The current learning lab and level 3 workshop application process relies heavily on manual review. With hundreds of labs open at any given time and thousands of students applying, staff must manually process each application using a complex priority logic. This process is slow, inconsistent, and difficult to scale. Manual handling also increases the risk of errors, delays student feedback, and makes timely approvals almost impossible.
We’re introducing an automated system that reviews, approves, and rejects applications every week. This update replaces the previous manual review process, ensuring a faster, fairer, and more consistent experience for all students.
How It Works (Weekly Cycle)
Every Sunday night, the system automatically reviews all Learning Lab applications that:
Are still Pending
Belong to labs that haven’t started yet
Were submitted to a lab whose registration opened at least 7 days earlier
Once these conditions are met, the system decides whether each application should be “Approved” or “Rejected”. Labs fill seats up to their set capacity, or up to 20 seats(default value) if no capacity is specified. Any applications beyond that number are rejected.
Applications that already have a final status are skipped.
How Approval Decisions Are Made
To ensure fairness, each application receives a score based on a set of priority rules. The higher the score, the higher the chance of approval.
Priority Factors
Applications receive priority when:
The student has never attended an event with a learning lab type and does not have an upcoming approved lab
The student flags the application as their priority
The student applied to only one lab (treated as their priority)
Additionally, non-alumni applications are reviewed first; alumni are considered afterward using the same rules.
If two students receive the same score, the system prioritizes the one who applied earlier.
Email Notifications
Every Monday at 12:00 PM, the system sends email notifications based on each application’s current status and path interface language.
Emails are sent to students’ TUMO Gmail accounts
For alumni, the system checks whether the TUMO Gmail is active:
If active, → email is sent there
If inactive → the email is sent to their personal address (if available)
Important Notes
The system does not re-check schedule conflicts during approval.
Students are prevented from applying to overlapping labs at the time of application.The system does not check prerequisites.
Prerequisite eligibility is enforced earlier through subscription modes of the lab.
If a capacity isn’t defined for a lab, the system uses a default of 20 seats.
Handling Most Common Issues
No frequent issues have been detected with this workflow. If you detect a problem, please raise a ticket for the Product team.
Related Articles
Student View: Viewing and Applying for Learning Labs
Student View: Learning Labs In Path