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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
The 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 The 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.
The 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.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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