How much time does your team spend on repetitive admissions work? Many institutions report losing up to 40% of their time to manual processing. That’s why more than 300 educational institutions in 40 countries have turned to DreamApply to automate admissions tasks and spend more time improving the applicant experience.
DreamApply includes powerful features that help institutions streamline work, such as automated task creation, document collection, dynamic messaging templates and built-in UTM tracking. These help teams handle higher volumes and focus on building better relationships with prospective students.
With Zapier, DreamApply becomes even more flexible. You can connect it with over 6,000 external tools, like MailerLite, Meta Ads, Google Sheets or WPForms and set up no-code workflows tailored to your recruitment goals.
In this guide, you’ll learn how DreamApply and Zapier can help your institution save time, reduce repetitive tasks and modernize the admissions process without extra technical work.
What admissions tasks can DreamApply automate on its own ?
DreamApply’s built-in features support a wide range of automation across the admissions lifecycle. For example, you can:
- Score, rank and categorize applications based on your predefined criteria
- Create tasks for staff automatically, including reminders configured within the task templates
- Collect documents directly through the applicant portal
- Use video interview functionality to gather structured responses from applicants with predefined questions, helping reduce manual interviews and AI-generated submissions
- Customize communication templates using dynamic content markers
- Group applicants by citizenship, programme, intake or other fields
- Track campaign sources using submitted UTM parameters from application forms
- Generate visual reports on applicant status, agent activity and performance with just a few clicks
For institutions using the DreamApply Marketing Add-On, you can also:
- Categorize incoming applications based on campaign tracking
- View comparative data on marketing source effectiveness
- Organize marketing segmentation without additional tools
“DreamApply is our 12th man on the field. DreamApply helps us to digitalise our paper-based protocols and to handle over 5,000 applications a year. The University of Pécs has doubled its number of international students in the last five years – this could not be done without DreamApply.”
Péter Árvai, Deputy Director for Internationalisation, University of Pécs
Explore what’s possible with DreamApply’s built-in capabilities here.
How does Zapier expand DreamApply’s automation potential?
Zapier allows you to connect DreamApply with thousands of external platforms without writing any code. This gives you new ways to sync information, send notifications and link your admissions data with the tools you already use. Examples include:
- Syncing applicant data with MailerLite, HubSpot, or ActiveCampaign
- Logging activity in Google Sheets or Airtable for reporting or sharing
- Sending SMS notifications via providers like SMSAPI
- Passing confirmed offers or new applications into your CRM or analytics platform
You can explore all DreamApply integrations via Zapier here.
3 useful DreamApply + Zapier workflows to try
To give you a better sense of how Zapier can extend DreamApply, here are three relevant examples:
1. Automate your outbound email follow-ups
When a new applicant profile is created in DreamApply, you can automatically add their contact to a MailerLite group. This ensures your communications are always current and follow-ups are consistent.
2. Improve visibility across teams
When a course is added to an application, that event can automatically populate a Google Sheet or update a Slack channel, giving your team insight without switching tools.
3. Reduce double entry from form submissions
If you’re collecting leads through WPForms or another landing page, Zapier can create new DreamApply applicants automatically when the form is submitted. This helps reduce manual input and eliminates missed leads.
Additional integrations, including ActiveCampaign, SMSAPI and others, are available as described on Zapier’s DreamApply integration page.
What DreamApply events can launch automations in Zapier?
Zapier’s official DreamApply connector currently supports 11 events you can use to start automations:
- Applicant registered
- Application created
- Application submitted
- Application re-submitted
- Application flagged (including support for specific flag types)
- Application un-flagged
- Course added to application
- Offer confirmed
- Invoice issued
- Invoice collected
- Applicant requested to be forgotten
These events represent applicant or staff actions within DreamApply. While we recommend checking Zapier’s integration listing for the most up-to-date list, common use cases include:
- Syncing contacts to mailing lists or CRMs
- Sending messages when an applicant submits or confirms
- Logging milestones in dashboards or spreadsheets
Each event helps you extend your admissions workflow without the need for a custom integration.
What admissions goals can automation help you achieve?
Whether your institution is focused on expansion, efficiency or improving applicant experience, automation can help you:
- Increase the number of applications without increasing admin load
- Engage prospective students faster and more consistently
- Maintain accuracy while reducing manual input
- Get more insight into where your applicants are coming from
- Free up staff to focus on strategic improvements, not repetitive tasks
DreamApply gives you a strong base with powerful internal features, and Zapier lets you extend those workflows into tools your team already relies on.
Institutions like University of Padua, Saigon Business School and University of Paviaare already using DreamApply to scale their international enrollment with fewer internal bottlenecks and faster processing.
5 signs your admissions process could benefit from automation
Take this quick checklist:
✓ You manually copy data from lead forms into application systems
✓ Your team sends individual follow-up emails and reminders
✓ Reports are compiled from multiple sources manually
✓ You wish your marketing tools connected directly with admissions
✓ You want to scale international enrollment without expanding your staff
If you answered yes to two or more, your team could save hundreds of hours by automating key admissions tasks.
About DreamApply
Founded in 2011 in Estonia, DreamApply is an innovation-driven EdTech organization that improves access to education around the globe. DreamApply’s application management software helps more than 300 educational institutions across 40 countries improve admissions, marketing, financial and other internal processes.
DreamApply’s easy-to-use and customizable software increases student enrollment by 30% and reduces application processing time by 40%. With features designed with and for educational institutions, and integrations with commonly used systems, DreamApply empowers teams to get more done with less effort.
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