Personal Details

Student type, names, date of birth, agent, contact details and addresses, and why international addresses look the way they do.

Personal Details is the first tab, and the most important one to get right early. The very first choice on it, Student type, changes what the rest of the wizard asks for.

Student type

The first card asks one question: is this student Domestic or International?

Choice	Meaning
Domestic	An Australian citizen or permanent resident.
International	A student on a visa. CRICOS requirements apply.

Choose this first, and choose carefully. It decides:

whether the CRICOS tab appears at all. It is only there for international students;
which citizenship options are allowed on the AVETMISS tab;
whether the street address's state and postcode are locked to overseas values;
which funding codes the student's subjects can use;
whether a USI is required.

Onshore or offshore

When you choose International, two more questions appear. The first is the student's Location:

Choice	Meaning
Onshore	The student is currently in Australia.
Offshore	The student is outside Australia.

This also sets the student's funding code: international onshore students are reported with code 31, and offshore students with 32. You don't choose those codes yourself.

Application type: Normal, Concurrent or Transfer

Once you've picked onshore or offshore, choose the Application type. It describes how the student comes to you:

Application type	What it means
Normal	A straightforward, direct-entry student. They are starting their studies with your organisation as a normal new student.
Concurrent	The student is already studying with another provider and will study with you at the same time, alongside that other course.
Transfer	The student is moving to you from another university or RTO. They were studying elsewhere and are transferring to your organisation.

Every international application needs an application type before it can be submitted.

Agent commissions for concurrent and transfer students

New laws introduced for international education change whether agents should be paid commission on concurrent and transfer students. XPortal lets your organisation enforce that agent commissions are turned off for these two application types.

When enforcement is on:

Choosing Concurrent or Transfer turns the application's Agent Commissions switch Off and locks it. Hover over the switch to see Enforcing Agent Commissions Off, turn this behaviour Off in settings.
Choosing Normal turns commissions back On.
Existing students with a concurrent or transfer application type also have their commissions turned off.

To change this, an administrator opens Settings, finds the Agent Commissions card, and uses the Enforce Agent Commissions Off for Concurrent and Transfer switch. It shows Enabled or Disabled. It starts enabled. Turn it off only if your organisation has confirmed that commissions may be paid on these students.

What changes if you switch student type later

Switching between Domestic and International resets the fields tied to it:

Switching to…	XPortal automatically…
International	sets citizenship to International (visa), sets the street state to OVS and the postcode to OSPC, unticks "postal address is same as street address", and turns Agent Commissions on (unless it's enforced off).
Domestic	clears the citizenship status, the street state and postcode, the onshore/offshore choice and the application type, and turns Agent Commissions on.

So if you switch, re-check citizenship, the street state and postcode, and the postal address afterwards.

Field	Notes
Salutation	Optional. Mr, Ms, Dr and so on.
Does the student have a single name?	Tick this only if the student legally has one name. See below.
First name, Middle name, Last name	First and last name are required unless the student has a single name. Enter names exactly as on the student's ID.
Preferred name	Optional. What the student likes to be called.
Date of birth	Required. It can't be in the future, and the student must be at least 15 years old.

Students with a single name

Some people legally have only one name, with no separate first and last name. For them, tick Does the student have a single name? The form then:

shows one compulsory Single Name field;
greys out First name, Middle name and Last name, and clears the middle and last names.

Unticking the box clears the single name again, so tick it only when it truly applies.

Why this matters for the USI

The government's USI registry checks a USI against the person's date of birth, first name and last name. If a person has only a single name, the registry uses the single name and date of birth instead. The names in XPortal have to match exactly how the student entered them when they created their USI.

If a USI won't verify on the AVETMISS tab, try the combinations: first and last name the other way round, the whole name as a single name, or the single name split into first and last. Then ask the student exactly which names they gave when they created their USI, and use those.

Agent

Field	Notes
Agent	The education agent who referred the student, or None.
Agent Commissions	Whether the agent should earn commission on this student. On by default.

Select the correct agent if you want accurate commissions. XPortal works out agent commission from the student's payment plan, on the lines marked as commissionable, and pays it to the agent on this application. If the wrong agent is selected, or none, the commission goes to the wrong place or isn't calculated at all.

Turn Agent Commissions off when the agent shouldn't be paid for this student. For concurrent and transfer students it may be locked off; see above. After approval, commissions are managed on the student's record.

Contact details

Field	Required?
Email	Yes. It must be a valid email address.
Work phone	No
Home phone	Yes
Mobile phone	Yes
Alternative email	No

Phone numbers can be Australian or overseas. For example 0400 000 000, (03) 9999 9999, +61 400 000 000 or +91 98765 43210.

Spaces, dots, brackets and dashes are fine.
Start an overseas number with + and its country code, so it's clear which country it belongs to.
Letters aren't allowed, and a number must have between 6 and 15 digits.

Offshore students often have no Australian number yet. Enter their overseas numbers, and update them when they arrive.

Street address

This is where the student lives. It must be a physical residential address, never a PO box.

The quickest way to fill it in is Search street address. Start typing, for example 252 Botany Road, and pick the right suggestion. XPortal fills in the fields for you. If you pick a PO box by mistake, XPortal moves it to the postal address and tells you to enter the residential address separately.

Field	Notes
Building name, Unit/Level	Optional.
Street number, Street name, Suburb	Required.
State, Postcode	Required. Domestic students need a real Australian state and a 4-digit postcode.
Country	Required for international students.

Why international students show OVS and OSPC

For international students, State is locked to OVS (Overseas) and Postcode is locked to OSPC, with a padlock. Hovering explains This field is enforced because the student is international.

This isn't a mistake. AVETMISS reporting requires international students to be reported with state OVS and postcode OSPC. XPortal fills them in and locks them so the report is always right.

That means the student's real postcode can't go here. It goes in the Postal address instead, and that's where letters are actually sent.

Postal address

This is where mail should go.

For domestic students, tick The postal address is same as street address if they're the same. Otherwise fill in the postal fields.
For international students, this box is unticked and locked, so you must enter a postal address. Enter the student's real address here, with the correct, accurate real postcode.

You can use Search here too, for example PO Box 123 Richmond. The postal fields are: