University of Northwestern-Saint Paul (UNWSP)

Enhanced Student Experience with Slate and AWS Data Lake

institutional profile

University of Northwestern – Saint Paul (UNWSP) is a private Christian university in Roseville, Minnesota. Founded in 1902, the University serves traditional undergraduate students, adult students, graduate students, dual enrollment high school students through its post-secondary education option (PSEO), and a baccalaureate nursing program.

Challenge

UNWSP wanted to enhance student engagement by creating a seamless and transparent experience, from recruiting all the way through graduation. They knew this was a complex initiative, however if done correctly would greatly enhance the institutions ability to attract and retain lifelong learners.

A key element in fulfilling this vision, was identifying a solution that provided students with appropriate access and visibility to relevant and timely information throughout the student lifecycle. Thus, requiring synchronizing data across multiple systems such as Ellucian Banner (ERP), Slate (CRM), a data warehouse (Ellucian ODS), Medicat (medical system), as well as other systems such as housing.

SOLUTION

The journey began as a Slate project and turned into so much more! After careful review of available options, rather than select a point-to-point solution the University chose:

  • AWS Data Lake, to create a centralized data repository.
  • SIG, to provide the following consulting services:
    • Slate, implementation support
    • AWS Data Lake integration, Ellucian Banner, Slate, etc.
    • Business Process redesign
  • UNWSP IT resources, to build the lambda and python functions.

BENEFITS

With this NEW integrated environment, UNWSP was able to enhance Student Experience by providing:
  • Interactive student “check list” with integrated forms, such as for housing and medical, in which, a student can see all outstanding tasks with dynamic data.
  • Increased and timely responsiveness to student needs during the application process.
  • Fewer support calls to the student support offices resulting in higher levels of satisfaction by students and/or student support staff.
  • Increasing # of students that complete their registrations before close dates.
  • A single reliable, scalable, and secure platform to access data.
  • Sustainable integrations across multiple systems by leveraging CRM/Slate’s API to send data back and forth to the AWS Lake.
  • An infrastructure that eliminates inconsistent data issues.

HOW SIG CAN HELP


Slate Consulting

SIG has a full and comprehensive Slate Consulting Practice and can provide:

  • New Slate Clients
    • Full Implementation services
  • Existing Slate Clients
    • Diagnostic assessment of business practices to maximize ROI and staff effectiveness
    • Build custom campaigns, events, applications, and configure workflows in ways that will allow you to make the most of Slate
    • Training
    • Managed Services

AWS Data Lake
  • Business Intelligence Assessment
    • Understand where your data is, what state it is in, challenges, opportunities, and create a plan to implement a data lake architecture
  • System integration
  • Reporting
  • Dashboards

Contact us to learn how SIG can improve your results.


Have Questions?
We look forward to hearing from you.