Canada Presentations

This presentation will provide a look into the process of integrating a large scale, student-facing software to enhance the undergraduate enrollment experience. Simon Fraser University recently integrated both the Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) and the PeopleSoft Validation functionality to their Student Information Management System (SIMS). The presentation will explore how the Registrar’s office was able to establish community buy-in, lessons learned by the project team, and provide suggestions on how to prepare your institution ahead of any major student-facing software integration. In turn, this session will be broken down into three topics:

1) Technical/Testing: The trial and tribulations of the integration process.
2) Communication: How to gain buy-in and market software.
3) Next time: Lessons learned.

As a mid-sized Canadian institution which utilizes DB2 for its PeopleSoft database, and as an institution with a high level of PeopleSoft customizations, several learning opportunities were discovered throughout the process of integrating both of these items. These discoveries will be explored in detail within this presentation. These findings include but are not limited to:

• Integration delays
• Customization
• Communication with the campus community/Training
• Focus grouping
• Role dissemination
• Policy and enrollment procedures
• Other integration challenges

In attempting to enhance the undergraduate enrollment experience, SFU sought to do full integration with VSB, which was intended to simplify the planning and enrollment process, and to address course access/availability. This software provides students with the ability to: plan course selection for an upcoming term prior to enrollment, validate course prerequisites, and to enroll in selected courses.

The VSB software also provides functionality to other institutional stakeholders. This functionality includes: an advisor role, where advisors can suggest courses through favorite schedules, a limited customization role, as well as an analytics role, which maps common course conflicts, user sign-ins, and student’s self-declared personal time.