When implementing CIRR standards, it is crucial to use a system to track each one of your students. Many schools use customer relationship management (CRM) software, but at the very least, you should use a spreadsheet with a row for each one of your students and a column for each field described below (you can even use a copy of the CIRR Report Worksheet).

When you enroll a new student, add them to your CRM (or spreadsheet). Create a field (or column in your spreadsheet) for their enrollment status and give them the status of "Enrolled" (or something similar).

Enrolled students are all students in a course as of (i) the final date under applicable state regulations on which the school is required to provide the student with a full tuition refund, or (ii) if applicable state regulations do not contain such a requirement, the final date as specified in the school’s published policies on which a student may receive a full tuition refund. The full tuition refund may exclude nominal non-refundable registration fees.

Enrolled students do not include students who died, became incarcerated, or were called into active military duty during the course, but the student list should contain documentation supporting that classification. In the case of self-paced programs dealing with students with multiple start dates (who may return after pausing or dropping out), a student should only be counted using the earliest start date.

If your program has a fixed length, create a field identifying which cohort students start in so that you know their start date and on-time graduation date; also create another field for the cohort they finish in, so that if they transfer to a new cohort, you can accurately report the graduation date for their original cohort.

If your program is self-paced, create fields for students' start and graduation dates.

If a student withdraws, change their status to "Withdrew" (or something similar).

When a student graduates, update their status to "Graduated". Graduates are all students who met the published graduation requirements and received a certificate of completion.

Create three fields for each question on the first-day intent survey, and track students' responses there. Also create a field to track which students are hired by the school itself.