Explanation of the Resolve Offers Routine (Phased)

When you run the Resolve Offers routine for a Normal Phased transfer group that does not have banding set up, One takes the following actions:

1. One stores the PAN information of all home Local Authority receiver bases in the transfer group.
2. One sets preferences that meet either of the following criteria to Q (No Longer Required):
   • Any preferences that are of a lower rank than the first offered place for that student.
   • Any system generated preferences with a preference number greater than the Process Start Number.

   There are some exceptions to this process:

   • One does not update preferences whose existing offer status is either R (Refused by LA) or X (Refused by Parent).
   • One does not update preferences for any LAs that are not coordinating LAs associated with the transfer group.
     For example, coordinating LAs are not used in Wales. In this circumstance, different LAs may each make an offer, so these offer statuses are preserved.
   • If the highest offered preference is for a receiver in a subgroup that is marked as Do not include in offer processing, then any lower preferences are only updated to Q (No Longer Required) as long as they are not also part of a subgroup marked as Do not include in offer processing.
3. One converts all offered places for the students to either P (Provisional), Y (Allocated) or Q (No Longer Required). The routine used at this point differs depending whether the student's first preference is offered.
   If the first preference is offered:
   • One changes the status of the first preference from O (Offered) to Y (Allocated).
   • One changes the status of any lower preferences to Q (No Longer Required).
   • One checks the No Offer base and changes the status of O (Offer) to Q (No Longer Required), if applicable (e.g. if a late application is processed for which an offer can be made or if the LA has allocated a place at a nearby school that wasn’t an originally recorded parental preference).

   Preference Number	Original Offer Status	New Offer Status
   1	Offered	Allocated
   2	Offered	No Longer Required

   
   If the first preference is not offered:
   • One sets the status of the highest offered preference to P (Provisional).
   • One changes the status of any lower preferences to Q (No Longer Required).
   • If no offer can be made to a parental preference then One assigns a status of O (Offered) to the No Offer base, followed by Q (No Longer Required) if applicable (e.g. if a late application is processed for which an offer can be made or if the LA has allocated a place at a nearby school that wasn’t an originally recorded parental preference).

   Preference Number	Original Offer Status	New Offer Status
   1	Not Offered	Not Offered
   2	Offered	Provisional
   3	Offered	No Longer Required

4. One checks the PAN to see if the current base has been filled with students who have an offer status of O (Offer).
   • If the PAN has been reached then One begins to resolve provisional offers (detailed in step 5).
   • If the PAN has not yet been reached then One checks other home LA bases to see if any students have a provisional place that is of a lower preference number to the current preference. If any such places are found, the student is given a place at the higher preference. This preference is changed to Y (Allocated) if it is the student’s first preference. Preferences that are not the first preference are set to P (Provisional).
     Example 1 - A space becomes available at Base 1 for the student:

     Base	Preference	Status Before Processing	Status After Processing
     1	1	No Offer	Allocated
     2	2	Provisional	No Longer Required

     
     Example 2 - A space becomes available at Base 2 for the student:

     Base	Preference	Status Before Processing	Status After Processing
     1	1	No Offer	No Offer
     2	2	No Offer	Provisional
     3	3	Provisional	No Longer Required

     
     If the student has an offer status of Y (Allocated) at a lower preference base and a place becomes available at a higher preference base, the student is ignored.
     Example 3 - A space for the student becomes available at Base 2, but the student already has an allocated place at Base 3:

     Base	Preference	Status Before Processing	Status After Processing
     1	1	No Offer	No Offer
     2	2	No Offer	No Offer
     3	3	Allocated	Allocated

     
     This process of freeing up places has cascade effects. For example, a place freed up for student A means that their current provisional offer can be freed up for student B, and so on. Freeing up places in this way ensures that the base and band PANs are updated to offer the maximum number of places possible before the processing has finished.
5. One sets each home or coordinating LA student's highest ranked provisional preference to Y (Allocated). All subsequent preferences are set to Q (No Longer Required).
6. One determines the highest ranked allocated preference for each student and sets any remaining lower preferences to Q (No Longer Required).

If the sub group has been set as Maintain Waiting List (on the Sub Groups | Details tab) any preferences ranked higher than the Allocated preference are recorded as W (Waiting List) It is assumed that, since an applicant puts their preferences in choice order, the lower ranked preferences would not be wanted.

Imported Offers

The first time it is run, Resolve Offers only makes offers for the home Local Authority. This is because ALT files won’t yet have been exchanged with other coordinating LAs.

Offers that are imported from another LA via the ALT file import process are set to a value of P (Provisional), regardless of whether the LA is coordinating or not. One then updates this status to Y (Allocated), or Q (No Longer Required) if necessary.

The Import / Resolve Offers / Export routines are re-run until the import files are empty and the export files no longer contain any changed records. Once this steady state has been achieved the Final Allocations process can be run.