SIG Helps South Suburban College Build a Strategic Pathway to Colleague SaaS

Overview

As South Suburban College prepared to move its Ellucian Colleague environment from SQL to SaaS, the institution recognized that the transition would require much more than moving technology to the cloud.

A successful SaaS transformation would require coordinated project leadership, careful preparation of data and customizations, evaluation of existing business processes, integration planning, user readiness, and stronger data governance.

South Suburban College engaged SIG to provide all of the above throughout its journey to Colleague SaaS.

The engagement was designed to help the College navigate the complexity of the migration while preparing its people, processes, data, integrations, and technology for a modern SaaS environment.

The Challenge

South Suburban College needed to understand which existing customizations and integrations would work within the SaaS environment, prepare and clean institutional data, evaluate existing business processes, and coordinate responsibilities across the College and Ellucian.

At the same time, functional teams needed to prepare for new processes and functionality while continuing to support the College’s day-to-day operations.

As a result, the transition required a coordinated approach that addressed not only technology, but also people, processes, and institutional readiness.

The Solution

SIG provided project leadership and hands-on functional and technical support across the migration lifecycle, helping South Suburban College translate the broader Ellucian SaaS initiative into actionable institutional priorities.

Project Management and Migration Oversight

SIG helped establish the project structure necessary to coordinate teams, responsibilities, timelines, and decisions throughout the migration.

Support included:

• Establishing project organization, roles, and responsibilities
• Identifying key stakeholders and project leads
• Coordinating project plans and schedules with Ellucian
• Managing project tasks, risks, issues, and decisions
• Conducting kickoff, team lead, module, and functional-area meetings
• Aligning project activities with the academic calendar and critical business-processing periods
• Helping functional teams understand training requirements, prerequisites, and implementation responsibilities

This centralized oversight provided South Suburban College with additional capacity and expertise for managing a complex, cross-functional SaaS initiative.

Functional Assessment and Process Improvement

The transition to SaaS also provided an opportunity to evaluate how South Suburban College was using Colleague.

SIG worked with functional areas to understand existing workflows, document current processes, and identify areas where the institution was not taking full advantage of delivered Colleague functionality.

Rather than simply recreating existing processes in a new environment, the engagement created an opportunity to consider how those processes could evolve alongside the technology.

SaaS Compliance, Data, and Customization Readiness

Preparing for Colleague SaaS required a detailed understanding of South Suburban College’s existing technical environment.

SIG assisted with data cleanup efforts involving duplicate, conflicting, incomplete, and invalid data while also helping evaluate custom software and processes for SaaS compatibility.

Finally, SIG supported the review of inventory workbooks generated from the College’s scan results to evaluate SaaS compliance and provide guidance on remediation.

Data Governance

Because trustworthy data is foundational to a modern SaaS environment, SIG worked with South Suburban College to assess its existing data culture, identify key stakeholders and knowledge holders, document pain points, and begin establishing a more formal governance framework.

Through a series of workshops and checkpoints, the College explored governance structures, committee development, roles and responsibilities, and the creation of a formal data governance charter.

This work was designed to help South Suburban College strengthen the institutional practices surrounding its data—not simply migrate that data to a new environment.

Integration and Technical Support

SIG also provided technical guidance around integrations and development practices affected by the move to SaaS.

Support encompassed areas ranging from Data Connect and Ellucian Ethos to ELF processes and third-party integrations.

For integrations using Ellucian Ethos, SIG supported configuration, API setup, functional data mapping, business rules, testing, and related functional questions.

The engagement also included guidance and training around Admissions Application Import, including mapping, Electronic File Transfer processes, applicant imports, and duplicate resolution.

Testing, Training, and Knowledge Transfer

Preparing technology for SaaS was only one part of the transformation. Preparing the people who would use and support it was equally important.

SIG supported User Acceptance Testing by helping College teams develop testing scenarios, validate key processes, troubleshoot issues, and understand how changes would affect institutional operations.

The engagement also included mentoring and support for reporting across Student, Financial Aid, Finance, and Human Resources, along with support for Ellucian Experience.

Throughout the project, the emphasis was on knowledge transfer—helping South Suburban College’s teams build the skills and understanding needed to operate effectively in the new environment.

The Impact

As a result of their partnership with SIG, South Suburban College achieved the following outcomes:

• Successful completion of the Colleague SaaS migration
• Improvements in data quality and governance
• Standardized business processes
• Increased staff readiness and adoption
• Reporting improvements
• Reduced reliance on institutionally maintained infrastructure
• IT capacity redirected toward more strategic priorities

Continuing the SaaS Journey

SaaS transformation does not end at go-live.

The engagement included post-migration support designed to help South Suburban College identify and prioritize functionality requiring additional attention after the initial migration.

By planning for what comes next, the College could continue optimizing its Ellucian environment rather than treating the migration itself as the finish line.

A Strategic Approach to SaaS Transformation

South Suburban College’s pathway to Colleague SaaS demonstrates why ERP modernization requires more than technical execution.

By bringing together functional expertise, technical guidance, data governance, and integration support, SIG helped provide a comprehensive framework for navigating the interconnected challenges of a SaaS transition.

The engagement was designed to do so much more than move Colleague to SaaS—it was designed to help South Suburban College prepare its people, processes, data, and technology for a more sustainable digital future.

If you’re considering moving Colleague to SaaS, SIG can help.