Banner Implementation Update
The replacement of Skidmore’s Oracle Applications Student System (OSS) with Sungard’s Banner product continues to move forward. In fact we’ve already passed two milestones and have started using capabilities we never had! June 2011 was an important month for the project. We brought prior recruiting records from OSS into Banner and started loading any new recruiting records into Banner. At the same time we started a “synchronization” process. We will be running in two systems for a period of time and OSS remains the system of record for current students. For example if a student changes their address we move that change to Banner, since that person also exists there in preparation for our cutover. In August we met our next milestone and started accepting applications for students for Fall 2012 into Banner.
Admissions is also using a new tool to help manage communications. As an example, assume they are going to hold an open house. They can now build a “campaign” that could send an invitation out, follow up with one or two reminders and, for those who attended, send a “Thank you for coming” note later. The people in Admissions are now building the logic of the campaign and templates of the letters or emails, rather than generating lists and performing word or email merges. The logic in the campaign can look at data in Banner and decide on the appropriate message to send, or whether to send anything at all. They may choose to only invite prospects with certain interests if the event is targeted for specific academic programs.
Of course, getting Admissions going is just the beginning. During the Fall semester, the Financial Aid office will begin accepting “Profile” documents into Banner from all student requesting Financial Aid, followed in late January by accepting the “ISIR” documents (the result of an applicant filing a Free Application for Student Aid Form, or “FAFSA”). The Financial Aid for all students attending Skidmore in Fall 2012 will be managed in Banner. Our other milestone this year will be to load the “Course Catalog” into Banner. This is just what you’d think- the set of all courses Skidmore offers. A subset of these courses will be used in January and February to build what Banner calls the “Schedule”- the list of courses to be offered for Fall 2012.
Work continues in a less visible fashion in a variety of areas. Among them, IT is converting students’ status and academic data as this will be the basis for things like registration, transcripts and whether their Skidmore ID Cards will be active. Since Banner and OSS store data differently, and come with different tools, we are all looking at much of the automation that has been built into OSS the last 5 or 6 years and trying to sort out what is needed and how it might be done in Banner. Reporting is another challenge. Sungard has provided a robust reporting system, though there are some shortcomings. The people in the administrative offices will use the same program they have in the past to access and create their reports but again, since the data is stored differently, virtually all reports will need to be re-created. We all are learning more about the system daily, and are looking at the capabilities of the system with respect to business process changes that may need to be made. Additionally, the administrative offices are working with each other (and IT as needed) to see how the system might improve the efficiency and quality of inter-office communication.
Tom Harfmann - Assistant Director, Enterprise Systems – Applications
