Background 

A University is preparing a self-service registration and degree tracking system to lower operation costs, release employees of tedious, time-consuming tasks, and improve registration services for their potential students.

The University registration process is long and complicated. Students spend hours researching Universities, comparing their scores, grades, and interest to various program offerings and requirements. By developing a system that helps students register for the right program based on their collected scores and interests, students have a more personalized, quick, and headache-free registration process. 

Each student presents specific circumstances and questions. College advisors and student ambassadors must have answers and advice in order to help each student register and progress. Now multiply numerous interactions of one student by thousands, and the entire process becomes extremely manual, let alone the expense of having to pay each advisor and ambassador.

The goal was to lower costs for the University by offering a self-service and self-evaluation registration system. The University would provide a better and faster service for new students and help the students build a more personalized University trajectory and program. 

Challenges

Content managers, professors, and student advisors were spending too much time, money, and resources on ensuring the registration content was available and accessible to students when needed. 

In order to stand out and become the top-performing University in the country, the University wanted to offer a better, friendlier, and more personalized registration system. 

One of the key challenges was to build a Drupal 9 site that is built by the data coming from the operational ERP system.

In other words, it was clunky and outdated.  Each student had unique circumstances that weren’t being met by department heads, advisors, and professors. Students experienced long wait times and a one size fits all registration process. As Universities grow, the need to add content increases. The current University system would not allow for the large amounts of content required in today’s fast-paced academic industry.

Self-Service Registration Solution

A personalized, self-service registration solution, built with the student in mind. 

The solution gives University employees time on their calendar, removing the tedious and time-consuming, manual labor necessary to fulfill and answer each student’s requests and questions. At the same time, each student feels they have a personalized University registration experience.  

This software stack, paired with Kubernetes-based microservices, configured to autoscale, gave the University a registration system that was

  • Personalized
  • Secure
  • Scalable 
  • Lightning fast 

The technology automated the entire registration process, reducing costs for the University. The student enters their grades, scores, qualifications, and desired program into the system. Prior to the technology deployment, students met for hours on end with University employees. The employee had to manually check off the student met each requirement. With the new technology, the system will evaluate if the student would be admitted and can meet the requirements for the educational path they chose.

The University employees now had time to focus on cultivating real relationships with students, professors, employees, and donors. 

Information on curricula and faculties provides an all-around, more informed, and more personalized registration process. 

The nature of the framework we use is cloud-native which enables scalability:

Drupal- As an excellent CMS system, content can be managed and created conveniently

Elementree- As the module for working with XML data. 

React – As an innovative client development technology, we used this to ease Drupal components. We incorporated a Drupal layout builder to communicate with each other

Personal Profile-based on ReindexUser management in an encrypted database for security and performance

Graph-based on Reindex used to mediate between React and other microservices. The schemas and resolvers allow us to give digital design to the backend systems

Nginx- serving static content quickly

How the self-service registration solution works:

When the user is logged in, they have access to their personal account profile, information pertaining to their University experience, and semester registration. 

Students can build their own programs using the new registration system. Through system search and navigation, the student can find the pre-existing perfect program or build one that works for them. 

The platform, using the students state accredited test scores, high school grades, and desired program, charts a path towards University completion. Students are notified about courses, unique programs and speakers, and necessary steps they need to take to complete their program of choice. 

By doing so, students have a more personalized process while also having more control over their University registration and progress.

Summary

In order to launch such a cost-lowering, time-relieving, personalized, and innovative solution, we deployed Reindex on top of the University’s system. Communication between departments and systems became seamless.  Upon deployment

  • Students benefited from a personalized registration and a greater, higher-quality user experience. 
  • University employees spent less time on tedious time-consuming tasks and spent more time on helping the University flourish. 
  • The University spent less time and money on onboarding new students and ensured more students stayed on track to fully complete their studies and receive their degrees.

To learn more about our Reindex solution click here

To schedule a meeting to discuss your plans for a self-service solution click here

To subscribe to our newsletter, featuring case studies just like this one click here

Share
Skip to content