Pilot Environment
- Patricia Donohue
- Roberto Fuentes
In addition to the CCCApply production system (live applications and back-end admin tools), the CCCTC maintains a “pilot” testing environment for colleges and districts. The Pilot environment includes the full suite of custom Student Success Suite applications, branded with your college logo, including CCCApply applications, Administrator configuration, real-time Report Center, and pilot staging tables for testing Glue for Apply data delivery.
What is the Pilot Environment?
The Pilot environment is a fully functioning, end-to-end testing environment for your Student Success Suite applications, allowing college staff to test new software, feature enhancements, bug fixes, and other updates to OpenCCC and the CCCApply applications without affecting the live production environment. Similar to a sandbox, the pilot environment mirrors the live production systems at all times, except during pilot preview periods between the pilot and production version releases.
Pilot applications and services include the OpenCCC system, all your college-branded CCCApply applications, the CCCApply Administrator, and pilot staging tables for testing Glue for Apply data delivery. A pilot version of the CCCApply Report Center is also available for real-time reporting of submitted test applications.
Pilot Setup Requirements
Similar to the production system, in order to successfully test CCCApply in the Pilot environment it must be configured with the minimum requirements to start and submit a test application: at least one open Term and at least one open Major must be setup in the CCCApply Administrator. We recommend taking the time to configure everything that you have implemented in your production application, including Major Categories and Supplemental Questions, if used; however, as these features are optional to implement in your production application, they are optional in the pilot system.
Below are requirements and best practice tips for configuring your CCCApply pilot environment before use.
Pilot Front End: OpenCCC and CCCApply Applications
Every California Community College is provided a branded version of each CCCApply application in the pilot and production environments, including:
CCCApply Standard Application
CCCApply Noncredit Application
CCCApply International Application
CC Promise Grant Online Application
Each application has a unique URL configured with your college MIS code.
Individual or Institutional OpenCCC Account
(Required to access your Pilot & Production Applications)
In order to access any CCCApply application, users must sign in through the OpenCCC account system, which requires an account created with a verified email address. The OpenCCC account creation process is the exactly what your students must go through to submit an application to your college, so it is good to know how it works. Plus you need it to get to the application(s).
You will encounter OpenCCC when you navigate to any of your CCCApply applications using the links below. From the Sign In page, click the Create An Account link to set up your account.
Pilot Application URLs
Pilot CCCApply International Application URLs (coming soon)
Pilot CC Promise Grant Online Application URLs (coming soon)
Pilot Back End: CCCApply Administrator & Report Center
Every college is also provided a pilot and production version of the CCCApply Administrator and Report Center as part of your full implementation testing system.
Staff Authorized User Accounts (Required)
(Required for Pilot & Production Administrator & Report Center Access)
In order to configure your CCCApply applications with the minimum required attributes, at least one college or district staff member will need an authorized user account for the CCCApply Administrator with the appropriate roles required to access the admin & report systems.
To obtain a staff user account for the pilot environment, please send a request by email to CCCTC Staff Support at staffsupportccctc@openccc.zendesk.com.
Pilot CCCApply Administrator & Report Center URLs
Pilot Superglue for Apply Staging Table (coming soon)
Minimum Application Setup Requirements
In order to preview and test your CCCApply applications in the pilot environment, you must have the following attributes configured for your (each) college in the CCCApply Administrator:
Terms
At least one test Term must be added in the Terms module and it must be Open (Open Date = the first date that the Term will appear in the Term Applying For drop down in the application. If you do not have at least one open term, you will not be able to select any additional questions on the Enrollment page and cannot continue through the application. We recommend setting up several test Terms to support submitting multiple test applications, if needed.
Majors
Similar to the Terms, you must have at least one Major added in the Majors module and the Start Date must be in the past to be able to select that major in the application. One Term and one Major must be open and started in any pilot application you want to test.
We recommend configuring your Pilot CCCApply environment to mirror your current Production applications implementation for an optimal testing experience.
The CCCApply Pilot Environment is a full-feature, fully functional, testing environment that colleges can use for a variety of purposes, including
Pre-implementation setup
Pre-release preview and testing
Training and getting a better understanding of the CCCApply applications
Developing college support and training materials
Generic Application URL Configuration
If needed, your college pilot CCCApply application URLs can be configured using the following formula.
PILOT Application | Application URL |
|---|---|
PILOT CCCApply Standard Application | https://pilot.opencccapply.net/cccapply-welcome?cccMisCode=XXX *Replace the XXX with your college MIS code. |
PILOT Noncredit Application | https://pilot.opencccapply.net/cccapply-welcome?cccMisCode=XXX&nonCredit=true *Replace the XXX with your college MIS code. Note XXX is within the URL, not at the end. |
PILOT Promise Grant (BOG) Application | https://pilot.bog.opencccapply.net/gateway/bog?cccMisCode=XXX *Replace the XXX with your college MIS code. |
PILOT International Application | https://pilot.intl.opencccapply.net/gateway/intl?cccMisCode=XXX *Replace the XXX with your college MIS code. |
Terms of Use & Support for Pilot Environment
The CCCApply Pilot environment is meant to be a carbon copy of the production environment to allow colleges to stage changes in their configurations and test implementations prior to a product rollout. While the Pilot environment is a clone of production, it is not actively monitored for errors and issues in the same way that the production environment is. Our recommendation is that staff personnel use the CCCTechnology.info support site to communicate issues, ask questions, and request assistance.
Support Response
The CCC Technology Center does not warrant that the Pilot (beta) environment will be defect free or available for college use 24/7, however we do endeavor to maintain this environment for colleges implementing the CCCApply applications in a timely manner and to work as designed.
The CCC Technology Center will use reasonable efforts to respond to service requests regarding the Pilot environment submitted via our college support site, CCCTechnology.info, within 48 hours of the request, Monday - Friday, 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM PDT. Depending on the nature of the issue, resolution time will vary; however the intent is to provide updates on progress towards implementation every 24 hours.
Pilot Environment | Production Environment |
|---|---|
Hours of Operation: 8:00AM - 4:00PM | Supported Hours of Operation: 8:00AM - 5:00PM |
Response Time: Within 48-72 hrs of incoming | Support Response Time Within 1 Business day of incoming |
Submit Questions & Issues: | Submit Support Requests: |
*Colleges working with the Enabling Services & Support team on implementation of any Student Success Suite product or service should contact their College Experience Manager (CEM) for assistance. Colleges not currently working with the management team on an implementation project should consider the Pilot site as a test environment only and SLAs do not apply.
CCCTC support staff's initial response may result in resolution of your request, or it will form the basis for determining what additional actions may be required to achieve technical resolution of your request. Depending on the complexity of your request, the next response may take several days.
College Responsibilities
When seeking support for the Pilot environment, it is the responsibility of the College to capture as much information at the time of the failure, issue, or incident, as possible and be prepared to provide this information, including a screen shot, through a new post to the support site. For faster service, it is recommended that colleges first search for known issues prior to posting a new support request.
You are also responsible for obtaining fixes, by downloading or by receiving ones that have been shipped to you on media, applying the fixes to your systems and testing the fixes to ensure they meet your needs. Occasionally, removal of installed fixes may be necessary in the process of isolating problems. And sometimes fixing a problem will mean the installation of a later release of the software as some fixes cannot be retrofitted into earlier code.
Guidelines for Using the Pilot Environment
By accessing and using the OpenCCCApply Pilot website, you accept and agree to the terms and guidelines of this agreement. In addition, when using this environment's particular administrative tools, you shall be subject to any guidelines or rules which may be posted and modified from time to time. All such guidelines or rules are hereby incorporated by reference into this TOU.
ANY USE OF THE PILOT SITE WILL CONSTITUTE ACCEPTANCE OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ABIDE BY THE ABOVE, PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS SITE.
Contact Us
For 24/7 online documentation and community support, visit the CCC College Support Site: http://CCCTechnology.info
To receive OpenCCCApply IT and system-related news and technical data, OpenCCCApply system news and information, FOLLOW the CCCApply System Alerts category page.