Page 18 - OIT Progress Report: 2023 Edition

Improving Enterprise Systems for Students
ONE OF THE MOST CHALLENGING EFFORTS IN SOFTWARE IS THE CONCEPT OF REARCHITECTING A SYSTEM AND THE UNDERLYING BUSINESS PROCESSES THAT HAVE EXISTED FOR OVER 20 YEARS. THE SOFTWARE THAT POWERS MY.SMU WAS IMPLEMENTED IN 1999 AND FOCUSED ON EXISTING FUNCTIONALITY AT THE TIME.
OIT worked with departments to develop software customizations to augment areas with limited functionality within the Student Financials module. The product has continued to evolve,
yet much of the functionality is unavailable without reassessing and removing the customized software. Reengineering the software and customizations required reorganizing the inventory of charges and payments into smaller categories while maintaining data integrity.
The cross-disciplinary team embarked on a herculean effort with a tight deadline. As the implementation date approached, the team determined that we could not safely deploy the complete solution without further analysis and planning. Therefore, the team completed the core components for Student Financials in July 2023. The project’s next phase enables functionality called Payment Applier, allowing the system to use the reorganized inventory of charges and payments for more efficient processing. “The Payment Applier project builds rules into the system to reduce human intervention and allows the system to handle the difficult task of applying payments to qualified charges,” reports Associate CIO Curt Herridge.
We continue to implement solutions to help support the student’s academic journey. Last year, we introduced HighPoint (known as the Student
Dashboard) within my.SMU. The Student Dashboard gave students
a more modern
interface and
enhanced features
for enrollment,
course selection,
and academic
progress. This year,
we introduced the
Degree Planner,
which provides a
specified sequence
of courses that will fulfill degree requirements. In addition, the Degree Planner can feed planned courses into Schedule Builder to help students build an optimized schedule. OIT deployed these products in collaboration with the Division of Enrollment Services and Student Academic Engagement and Success.
In partnership with Student Affairs and the Division of Enrollment Services, we deployed a new interactive checklist for incoming students. The checklist on my.SMU clearly indicates
tasks that need to be completed before arriving. Examples include the housing application, meeting with an advisor, and submitting a final transcript.
16 OIT PROGRESS REPORT 2023