Case Studies Stevenson University Uses Informer to Accelerate Ellucian Colleague Processes

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	Stevenson University Uses Informer to Accelerate Ellucian Colleague Processes

Stevenson University Uses Informer to Accelerate Ellucian Colleague Processes

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Visualization Functional Applications - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP)
Applicable Industries	Education
Applicable Functions	Business Operation Quality Assurance
Use Cases	Remote Collaboration
Services	Software Design & Engineering Services System Integration Training
Challenge	Stevenson University in Baltimore County, Maryland, faced several challenges with their institutional processes. The university uses Ellucian Colleague for various operations, but over time, Colleague programmers became increasingly difficult to find. The university lost over 50% of their Colleague developers, making it challenging to perform necessary tasks that required IT intervention and programming knowledge. Additionally, many university processes were inefficient and lacked standardization. For instance, generating financial aid award letters was a manual process that took three to six months. Disparate reports from different sources contained conflicting information, making it difficult to determine accurate data. Different departments used different fields in Colleague for enrollment information, leading to inconsistencies in reports delivered to the president. Furthermore, the university needed a quick way to create COVID-19 reports for monitoring health, testing, and class distribution. Read More
About Customer	Stevenson University is a private university located in Baltimore County, Maryland, with a student population of 3,600. The university employs over 200 users across various departments, including Financial Aid, Residence Life, Admissions, Registrar, and Advancement. The IT department, led by Senior Programmer Analyst Jen Brechin, administers Informer, a tool used university-wide to streamline and automate processes. The university faced challenges with finding Colleague programmers and inefficiencies in their processes, prompting the need for a more efficient solution. Stevenson University also required a quick and effective way to generate COVID-19 reports for health monitoring and class distribution. Read More
Solution	Stevenson University successfully migrated to Informer 5, which delivered immediate results. The migration support from Informer was highly praised by Jen Brechin, who noted the exceptional customer support and migration teams. Informer 5 made it easier to find programmers well-versed in PHP, as opposed to Colleague. The university was able to eliminate some custom processes and avoid writing new ones in Colleague. Many processes were moved outside of Colleague, including data that didn't need to be stored permanently. Informer 5 allowed for the creation of custom columns to extract information, reducing the load on the Colleague server. COVID-19 reports in Informer presented health factors from faculty and staff screenings, which were sent daily to human resources and weekly to assistant vice presidents. These reports were also used for remote and hybrid semesters to show class attendance and for random surveillance testing. Informer 5 enabled quick access to COVID-19 related information using student IDs. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Visualization

Functional Applications - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP)

Applicable Industries

Education

Applicable Functions

Business Operation

Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Remote Collaboration

Services

Software Design & Engineering Services

System Integration

Training

Challenge

Stevenson University in Baltimore County, Maryland, faced several challenges with their institutional processes. The university uses Ellucian Colleague for various operations, but over time, Colleague programmers became increasingly difficult to find. The university lost over 50% of their Colleague developers, making it challenging to perform necessary tasks that required IT intervention and programming knowledge. Additionally, many university processes were inefficient and lacked standardization. For instance, generating financial aid award letters was a manual process that took three to six months. Disparate reports from different sources contained conflicting information, making it difficult to determine accurate data. Different departments used different fields in Colleague for enrollment information, leading to inconsistencies in reports delivered to the president. Furthermore, the university needed a quick way to create COVID-19 reports for monitoring health, testing, and class distribution.

About Customer

Stevenson University is a private university located in Baltimore County, Maryland, with a student population of 3,600. The university employs over 200 users across various departments, including Financial Aid, Residence Life, Admissions, Registrar, and Advancement. The IT department, led by Senior Programmer Analyst Jen Brechin, administers Informer, a tool used university-wide to streamline and automate processes. The university faced challenges with finding Colleague programmers and inefficiencies in their processes, prompting the need for a more efficient solution. Stevenson University also required a quick and effective way to generate COVID-19 reports for health monitoring and class distribution.

Solution

Stevenson University successfully migrated to Informer 5, which delivered immediate results. The migration support from Informer was highly praised by Jen Brechin, who noted the exceptional customer support and migration teams. Informer 5 made it easier to find programmers well-versed in PHP, as opposed to Colleague. The university was able to eliminate some custom processes and avoid writing new ones in Colleague. Many processes were moved outside of Colleague, including data that didn't need to be stored permanently. Informer 5 allowed for the creation of custom columns to extract information, reducing the load on the Colleague server. COVID-19 reports in Informer presented health factors from faculty and staff screenings, which were sent daily to human resources and weekly to assistant vice presidents. These reports were also used for remote and hybrid semesters to show class attendance and for random surveillance testing. Informer 5 enabled quick access to COVID-19 related information using student IDs.

Impact #1	Informer 5 significantly streamlined Stevenson University's operational processes by consolidating numerous reports into one Dataset, providing a single source of truth.
Impact #2	Development and testing time for financial aid award letters was reduced from several months to several days, with replication taking only thirty-six hours.
Impact #3	Benefit information for retirement contributions is now in three automated, self-service reports sent to TIAA several times a month, requiring little to no IT intervention.

Impact #1

Informer 5 significantly streamlined Stevenson University's operational processes by consolidating numerous reports into one Dataset, providing a single source of truth.

Impact #2

Development and testing time for financial aid award letters was reduced from several months to several days, with replication taking only thirty-six hours.

Impact #3

Benefit information for retirement contributions is now in three automated, self-service reports sent to TIAA several times a month, requiring little to no IT intervention.

Benefit #1	Development and testing time for financial aid award letters reduced from several months to several days.
Benefit #2	Replication of financial aid award letters in Informer took only thirty-six hours.

Benefit #1

Development and testing time for financial aid award letters reduced from several months to several days.

Benefit #2

Replication of financial aid award letters in Informer took only thirty-six hours.

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Overview

Stevenson University Uses Informer to Accelerate Ellucian Colleague Processes

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit