Admissions · Enquiries
Multi-workflowEducation admissionsHandling admissions enquiries from form, WhatsApp and email in one queue
In admissions season the same questions arrive on three channels at once, and a slow answer loses the applicant. This playbook answers from the prospectus, books counsellor calls and gives each counsellor a daily follow-up queue.
Valnora & Elric team6 min read
- Format
- Playbook
- Steps
- 7
- Solution
- Multi-workflow
- Parts used
- 6
An admissions office in results season looks the same everywhere. A form on the website, a WhatsApp number on every poster and the admissions inbox all fill up at once, mostly with the same questions: am I eligible, what are the fees, is there a hostel, when is the deadline. Counsellors answer the easy questions all day and reach serious applicants late.
This playbook builds four workflows in Agent Serve that share one enquiries table. The result is fast, sourced answers on the channel the applicant chose, counsellor calls booked without back-and-forth, and a daily queue for each counsellor.
Four workflows from first enquiry to counsellor follow-up
Workflow 1 · Intake
- 01Form, WhatsApp, emailGoogle Forms, Typeform or Jotform triggers, the WhatsApp webhook trigger and a Gmail or Outlook trigger.
- 02Read the enquiryExtracts programme, intake, city, questions asked and contact consent.
- 03Enquiries tableOne row per applicant, merged by phone number or email across channels.
Workflow 2 · Answer
- 04Prospectus Knowledge BaseProgramme pages, fee schedule, eligibility, scholarships, deadlines, hostel.
- 05Grounding checkA Guardrails hallucination check; low-scoring answers go to a counsellor.
- 06Reply on the same channelWhatsApp message with buttons, or an email reply, citing the prospectus page.
Workflows 3 and 4 · Book and follow up
- 07Call bookedThe Calendly or Cal.com trigger updates the row and assigns the counsellor.
- 08Daily queueEach morning, picks rows due a follow-up and writes the reason and a draft.
- 09CounsellorWorks the queue, edits drafts, calls applicants and records the outcome.
Step 1: Put the prospectus in a Knowledge Base
Create a Knowledge Base and upload the prospectus, fee schedule, eligibility rules, scholarship rules, hostel details and the admissions calendar. Split programme pages into separate files where you can, so answers cite a specific page.
Keep it current. When fees or deadlines change, replace the file the same day. An outdated fee answer is worse than a slow one.
Step 2: Bring every enquiry into one table
Workflow 1 runs from three kinds of trigger: a Google Forms, Typeform or Jotform trigger for the website form, the WhatsApp webhook trigger for incoming messages, and a Gmail or Outlook trigger for the admissions inbox.
An Agent block reads each enquiry and extracts the programme, intake, city, the questions asked and whether the applicant agreed to be contacted. The workflow looks up the phone number or email in the enquiries table. If the applicant already exists, it adds to their row instead of creating a second one, so a student who fills the form and then messages on WhatsApp is one applicant, not two.
Step 3: Answer from the prospectus, on the same channel
Workflow 2 runs for every new question. An Agent block searches the Knowledge Base and writes a short answer that cites the page it used. A Guardrails block set to Hallucination Check scores the answer against the same Knowledge Base.
Decide in advance what the workflow may send on its own. A sensible start is published facts only: eligibility, fees, documents, deadlines and hostel availability, sent when the grounding score is above your threshold. Everything else, and every low score, becomes a draft in the counsellor's queue, with a short holding reply to the applicant.
On WhatsApp the reply goes out with reply buttons: book a call, send the brochure, not now. Free-form WhatsApp replies are only allowed within 24 hours of the applicant's last message; after that, the workflow must use an approved template.
What the solution produces
WhatsApp answer to an applicant (illustrative)
MessageHi Riya, thanks for asking about the BBA (Business Analytics) programme for the July intake.
Eligibility: 10+2 in any stream with at least 50% aggregate. Mathematics in class 12 is preferred but not required. (Prospectus p. 14)
Fees: the full fee schedule is on p. 31 of the prospectus, attached. Scholarships for merit and sports are on p. 33.
Applications for July close on 15 May.
Would you like to talk to a counsellor about the programme? [Book a call] [Send me the brochure] [Not now]
Counsellor follow-up queue item (illustrative)
Record- Applicant
- Riya S. · BBA (Business Analytics) · July intake · Pune
- History
- WhatsApp enquiry 3 days ago · call booked and held yesterday
- Why today
- Call notes say she will apply this week. No application started yet.
- Open question
- Asked whether her class 12 board exam result date affects the deadline.
- Draft message
- Hi Riya, following up on yesterday’s call. You can apply now with your class 11 marks and upload class 12 results when they are out.
Step 4: Book counsellor calls without back-and-forth
When the applicant taps "Book a call", Workflow 2 sends a Calendly or Cal.com link for the counsellor who covers that programme. Workflow 3 runs from the Calendly or Cal.com trigger when the booking is made. It updates the row to "call booked", assigns the counsellor and adds a one-paragraph brief to the event: programme, questions asked so far and anything the applicant mentioned about marks or budget.
Step 5: Give each counsellor a daily follow-up queue
Workflow 4 runs on a schedule every morning. It reads the enquiries table and picks the rows that need a person today:
- a call was held but no application has started after two days
- a question went unanswered because the grounding check failed
- an application is started but a document is missing
- a deadline for the applicant's programme is within a week
For each row it writes the reason, the open question and a draft message. Counsellors work the queue from a filtered table view or a dashboard panel, edit the draft, send it and record the outcome. Row-level access keeps each counsellor's queue to their own applicants.
Step 6: Watch the funnel
A small dashboard over the enquiries table shows enquiries by channel and programme, median time to first answer, calls booked, applications started and the share of questions that went to a counsellor because the prospectus did not cover them. That last panel is the most useful in the first month: it tells you what to add to the prospectus. All figures depend on your intake; treat any target as illustrative until you have a season of data.
Controls and governance
Run logs
Every workflow run records each block’s inputs, outputs and errors, so a reviewer can trace how a result was reached.
Deployed versions
Workflows run from a deployed version, so a change is reviewed before it reaches production runs.
PII detection
A Guardrails block detects personal data and blocks or masks it before text reaches the next step.
Roles and permission groups
Admin, write and read roles per workspace, plus permission groups that limit which models, blocks and integrations a team can use.
Row-level access
Row-level policies narrow what each person sees in tables, dashboards, exports and scheduled reports.
Approvals before action
Relays never send email or book meetings without an approval, under any autonomy setting. An approval covers the exact payload the reviewer saw and expires if nobody decides.
More on how Agent Serve handles access, data and audit on the security page.
Step 7: Start small
Turn on Workflows 1 and 2 for one programme for a week, with every answer going to a counsellor as a draft. Read the drafts together, fix the prospectus gaps, then let published-fact answers go out on their own. Add booking and the daily queue once counsellors trust the answers.
Questions teams ask
Does the workflow tell an applicant whether they will get in?
No. It answers what the prospectus says, such as published eligibility and deadlines. Anything that sounds like an admission decision, a scholarship decision or an exception goes to a counsellor, and the instructions say so in plain words.
What happens with a question the prospectus does not answer?
The grounding check scores low, so no answer is sent. The applicant gets a short holding reply, and the enquiry goes to the top of a counsellor’s queue with the question highlighted. Repeated gaps tell you what to add to the prospectus.
Can counsellors call applicants from Agent Serve?
Counsellors call from their usual phones. Agent Serve books the call and keeps the record. For AI voice that answers or places calls, Agent Inbound & Outbound is a separate Valnora & Elric product, available by invitation.