with CCCApply support team, please see our support contact information below. 

Students: CCC Helpdesk

Toll Free: (888)
Email:  support@openccc.net

Online Forum for Students:  To post a question, comment or concern, please direct your students to visit: CCCHelp.info   (< this is the student version of the college-facing CCCTechnology.info site)

Notice: Due to a bug identified (and fixed) during our Pilot testing period, the OpenCCC Account system will be in maintenance mode (off-line) throughout the 6.6.0 release. A maintenance window will be displayed to users from 5:00PM - 11:00PM.   Thank you. 

Colleges: Staff Support Services

College Staff Support Emailstaffsupportccctc@openccc.zendesk.com


Data Dictionaries & Release Documentation

Just a heads up: We are still working on the  6.6.0 version data dictionaries for this coming release.  They will be posted on the morning of the release, Friday, October 18.  Thank you. 

Description

Version / FILE

Format

Release

Date Published

CCCApply Standard & Noncredit Application Data Dictionary

V.2019.3

PDF

Release 6.6.0

6.21.19

Download Client Jar File V.6.5.0

transfer-client.6.5.0.jar

jar

Release 6.5.0

6.01.19

CCCApply Download Client User Guide 

V.6.5.0

ONLINE

Release 6.5.0

6.28.19  Online document

/wiki/spaces/PD/pages/758546724

v.2019.1

ONLINE

Release 6.6.0

9.13.19  Online document

2019-2020 CC Promise Grant Data Dictionary

CCPG-V2019

PDF

2019-2020

See Data Dictionaries page

CCCApply International Application Data Dictionary

V.2019.2

PDF

Release 6.6.0

See Data Dictionaries page


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