Taking the Banner Transcript to the Next Level

The Challenge

Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA) fully implemented the Banner system in late 2010. After going live with the student module in the fall of 2010, the registrar’s office had many discussions about improving their baseline transcript. State schools in Texas are required to have a transcript that meets legislation-mandated regulations. SFA also had its own requirements and modifications that were necessary to enhance the presentation and readability of the transcripts. Furthermore, the SFA IT and registrar’s office staff were concentrating on the new Banner implementation and running parallel on their old system. This left limited resources to devote to customizing a transcript in house. SFA needed a solution that would give them the transcript they wanted without adding to the immediate and on-going workload of the staff.

The Solution

SFA was already a client of Evisions and extremely satisfied with the quality of the FormFusion and IntelleCheck products, as well as the excellent technical support Evisions provided. SFA first heard about the Evisions Transcript Solution through an Evisions newsletter and then saw it at a conference. Staff members were impressed with how user friendly it was and by how much control over the content they would have, as well as the improved transcript look and delivery they would gain. The Evisions Transcript Solution seemed to be the perfect fit, so SFA partnered with Evisions to solve its transcript challenges.

In order to create transcripts with state-mandated information, SFA provided Evisions with detailed specifications, including:

Displaying additional information on the transcript, for instance:

• Texas Success Initiative (TSI) for college readiness information
• Drop counter for the number of class drops by student
• GPA calculations – by term and by level
• Course repeats display indicating which ones to include in GPA calculations
• Identification of course attributes such as honors or writing-enhanced courses

• Tracking number of transcript requests per student
• Separation of undergraduate transcripts and graduate transcripts
• Integration with third-party requesting company

Evisions used these specifications to create the transcript SFA wanted. A project that would have taken SFA months to develop was completed in less than half the time by Evisions’ turn-key solution. SFA’s staff was overjoyed – they finally had transcripts that were customized to their requirements and compliant with state regulations. In addition, staff members were relieved they would not have to worry about maintaining the transcripts for new Banner updates themselves. Since Evisions is an Ellucian partner, SFA knows its transcripts will work with any future Banner update.

Since implementation, SFA has seen the following benefits of the Evisions Transcript Solution:

• Compliance with the Texas standards required for transcripts
• Staff time savings due to the automatic retrieval of current student address
• Ability to enter multiple transcript requests and print them all together
• Flexibility with online printing preview, enabling needed corrections
• Ease of operation with addresses in the proper place for mailing
• Ability to print an official or unofficial transcript from the same screen
• Increased student and alumni satisfaction as the transcripts are tailored to their needs and delivered in the method desired

The Transcript Solution was the fastest solution for SFA and met all the necessary transcript specifications. SFA is highly satisfied with its current transcripts and values its strong collaboration with Evisions has been very beneficial.