Page 18 - 2022 OIT Progress Report

Making the most of my.SMU
STUDENTS BEGIN THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH UNIVERSITY RESOURCES BEFORE THEY EVEN STEP FOOT ON THE HILLTOP. FROM ACCOUNT ACTIVATION TO ENROLLING IN COURSES, THE FIRST IMPRESSION IS ALWAYS THE MOST IMPORTANT. AS PART OF THE ONGOING SMU- IN-FOUR ACADEMIC ENGAGEMENT AND SUCCESS INITIATIVES, OIT HAS PARTNERED WITH THE PROVOST’S OFFICE TO REINVENT THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE IN MY.SMU TO BETTER MEET THE NEEDS OF STUDENTS AS THEY NAVIGATE THEIR ACADEMIC CAREER.
HighPoint Student Dashboard Meets the Needs of Modern Students
The HighPoint Student Dashboard is a software platform that provides a streamlined interface for PeopleSoft, the underlying software that powers my.SMU. Instead of a student hunting for and navigating between multiple areas of my.SMU to complete enrollment tasks, HighPoint merges all those areas together in one Student Dashboard. The new dashboard, which became available in March 2021, provides a clearer, intuitive method to view records and manage enrollment, payments, and more. The Student Dashboard also provides additional features like Schedule Builder for enrollment, which enables students to pick the classes they want as the system automatically checks all class sections to provide multiple iterations of the schedule from which the student can select the one that meets their needs.
Our first enrollment period utilizing the HighPoint Student Dashboard proved to be positive as the number of completed and successful enrollments exceeded our previous experiences during the
past four years. “We were aware of no system slowdowns and learned quite a bit about SMU’s processes and data. This allows us to refine our practices and procedures to improve the student experience,” stated Curt Herridge, Associate Chief Information Officer, Data and Application Services.
The team has currently reviewed several strategies to continue streamlining processes which include additional training and documentation, increasing use of waitlists, and ongoing data analysis
that allows us to further refine the process and influence the outcomes.
SMU Telephone Management Solution
As one of the final phases of our multi-year telephone replacement initiative, the management of SMU’s 10,000 Direct Inward Dialing (DID) telephone numbers provided a new opportunity for process improvement. Phone numbers were assigned and maintained using decades-old software from our previous PBX system.
16 OIT PROGRESS REPORT 2022