Overview

SCT Banner® Finance provides the university with a central integrated repository for university financial data and reporting.  Banner® enables financial processes such as accounts payable, fixed assets, internal stores, journal entries, budget development, sponsored research accounting, and endowment management to take place in an Internet environment.

Project team

Kay Ward – Chair, Senior Associate Vice Chancellor, Finance, BA
Kathy Dennis – Office of Business Affairs, BA
Mary Forsythe – Director, Purchasing, BA
Dan Geddie – Director, Financial Services, BA
Liz Hosier – Director, Application Services, ITSD
Laura LaBree - Financial Systems, BA
Jan Riemersma – Comptroller, BA
Bob Russell – Director, Budgets, BA
Carol Strickland – Director, Financial Systems, BA
Pam Whitlock – Director, Office of Sponsored Programs, AA
Carole Wilson - Financial Systems, BA

Project schedules and Training

Overview

Banner Financial Aid® enables the university to seamlessly process financial aid for students from admission through graduation providing the flexibility to respond to the diverse needs of different student populations.

Overview

SCT Banner® HR provides a flexible administrative solution for personnel management and payroll processing in the higher education environment.  Through the self-service, HR enables the employees to update personal and time keeping information, to enroll in and manage their individual benefits, and answer routing personal/payroll questions via the Web.

Project team

Kay Fryar – Chair, Director of Human Resources, OC
Jeanne Cole – Application Services, ITSD
Kathy Dennis – Office of Business Affairs, BA
Art Goodwin – Application Services, ITSD
Gaye Howe – Assistant Vice Chancellor, AA
Anne Howell – Budget Office, BA
Cindy Hucks – Budget Office, BA
Lisa Laverick – Payroll, BA
Lisa Castellino – Director, Office of Institutional Research, AA
Joann McDowell – Human Resources, OC
Debbie Price – Payroll, BA
Julie Teague – Office of Institutional Research, AA

Overview

SCT Banner® Student combines administrative and academic functions to stream line the management of student information while at the same time providing prospects, learners, and faculty secure online access to the information they need through the Internet.  In addition to standard student records and student accounts processing, Banner® offers enhanced prospects and application processing utilizing Internet technologies to improve communications, simplify processing and improve customer service.  Self services also enable students and faculty to access grades, account balances, transcript information and other enrollment information quickly and easily from anywhere, anytime.

Project team

Bonnie Howard – Co-Chair, Management Analyst, AA
Patty Stugg – Co-Chair, Application Services, ITSD
Ann Marie Beall – Admissions, AA
Ken Cole – Financial Aid, BA
Becky Fancher – Registrar’s Office, AA
Andrea Dorow – Transitions, SA
Dana Harris – Student Accounts, BA
Cynthia Grant/Emily Bliss – Financial Aid, BA
Alnita Hannible – Graduate Admissions, AA
Lisa Castellino – Director, Office of Institutional Research, AA
Helen Rice – Housing, SA
Teresa Kesler – Housing, SA
Betsy McIntosh – Application Services, ITSD
Sandie Sue – Application Services, ITSD
Brenda Teague – Admissions, AA
Julie Teague – Institutional Research, AA                         
Sharon Lindgren - College of Arts and Sciences, AA
Dianne Jones - General College, AA
Jim Mothershed – Trainer, AA  

With the migration of the SunGard SCT Plus2000 suite of administrative systems to the SunGard SCT Banner solutions a new reporting tool was necessary.  A Banner Reporting Sub-Committee was formed in July, 2002 and charged with recommending the purchase of a reporting solution for the Banner environment. The team viewed the charge as an opportunity to significantly improve reporting capabilities at UNCW through the application of new reporting technologies.  Specifically, the team was interested in selecting a tool that would empower the end user in a self-service, web reporting environment. 

After extensive research and vendor demonstrations Cognos was selected as the new business intelligence tool for Banner and other university administrative databases.  The team selected the Cognos product due to ease of use (point and click; drag and drop), strong dynamic reporting (color, pictures, charts, graphs), product integration, extensive administrative/security capabilities and a high level of confidence in vendor support, education and experience.  Furthermore, the integrated cube functionality will provide strong drill-down reporting capabilities and provide future opportunities for online analytical process (OLAP) reporting. 

The Cognos product installation at UNCW occurred in July, 2003.  Technical training followed in September with functional training in November.  Banner Advancement went live in September, 2004.  Currently, Advancement personnel are using both Cognos Impromptu and the Upfront web portal to include scheduling of reports to fulfill their reporting needs.

Based in Ottawa, Ontario, Cognos is the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and performance planning software for the enterprise. Founded in 1969, Cognos employs 3,000 people and serves more than 22,000 customers in over 135 countries.

Cognos help

Impromptu is a sophisticated report authoring tool used to create a full range of reports for distribution over the web through Impromptu Web Reports. It is a sophisticated frame-based report builder with features such as prompts, pick lists, filters and a myriad of other grouping, sorting and formatting capabilities. Reports can be output to a variety of formats, including PDF and Excel. Advanced reporting options include grouped lists, cross tabs, charts and pictures and includes a large library of calculations and summary functions with the ability to create complex user defined custom calculations.

Upfront is a Web portal that links users to multiple sources of information including reports, web sites, and documents. This information is organized in folders called NewsBoxes. NewsBox folders are organized in hierarchical order within a main folder called a NewsIndex. Users may also have a personal NewsBox folder to save personal reports, links to web sites, and links to other documents.

Overview

DARSwas developed in the early 1980’s by Miami University in response to the specific degree auditing needs of the university.  Since that time, the system has been licensed by both large and small institutions in the US and Canada, further evolving in functionality and presentation to its current web-enabled state in response to the needs and expectations of the many universities that use the system.  DARS has been a leader in degree audit reporting since the 1980s with “automation, organization and presentation of academic policies, degree requirements and transfer policies.”  DARS, which integrates with SCT’s Banner® Student database, provides a web-enabled student advising tool for both students and advisors to assist with planning and degree certification.   For individuals with responsibilities for building and maintaining audit rules, DARS provides a Windows based client which runs on the individual’s PC or an application server.    DARS also includes a powerful transfer course articulation component for reporting articulated courses by institution.  For additional information pertaining to DARS, see http://www.dars.muohio.edu/. 

In Fall 2002 - Spring 2003, the Banner® Steering Committee requested the university Provost to charge a team of academicians and academic advisors to investigate Banner® Student’s CAPP and Miami University’s DARS systems to determine which system would best support the advisement and degree auditing requirements of the university.  Through a series of product demonstrations and presentations, an in-depth study of product functionality, time required for implementation, survey of user satisfaction, cost analysis and vendor support the committee concluded that DARS was the best solution for UNCW’s degree audit and advising system.  The following areas are the basis for this recommendation:

The first phase of implementation of DARS is scheduled to begin Fall 2004 with training.  The second phase, to begin January 2005, will involve building and testing 230+ degree programs.  Phase three will involve interfacing DARS with Banner®.  The planned go-live date is March 2006.

Project team

Betsy McIntosh
Becky Fancher

Overview

To enhance the existing printing and forms generation capabilities of SCT Banner® solutions, UNCW is implementing evisions’ FormFusion and IntelleCheck.  FormFusion is evisions’ document enhancement and management technology which transforms Banner® data from the standard green-bar printouts and preprinted forms into professional documents for laser printers as well as allowing expanded distribution capabilities.    FormFusion places responsibility and capabilities for forms and output design and distribution firmly in the hands of the end user.  Output is taken directly from SCT Banner® database and turned into laser printer ready transcripts, letters, POs, requisitions, bills, pledge acknowledgement letters, etc. that can be redistributed via email, fax or ePrint. UNCW installed FormFusion Summer 2004 with a planned rollout in October 2004 by University Advancement.  Ten individuals representing the areas of Advancement, Finance and Student have completed the initial training session.