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1College Update - November 17, 2005
Team Updates
FinanceNo new update to report.
College Relations/Development
On Friday, November 11 the project team hosted an all staff meeting for the Development and College Relations offices. Attendees took time to reflect on the accomplishments and challenges of the past 6 months. Many new value-added features were identified. These include:
- Remote Access to the Banner system
- Automated load of ask amounts into Banner (no double data-entry)
- Better gift receipt process and more professional looking receipts
- Many new and improved reports
- Better access to data
- Brennan Hadden, Functional Lead for the Advancement Team
Financial Aid
Financial Aid is live! The first few days of our implementation have gone well. We have imported need analysis data files from the College Board and successfully matched those records with existing records in Banner. Our staff is entering a backlog of documents from prospective students and their parents and should soon be caught up. By Friday, we should have the first Early Decision acceptances from the Admissions Office, and we can begin in earnest to use the Banner need analysis and automated packaging processes. There have been remarkably few surprises so far. We have implemented a brand new system, and we still are at least two weeks ahead of where we were last year using Colleague.
-Rick Heckman, Functional Lead for the Financial Aid Team
Student
The Student Team continues to review the converted academic history data and update the specifications as needed to bring the data over correctly. Our end-user training scheduled for November and December includes the following topics: Curriculum, Enrollment Verifications, Student Statuses, Sport Information, Transfer Credit & Graduation, and Catalog Maintenance.
The team also hosted a Banner Self-Service preview event for faculty. The Self-Service application was well received by participating faculty members. Their participation and feedback is most appreciated.
-Deb Bolen, Functional Lead for the Student Team
Accounts Receivable
The Accounts Receivable system has been linked to the general ledger using the Banner FOAPAL structure. With this major task complete, the testing of the automated feed from accounts receivable to the Banner finance system will happen the week of November 28. The team will then focus on testing the 1098-T processing.
The team also met with the Student Accounts office and the project management office to discuss the implementation timeline. It was decided that the Cashier's Office and Non-Student Accounts Receivable will begin using Banner in April 2006. The Student Accounts Receivable will begin using Banner in July 2006. Testing of these systems is continuing on schedule.
The Accounts Receivable Training Plan is complete and end user training is scheduled for the week of March 13-17, 2006 in the Academic Technology Services training facility. All participants will receive a save-the-date invitation to this training toward the end of December. In February 2006, the detailed training schedule will be distributed to those who will be using the accounts receivable system.
-Sally Heckendorn, Functional Lead for the Accounts Receivable Team
Human Resources/Payroll
The HR/Payroll team is finishing up integration testing this week. Student employee data is being entered and "cleaned up" in preparation for parallel payroll testing in November and December. Parallel payrolls (payrolls run in both Colleague and Banner) are scheduled to begin Monday, November 21 and a detailed schedule has been laid out to address the procedures and tasks involved.
-Michelle Spencer, Functional Lead for the Human Resource/Payroll Team
Dates to Remember
November 15, 2005: Financial Aid Office begins using Banner.November 21-22, 2005: Pennsylvania Banner User Group (PA-BUG) Annual Conference.
December 1, 2005: Registrar's Office begins using Banner.
January 1, 2006: Human Resource and Payroll Offices begin using Banner.
*Note that November 7, 2005, the Registrar's Office, Student Accounts Office, and Human Resource Office began to maintain data in both the Banner and Colleague systems. These offices will be maintaining both systems until approximately August 2006. For many of the staff in these offices, this will be very difficult time. Please be patient and understand that it may take longer than normal to meet your request.
Training Opportunities
StudentOur end-user training scheduled for November and December includes the following topics: Curriculum, Enrollment Verifications, Student Statuses, Sport Information, Transfer Credit & Graduation, and Catalog Maintenance. Specific dates will be provided to users required to attend these sessions.
Did you know?
- Sunguard SCT is the company that develops and supports the Banner product. There are over 1,400 schools that use Banner to support administrative processes.
- During the Banner system implementation, over 400,000 academic history records will be converted from the Colleague system to the Banner's student system.
Learn the Lingo
Below are samples of terms you may be hearing around campus. In this update, we are focusing on general technology terms. Visit past project updates for other Learn the Lingo topics.Crosswalk: Term used to describe the cross-reference translation from a "legacy system" field definition to a Banner field definition (such as the Datatel general ledger account number to the Banner FOAPAL number).
Database: A collection of tables used to store data.
DBA: Database Administrator. This is the individual who is responsible for maintaining the College's database systems. Dickinson College has 2 database administrators.
ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is an industry term that encompasses a set of integrated software systems that support the administrative functions of the College.
Relational Database: ORACLE is a relational database. A relational database has several characteristics that make it different from the types of databases and other file storage systems that came before it. These same characteristics increase the complexity of querying or reporting from the database.
- Each data item is stored in only one location; someone's mailing address is stored in one table; every data entry form and report looks at this one table; all changes are made in this one table.
- The database is designed once, with an emphasis on the relationships between data. For example, the Banner database was designed to allow more than one type of address, so additional address types can be added at any time without altering the design.
- To query related data, data must often be pulled from multiple tables; tables are joined together via a common field(s).
Query: A question or inquiry in Banner that looks to data in the Banner database.
Wildcard: A character that is substituted for unknown character(s) in a Banner query. A percent sign (%) stands for any number of unknown characters; whereas an underscore (_) stands for only one unknown character.
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