How do they determine the order of oath? By the order of DM or random?
NO, the order is not random. The scheduling officer (s) in Sydney process the oaths as per some criteria (not publically known). However, this is my guess based on talking to a distant family member who was a citizenship judge before he retired 7 years ago. Applications are scheduled for oath in this order.
As soon as your test is completed and you have passed/failed, the file goes back to the processing agent with interviewing officers remarks. Sometimes the interviewing officer may be the same as your processing officer as they work on rosters. The interviewing officer is already working on other files and may not quickly jump to your file. Once he/she processes the file and makes additional updates on the file including your test scores and interviewing officers remarks, it is decision time. Some files are randomly picked up for a final check by the supervisors. It is completely random or sometimes the processing agent may request for a second look to ensure that no mistakes are made (very very few cases).
Now, all goes well and it is decision time. The CIC agent from local office updates the system as soon as the decision is made. Scheduling starts when applications get all clear from the processing office and a system entry is made. If a system entry is not made, no scheduling starts. System entry is not the same as system entry on ECAS. I am talking about internal system entry. Usually, when you see DM update on your file, it means file is now in hands of Sydney office for scheduling oath. Then, files are processed in the order they are received by the office. Remember that the system (SAP) auto assigns a date/time stamp as decisions fly in from across the country. This means that if Ontario has pumped the system today morning with 200 decision made, then they will have an earlier date/time stamp.
If you are waiting for DM and Oath, the delay may be at the processing agents end due to a backlog. Nothing to worry about.
Based on a lot of primary and secondary research, I have come to believe that this is the process for Oath scheduling. There are many gaps and there may be some inaccuracies and this is the best it gets.
a) Files are sorted by province and assigned to schedulers.
a) All URGENT applications have priority in Oath (province independent)
b) CIC wants equal representation of all ethnic origins in citizenship. Hence if someone has applied from a country (XYZ) and very few members of that ethnic origin are in Canada or have applied for citizenship, then they get priority in Oath. These files are processed next after URGENT files. (Province Independent)
c) Many processing centres process information for remote sites which do not have their own processing centres and people come over from a distance. These people are scheduled first and these files are processed next.
d) For those who files are all clear, the internal decision is made and the decision is not conditional (waiting for a final check on something), if their 12 months period is expiring from the date of receipt of the application, they are scheduled next.
* A conditional decision means CIC is waiting for CBSA, Tax or other information provided by the application in the application. It usually means that you have cleared security, criminal and background checks. CBSA information gets delayed as CIC has to data mine data provided by airlines to check when you exited. If you did not provide your PR Card during exit and only provided passport then it gets further delayed. It is a manual search for data (mostly exits). They also need to get entry data from US for road entry (which is used as exit data for Canada).
