Getting Started: Puddin Admissions Onboarding Guide

This guide walks you through everything you need to do to take Puddin Admissions from a fresh account to an active admissions cycle with applicants writing and submissions arriving for review. Follow the steps in order the first time; once you’re familiar with the platform, you can move through each stage independently.

Set up your account and configure institution settings

Begin by establishing your institution’s presence in Puddin. Log in to your administrator account, navigate to Settings → Institution, and enter your institution’s name and any relevant branding details. Add additional administrator accounts for colleagues who will help manage the platform, and configure your notification preferences so the right people are alerted at each stage of the process.

Complete your institution settings before creating any cycles or adding applicants. Some settings — such as your institution name — appear in applicant-facing emails, so it’s worth getting them right from the start.

See Account Setup for a full walkthrough.

Create your first admissions cycle

An admissions cycle defines the intake period you are managing — for example, 2025 Undergraduate Intake. Go to Cycles → New Cycle, give it a clear name, set the intake year, configure the opening and closing dates, and add an optional description to help your team identify it later.Every applicant you add will belong to a specific cycle, so you’ll need at least one cycle in place before you can start importing applicants.

You can run multiple cycles at the same time — useful if you manage both undergraduate and postgraduate intakes, or multiple entry points in a year.

See Admissions Cycles for full configuration options.

Add or import applicants

With your cycle ready, add applicants to it. You have two options:

Import in bulk — upload a CSV file containing applicant names and email addresses. Puddin maps each row to a new applicant record in the selected cycle.
Add individually — use the Add Applicant form to enter a single applicant’s details manually.

After importing, review the applicant list to confirm all records have been created correctly and that no duplicates exist.

Double-check email addresses before sending invitations. Puddin delivers each invitation to the address on the applicant’s record, and there is no way to redirect an invitation after it has been sent.

Customise and send invitation emails

Before sending invitations, review the email templates Puddin will use. Navigate to Settings → Email Templates and customise the subject line and body of the initial invitation email. Use merge fields such as {{applicant_name}}, {{deadline}}, and {{writing_link}} to personalise each message automatically.Once you’re happy with the template, select the applicants you want to invite and click Send Invitations. Puddin dispatches personalised emails and sets each applicant’s status to Not Started.

Send a test email to yourself before your first bulk send — this lets you see exactly what applicants will receive and catch any formatting issues.

See Email Templates for a full list of merge fields and template options.

Monitor applicant progress

Once invitations are out, your applicant list becomes your live progress dashboard. Each applicant displays one of four statuses:

Status	Meaning
Not Started	Invitation sent; applicant has not yet opened the writing environment
In Progress	Applicant has begun writing their personal statement
Completed	Applicant has finished writing but not yet submitted
Submitted	Personal statement and writing process evidence have been submitted for review

Use filters to focus on specific cohorts or statuses, and send reminders to applicants who haven’t progressed close to the deadline. You can assign reminders in bulk using the bulk actions menu.

Begin reviewing submissions

As submissions arrive, assign them to reviewers from the applicant list. Each reviewer receives access to the applicant’s final personal statement alongside the full writing process evidence — paste events, revision history, session timelines, and writing behaviour patterns.Reviewers examine the evidence, identify any submissions that warrant additional attention, and record their decisions within Puddin. Admissions Officers can track review progress, apply filters to find unreviewed or flagged submissions, and access the audit log for a full record of reviewer activity.

Writing process evidence does not produce an automatic pass/fail score. It gives your reviewers contextual information to inform their own professional judgement.

See Reviewing Essays to learn how to interpret writing process evidence and record decisions.