As expected the 2018 data is now available in CEAC. You can check your own case number at this link, by removing the leading zeros from your case number. So 2018AF000012345 would be entered as 2018AF12345. Please read at the bottom of this article to know what the status codes mean.

OK As many of you will know, the CEAC system is where anyone can check the current status of specific case numbers. We now need to work together to gather the CEAC data which will keep us informed of progress to date including how many visas have been approved already, denials AP and so on. Using that data we can get a more accurate prediction of month to month VB progress and we can try and predict the final cutoff ranges with better accuracy.

So – as explained before we need the DV community help to solve captchas. Every captcha solved gets us one more case. Initially, it will take a great effort from many people to solve the captchas, but as we continue over the coming months we will not need to recheck approved or denied cases, so the work will get easier.

This is made easy when lots of people help. So – please get involved and share the work. Give a few minutes every day to solve some more captchas and with that information we will all benefit from better understanding.

This is all made possible by a very smart 2018 DV winner, Xarthisius. He has created the software that facilitates the captcha solving, CEAC scraping and has even produced some really useful tools to allow people to analyze the data. You can take a look at the 2017 data to understand what we will be able to see.

So – to help get the data please login at this site:

https://dvcharts.xarthisius.xyz/login.html

 

The charts and analysis tools are available here:

https://dvcharts.xarthisius.xyz/

Looking at the data from 2017 shows the issued visas per region as well as denials, AP and holes. All essential to understand the VB progress and final cutoffs.

Let’s go and get the data!!!

 

So what do the status codes mean.

The first status for every case is “AT NVC”. You can ignore the text on the case – the case has not been passed to NVC.  What this status means is that the case is in one of the following situations.

  1. The case is not yet current.
  2. The case is current, BUT the DS260 has not be submitted at all, or it was submitted but not processed yet – and therefore not scheduled.
  3. The case is current, the form is processed, but it is waiting to be scheduled (typically because the cases have not yet been sent to the embassies yet).

“In Transit”

This status is shown for a brief period when KCC has scheduled the interview, and transferred the case to the embassy. However, the embassy has not yet updated CEAC to acknowledge they have received the case.

“READY”

This is the next status after in transit. It means the case has arrived at the embassy for interview. Sometimes a case will continue to show ready even after the interview.

“Issued”

Pretty obviously – this is the status we all want to see! The interview took place, was successful and the visa has been approved/issued.

“Refused”

This is the status no one wants to see, meaning the interview took place and the selectee was denied. A derivative can be refused, while the principal is approved. However, if the principal is refused – all the derivatives are refused also – even if the embassy fails to update CEAC.

“Administrative Processing”

This is when someone did not have all the documents at the interview OR some additional checks are needed before the case can be adjudicated. AP can last a few days or several months. The status updates during that time are meaningless.

Derivative number.

For cases that are scheduled we can see the related derivative numbers. Case 01 is the principal and derivatives are case 02, 03 and so on.