What is covered in this article?
- Overview
- Zone Catcher vs Geographic Status — What's the Difference?
- Prerequisites
- Setting Up a Catchment Area
- Viewing Zone Catcher in Student Details
- Understanding the Zone Catcher Indicator
- Filtering by Zone Catcher
- Using Zone Catcher as a Lead Score Criterion
Overview
Zone Catcher is a new feature in Enquiry Tracker that automatically determines whether a student lives within your school's catchment area. Rather than relying on the information self-declared by a family on the form, Zone Catcher computes the result automatically by comparing the student's residence address against a catchment boundary that your school defines.
This gives school users a reliable, system-calculated catchment status for each student, making it easier to make informed enrolment decisions.
Note: Zone Catcher is only available to schools that have opted in to collect and report on Geographic Status. This can be enabled under Admin > Edit School > Optional Fields.
Zone Catcher vs Geographic Status — What's the Difference?
Enquiry Tracker has an existing Geographic Status field, which is a self-declared value entered by the family when filling out a form. Zone Catcher is separate and distinct from this field.
Geographic Status — Entered by the family. Can be edited. Reflects what the family has indicated about their location.
Zone Catcher — Calculated automatically by the system. Read-only and cannot be edited manually. Reflects whether the student's residence address falls within your school's defined catchment boundary.
Both fields are visible in Student Details, giving you a complete picture of geographic eligibility.
Prerequisites
For Zone Catcher to display a result, two things must be in place:
- The student must have a Student Residence Address set. Zone Catcher is calculated based on the student's primary residential address, not the contact's address. See the article on What is the Student Residence Address? for more information on how this is set.
- Your school must have a catchment area configured in Admin > Map Layers. If no catchment boundary has been set for the student's campus, Zone Catcher will display as No Catchment Area Set.
Setting Up a Catchment Area
If your school does not yet have a catchment area defined, Zone Catcher will not be able to compute a result. To set one up:
- Go to Admin > Map Layers.
- Add or upload your school's catchment boundary for the relevant campus.
- Select the option that this layer represents your catchment zone
- Save your changes.
Once a catchment boundary is in place, Zone Catcher will automatically calculate the status for all students who have a Student Residence Address on file.
Note: For multi-campus schools, catchment areas are set per campus. The Zone Catcher result for a student is based on the catchment area of their assigned campus.
Viewing Zone Catcher in Student Details
The Zone Catcher status is displayed as a colour-coded indicator in the Student Residency section of the Student Details screen. It appears in the top-right corner of the section, alongside the Student Residence Address and other residency information.
The indicator updates automatically whenever the student's residence address, campus assignment, or catchment area boundary is changed.
Understanding the Zone Catcher Indicator
Zone Catcher displays one of three states:
- In Catchment (green) — The student's residence address falls within the school's defined catchment area. This means the student is geographically eligible based on their address.
- Out of Catchment (red) — The student's residence address falls outside the school's defined catchment area.
- No Catchment Area Set (grey) — The school has not yet configured a catchment boundary for the student's campus. Hovering over this indicator will display a prompt to set a catchment area in Admin > Map Layers.
Note: If the student does not yet have a Student Residence Address with a valid location, the Zone Catcher indicator will not be displayed.
Filtering by Zone Catcher
Zone Catcher can be used as a filter in the following screens to help you identify and work with students based on their catchment status:
Students List — The Zone Catcher filter is available under the More… menu in the filter panel, after the Geographic Status filter.
Contacts List — The Zone Catcher filter is also available under the More… menu, in the same position.
Analytics > Geographic — The Zone Catcher filter appears after the Status filter, allowing you to view map pins and location data filtered by catchment status.
Using Zone Catcher as a Lead Score Criterion
Zone Catcher can also be added as a criterion when configuring Lead Scores, allowing schools to automatically weight students who live within the catchment area more highly in their enrolment pipeline.