Background

Sewanee: The University of the South was struggling to maintain antiquated processes for advising. They sought a solution to streamline both the administrative and student experience surrounding this important element in a current student’s engagement with the institution.

Spreadsheets, forms and emails resulted in inefficient processes despite Sewanee’s focus on student success. Having been a Technolutions Slate client for admissions for a number of years, the institution believed Slate was the platform to bring their vision to fruition.

Challenge

As with many institutions, current student processes at Sewanee were previously managed across multiple systems, individual inboxes, spreadsheets and forms. These processes created an inconsistent experience for students and also complicated the advising process for faculty and advisors.

The institution wanted to streamline where and how information was stored (centrally) and surface relevant details to administrators, while also designing an advising process that worked consistently for all stakeholders. Additionally, Sewanee sought to ease the burden on students by providing seamless access to advising opportunities across the organization.

Solution

RHB hosted an onsite visit with key stakeholders at Sewanee to better understand core data elements necessary for success, as well as the aspirational experience administrators, end users and students sought. First-hand understanding of stakeholders’ unique needs across the organization allowed RHB to devise a solution that would provide ease of access to information and, more importantly, ease of management of the advising process itself.

In addition to creating the core infrastructure necessary for a successful implementation, RHB aided Sewanee in the development of communications, forms, various levels of automation and manipulation of the current student record.

Building on this substantial configuration, RHB worked with the team at Sewanee to leverage an Active Scheduler integration for the institution, creating dozens of custom calendar feeds that mitigate calendar management in multiple systems—while creating a consistent (and automated) area for students to access advising appointments.

Results

RHB’s work to develop both advising and advisee portals further contributed to the consistency in which advising is managed at Sewanee. At the time of this writing, the university has successfully created and scheduled over 4,000 appointments. Sewanee’s internal advising portal provides a user-aware experience that shows users scheduled appointments and allows for the submission of forms, follow-ups and celebration notes that automate various communications to students.

On the current student side, students are able to see and schedule advising appointments only with those individuals who are automated to appear. Further, the portal aggregates institutional resources for advising and career preparation, mitigating the need for students to navigate the website or search for resources elsewhere.