Clients - University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Implements SunGard Higher Education Solutions Ahead of Schedule and Under Budget to Unify its Digital Campus
The University of Illinois was established in 1867 with 30 students in a single building on the Illinois prairie. Today, the University is the state’s largest educator, with an enrollment of 70,000 students across three unique main campuses – Chicago, Springfield, and Urbana- Champaign. To meet and exceed the service expectations of its growing student population, the University of Illinois turned to SunGard Higher Education. Today, ahead of schedule and under-budget, the University of Illinois has transformed itself and is ready for the future.
For almost three decades, the University maintained a mixture of homegrown and other databases to support functions throughout the campuses. “Our technology solutions were on the brink of failure,” recalled Rich Mendola, associate vice president for administrative IT services at the University. “We needed to implement a new technology system to increase service levels offered to our constituents while reducing the overall cost of the administrative and business services,” he added.
To address the issue, a selection committee was formed in 1999 to evaluate software and service vendors to provide a new, fully integrated student, human resource, and finance system. The University went through an extensive selection process that took almost 18 months.
“We brought in two finalists during our selection process and had the software run on our network to demonstrate their use in our setting,” said Margaret Krol, assistant vice president for administrative IT services. “SunGard Higher Education’s solution far outperformed the other vendor’s solutions.”
Although the Big 10 University was impressed with SunGard Higher Education solutions, there were concerns regarding the scalability of the software. Could SunGard Higher Education solutions support the 65,000 plus students enrolled at that time? The University of Illinois worked with SunGard Higher Education to find out.
SunGard Higher Education and the University of Illinois defined benchmark requirements and observed Banner software tests at Sun Microsystem’s Worldwide Customer Benchmark center in the Spring of 2000.
“In essence, we did a mini-implementation of the Banner software, configured it with equivalent amounts of data that would reside in our system, and then monitored the performance,” Dr. Mendola explained.
Banner sustained more than 4,900 concurrent users performing a wide variety of administrative and selfservice activities. Average response times for each online scenario were better than the university’s stated five-second maximum. Batch run times were within the six-hour window required. All scenarios in the benchmark simulated numbers of concurrent users that would be consistent with the operations of a large university.
“Seeing Banner in action, registering 54,000 students for a full course load in an hour proved that the software was more than adequate to handle our large constituent population. It was really impressive,” Dr. Mendola said.
Once the benchmark testing was complete and Banner performed without delays or disruptions, the University of Illinois partnered with SunGard Higher Education. The University decided on a project plan to implement Banner Student, Human Resources, and Finance by June 2005.
Together with SunGard Higher Education, the University replaced 160 aging systems on campus with SunGard Higher Education Solutions in an implementation that finished several months ahead of schedule and $6 million under budget. The institution successfully converted 60,000 payroll records and 32 million student records virtually flawlessly; all without disrupting day-to-day business operations of the institution.
“At the time, budget constraints were a significant issue for the University of Illinois,” said Stephen Rugg, vice president for administration & comptroller of the board of trustees at the University. “We are particularly proud that the implementation was delivered on-time and onbudget. We had a great implementation team, a great implementation partner, and received excellent assistance from SunGard Higher Education,” he added.
The University is now running Banner Student, Financial Aid, Human Resources, and Finance system. The data within Banner is fully integrated throughout three main campuses and extension offices throughout the state.
Dr. Mendola said, “The integrated nature of the SunGard Higher Education products is one aspect that my office appreciates the most. Now, with one common integrated set of systems, users are confident that the data is accurate, which makes their jobs easier.”
Ms. Krol said, “By having a suite of integrated products, we can give our students a full experience. They can look at their course schedules, check financial aid awards, see the status of their bills, check grades, and perform other tasks easily online. Students applauded the new integrated online services and have even refereed to it as being ‘easier than Amazon.com,’” she explained.
Next, the University is looking to implement a portal to complement their existing SunGard Higher Education solutions. A portal solution will help enrich students’ online experiences by providing instant access to the information and services they need, in one centralized location.
“Our goal is to be the best we can — the best research institution, the best educational institution — and to provide the best possible public service. We want to succeed in every area and provide the best service to our community, to the state, and to the world. Technology enables that, and our partnership with SunGard Higher Education is vital to help us provide the best possible services to our constituents,” said Ms. Krol.
Chet Gardner, vice president for academic affairs at the University, said, “Our previous president, who retired a few months ago, was looking back over his ten years as president and felt that leading the implementation of Banner was probably the most important contribution that he made in his tenure. He felt it laid the foundation for the future of the institution and characterized it as being transformative. And he was right.”