Liaison is migrating all Centralized Application Service (CAS) (i.e., the student application) to the cloud. This strategic move builds upon the prior successful migrations of other integral components of the CAS infrastructure, including the CAS API and WebAdMIT. This transition allows for greater scalability, faster response times, and improved security.
The migration will occur in two stages.
Stage 1: Prelaunch Migration (Completed)
The prelaunch environment will be migrated from December 16, 2023 at 7 AM ET through December 18, 2023 at 7 AM ET. The prelaunch environment is a test environment, typically used to configure and test programs before they go live.
During this time, the following prelaunch environments will be unavailable to admissions and association users:
- Analytics by Liaison
- Applicant Gateway
- Applicant Portal
- CAS API
- Configuration Portal
- Letters by Liaison
- Liaison Outcomes
- WebAdMIT
Once the migration is complete, users can access these environments as usual. We do not anticipate any disruptions for PharmCAS, PharmGrad, or PharmDirect users during this time since all cycles are live.
Stage 2: Production Migration
The production environment will be migrated from January 20, 2024 at 7 AM ET through January 22, 2024 at 7 AM ET. The production environment is the live environment where applicants complete their applications and admissions and associations users perform their daily tasks.
During this time, the following platforms and functions will be impacted for production environments only:
- Analytics by Liaison: unavailable to admissions users.
- Applicant Gateway: unavailable to applicants.
- Applicant Portal: unavailable to applicants.
- CAS API: unavailable to admissions users (i.e., data retrieval and subscription management will be unavailable).
- Configuration Portal: unavailable to admissions users.
- Letters by Liaison: unavailable to recommenders.
- Liaison Outcomes: accessible to admissions users.
- WebAdMIT: accessible to admissions users, but PDFs will be unavailable.
Once the migration is complete, users can access these platforms and functions as usual. We do not anticipate that this should have a large impact on PharmCAS, PharmGrad, or PharmDirect programs or applicants, as the dates are not associated with a deadline or other important date.
Important Note for CAS API Users
If you're using the CAS API to pull applications into on-campus systems, you may need to update your firewall rules as our IP addresses will change.
Notify your IT team of these changes so they can assess whether it will impact them; they may need to ensure the new IP address ranges are safelisted.
Note that as part of Liaison's continued preparedness, they've already enabled IP addresses in this range for failover events. As such, it is recommend speaking to your IT team and making needed changes as soon as possible.
Please contact a member of your account team if you have any questions about this migration.
Applicant Notification
• Liaison has added rotating banner notifications in the application. If schools wish to alert their applicants, we recommend using the following language:
"The PharmCAS application will be undergoing maintenance from Saturday, January 20 at 7 AM ET through Monday, January 22 at 7 AM ET. During this time, the application will be unavailable. Please plan accordingly. If you have any program-related deadlines during this period, we recommend submitting your materials in advance."
• AACP staff has shared a similar notice to all submitted and in-progress applicants.
• Liaison has added a notice to all customer service emails, phone lines, and chats about the upcoming maintenance.
Help Center Page
The Liaison team will continue to update the CAS Migration to the Cloud help center page with important updates and information, as needed.
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Katie Owings Bruce
Director of Application Services and Student Programs
American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy
703-739-2330 x1026
kbruce@aacp.org------------------------------