Survey Statuses and Workflow

The workflow for IPEDS surveys is as follows:

Diagram of survey workflow as described below. In addition to the described steps, once a survey has been marked as Review Complete, there is a Reject option that sends the survey back to the previous step.

  1. All surveys begin in the Not Started phase.
  2. As soon as a file has been uploaded in the Data Manager, the status changes to In Planning.
  3. Selecting a file in the Data Manager changes the status to In Progress.
  4. The status remains In Progress when the survey is marked as Review Complete.
  5. When the survey is approved, the status changes to Ready for Sign-Off.
  6. The status remains as Ready for Sign-Off when the survey is finalized for IPEDS upload.
  7. When everything has been finished, the last step is to mark the survey as Completed.

Survey showing a bar at the top stating "This survey has been completed" and providing a download link for the IPEDS file.

Completed surveys have a yellow status bar at the top of the survey dashboard that indicates the completion status and provides a link to download the file to be imported into the IPEDS portal.

Late or Restarted Surveys

If necessary, surveys can be started or restarted after the end of their designated completion periods (Fall, Winter, or Spring) via the Survey Options section on the survey form. In these situations, a yellow notification bar appears at the top of the survey to communicate this information to users.

Notification bar at the top of the survey form saying "This survey was started after the IPEDS 2017-18 collection period."