Student Stabilization Program

It was determined that Workday functionality was not robust enough for the university processes and the project was canceled. An executive decision was made to employ an integration methodology approach using the application portfolio that OSU owns. Design will occur from business process keeping in mind a frictionless user experience for prospective students, students, and back-office staff. This project will touch on enhancements to access management, the Ohio State Mobile application, PeopleSoft, Salesforce (Buckeye 360), custom and ancillary applications. Where gaps in functionality exist, the best of “breed” technology will be implemented. This is a multi-year effort.

Key Contacts: Bob Mains, Lynne Sanbe

What strategic pillars does it support? 

  • Learning
  • Research 
  • Outreach 
  • Operational Excellence & Innovation 
  • Community of Belonging 

Why is it important? 

  1. Financial aid simplification is a regulatory/compliance change required by the Department of Education.  Tax information will now be integrated from the IRS to OSU and then must be joined with ISIR information.  Upgrades will have to occur to the Student Aid Gateway Software (Ed Connect), storage will have to be locked down with a required retention/deletion plan, security around tax data (FTI) will be classified as S4.  People Soft will need to be upgraded with a new Oracle release (Oct 23-Dec 23 period). All data that is currently integrated into the ODS will no longer be integrated and People Soft security to tables will be restricted. 
  2. Stellic degree audit will be implemented providing students with a way of planning and documenting their academic journey with their advisors. It is expected to be used for both the undergraduate and graduate levels supporting the university's retention and graduation goals. 
  3. Collections will now be done in-house at OSU for better communication and customer service between the Bursar and the student or third-party. 
  4. Buckeye team will further Salesforce’s security and communications, onboard users from 9 schools and train the functionality that is available to use in Sales Cloud, Blackthorne events, and Salesforce marketing cloud.  This work will benefit the student experience by providing a frictionless journey for prospective students to interact with the school or college of their choice and visit campus to see all that OSU has to offer. High school guidance counselors can view enrollment and admissions information and advise the student they serve. Graduate test scores received from the College Board, Praxis, ETS, LSAT and AAMC will be integrated which will help the graduate committees when making decisions.  Current students can ask a question within their school or college and have automatic routing to the appropriate administrative personnel or faculty. 
  5. Replacing Buckeye link with one front-door for student processes. The purpose is defined with a student focus group and its goal is to provide a single place for students to do their business, reduce the cognitive overhead by clearly showing next steps to navigate the university, automate student help requests, and reduce the administrative time to answer and assist in answering questions or issues.  Milestone 1 will be launched at the start of Fall 23 semester with displaying personalized secured content for the student on monetary responsibility, holds, statement of account, balances, and other important resources for the student’s Academic, Financial, Wellness and Social journeys. Milestone 2 will concentrate on further enhancements to the student journey as described above.  In future years, Milestone 3 will go beyond the student experience and will touch on faculty and staff experiences.   
  6. Stabilize aging ancillary and custom applications by ensuring currency in technology platforms and enforcing coding and maintenance standards thereby, reducing technical debt and optimizing the speed at which new custom applications can be offered. 

Who will benefit? 

Prospective students, undergraduate students, high school guidance counselors, financial aid counselors, regulatory compliance, bursar, registrar office

What is the timeline? 

  • Start date: September 2022 
  • End date: September 2027 

Who are our partners and sponsors? 

Partners are OAA SEM leadership, OAA STS team, OAA Business Owners, OTDI security team, OTDI data team, OTDI identity and access management team, OTDI infrastructures team.

Sponsors are Senate Fiscal committee and VP for Operations, Deputy CFO, CIO.

How will success be measured? 

  • Ability to open Financial Aid by December 
  • # Regional Campus enrollments 
  • # 2nd choice applications 
  • # 1st choice applications 
  • # high school visits to campus 
  • # of admission steps before change versus # of admissions steps after process redesign 
  • #of inquiries 
  • #of applications 
  • #of admissions
  • Net tuition savings  
  • Academic Quality 
  • #of schools onboarded to Salesforce cloud, Blackthorne events, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud 
  • Student feedback to mobile and portal enhancements 
  • #of vendor applications 
  • #of custom applications
Learning, Research, Outreach, Innovation and Belonging icons all highlighted within IT Pillars Supported graphic