2026 Slate Summit Presentation | Beyond Merge Fields
Beyond Merge Fields: Building a Custom Graduate Offer Workflow in Slate
Introduction
At many institutions, financial aid offer communications begin as a document generation problem.
The initial question is usually straightforward:
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How do we insert the right scholarship amount?
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How do we display the correct assistantship information?
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How do we communicate department-specific funding details?
For a small number of programs, traditional merge fields can often solve the problem.
For Princeton University's Graduate School, however, the challenge was fundamentally different.
The institution was not managing a single offer structure. It was managing thousands of possible offer combinations across departments, funding models, appointment types, tuition support structures, and communication requirements.
The result was a project that required far more than document generation. It required a scalable framework for managing data, business logic, content, approvals, and applicant experience inside Slate.
This session explores how ReWorkflow and Princeton partnered to build a custom graduate offer workflow capable of supporting more than one billion potential offer outcomes while remaining maintainable for end users.
The Challenge
Graduate funding offers are inherently complex.
Each offer may contain a unique combination of:
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Department funding commitments
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Assistantship appointments
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Fellowships
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Tuition support
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Stipend structures
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Duration requirements
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Special conditions
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Custom language
Traditional approaches often rely on:
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Large numbers of merge fields
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Extensive conditional content
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Manual editing
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Department-specific templates
As complexity grows, these approaches become increasingly difficult to maintain.
Princeton needed a solution that would:
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Support highly variable funding structures
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Reduce manual intervention
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Improve consistency
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Provide administrative flexibility
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Preserve institutional control over messaging
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Scale without requiring technical intervention for every change
Solution Architecture
The project was designed around five primary layers:
Data Layer
The data layer answered a simple question:
What information do we know?
This layer consisted of:
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Application-scoped fields
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Entity records
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Department-specific data structures
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Funding metadata
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Applicant information
The objective was to normalize offer data so it could be reused across multiple communication and presentation channels.
Logic Layer
The logic layer determined:
What should happen?
This included:
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Business rules
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Offer determination logic
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Funding calculations
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Conditional pathways
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Validation requirements
Rather than embedding logic directly into communications, rules were centralized to create consistent outcomes across the workflow.
Customization Layer
The customization layer focused on:
What can change?
To support departmental flexibility, the system leveraged:
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Translation values
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Prompt lists
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Content blocks
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Dynamic content structures
This approach allowed departments to maintain their own offer language while preserving a centralized framework.
Communication Layer
The communication layer answered:
What should be communicated?
This included:
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Offer letters
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Applicant-facing content
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Department messaging
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Funding explanations
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Supplemental instructions
Rather than maintaining countless versions of offer templates, communications were assembled dynamically from reusable content components.
Experience Layer
The experience layer focused on:
How should applicants interact with the offer?
The goal was to create a streamlined experience that reduced confusion and improved usability while maintaining the flexibility required by graduate programs.
The Components Behind the Workflow
One of the most important lessons from the project was that scale is achieved through modularity.
The final solution included:
Fields
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70 application-scoped fields
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19 entity fields
These fields provided the foundational data required to generate offers.
Prompt Lists
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8 prompt lists
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More than 1,000 prompts
Prompts acted as structured decision points throughout the workflow.
Translation Values
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More than 60 translation values
Translation values centralized configurable content and reduced repetitive maintenance.
Content Blocks
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More than 400 content blocks
Content blocks allowed messaging to be assembled dynamically based on the specific funding configuration.
Why Content Blocks Matter
Content blocks became one of the most powerful components in the architecture.
Instead of creating hundreds of static templates, the system generated offers from reusable content fragments.
Benefits included:
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Consistent language
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Easier maintenance
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Department-specific customization
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Reduced duplication
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Faster updates
This approach transformed offer generation from a template management problem into a content management strategy.
Building for Administrative Flexibility
A key project objective was enabling non-technical users to maintain the system.
To accomplish this, the team developed a custom administrative interface that allowed users to manage:
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Funding configurations
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Offer language
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Department-specific content
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Dynamic values
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Validation workflows
Administrative users could make updates without requiring direct technical intervention.
Validation and Quality Control
When supporting thousands of possible offer combinations, validation becomes critical.
The project incorporated multiple quality assurance checkpoints, including:
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Data validation
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Combination testing
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Proofing workflows
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Department review processes
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Final release readiness checks
This reduced the risk of communication errors while increasing confidence in large-scale releases.
Outcomes
The completed solution delivered measurable operational improvements.
Key outcomes included:
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Same-day offer release capabilities
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Reduced manual effort
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Improved consistency across departments
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Simplified applicant experience
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Reduced revision cycles
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Faster processing times
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Improved first-pass accuracy
Most importantly, the solution provided a scalable framework capable of supporting future growth without requiring significant architectural changes.
Lessons Learned
Several key lessons emerged from the project.
1. Start With Process Before Technology
Technology can only automate a process that is clearly understood.
Discovery and process mapping were essential to the project's success.
2. Design for Change
Graduate funding models evolve over time.
Building flexibility into the architecture proved more valuable than optimizing for today's requirements.
3. Separate Content From Logic
When content and logic are tightly coupled, maintenance becomes difficult.
Separating them created significantly greater long-term sustainability.
4. Validation Is a Feature
At large scale, validation is not optional.
Quality assurance workflows became just as important as the offer generation workflow itself.
Final Thoughts
Many Slate projects begin with a simple question:
"Can we build this with merge fields?"
For straightforward communications, the answer is often yes.
But when institutions need to manage thousands of possible outcomes, complex business rules, and decentralized content ownership, the conversation shifts from merge fields to architecture.
The Princeton Graduate School project demonstrates how Slate can be leveraged as a platform for building scalable, maintainable, and highly customized business processes—not simply as a communication tool.
By combining structured data, centralized logic, reusable content, and thoughtful user experience design, institutions can move beyond document generation and create systems that support both operational efficiency and long-term sustainability.
Presentation Resources
Session Slide Deck: Beyond Merge Fields: Building a Custom Graduate Offer Workflow in Slate
Conference: Slate Summit 2026
Presented By: ReWorkflow & Princeton University
Resources:
Fields & Tabs
Portals
Forms
Entities & Entity Tables
Queries, Merge Fields & Liquid Markup
Translation Tables
Content Blocks
Deliver Documents
Logic & Workflow
Training & Learning Lab
- Learning Lab Courses
- Creating and Displaying Content Blocks in a Mailing
- Create an Advising Email Using Liquid Markup and Merge Fields
- Creating an Efficient Workflow for Academic Advisors
- Creating a Clubs and Organizations Entity
Interested in discussing a similar solution for your institution? Contact ReWorkflow to learn more about custom Slate architecture, workflow design, and strategic implementation services.
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