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Yale Tracks Access to Scanned Images
5/7/2002
In 2000, Yale University's administration underwent a
major renovation with the goal of creating a comfortable student services center
where students could come in and ask any question related to finances—from an
outstanding library fine to a request for a Pell Grant.
The university used
SCT Banner, enterprise software that gave the center's staff access to student
data housed in the administrative system. However, staff members still need to
make a trip to the second floor of the student services center to view and
retrieve hard-copy documents of those records. But soon, hard copies will be
accessible to the staff from their desktop computers on the first
floor.
"There are two pieces to information access," says Ernst Huff,
associate vice president of student financial and administrative services at
Yale. "Banner gives us access to the electronic data housed within its database.
The [SCT Banner] XtenderSolutions will provide us with the second piece—the
ability to access hard-copy documents from a user's desktop. Together, the
solutions will give our service providers the tools for quick and immediate
access to the information they need to answer students' questions."
The
solutions are the outcome of an alliance between SCT and OTG Software Inc., a
provider of imaging, document management, and content management software. SCT
Banner XtenderSolutions give SCT Banner users immediate access to scanned
images, word processing documents, spreadsheets, reports, PDF files, voice,
video, sound, and other file types.
Using the software, authorized Yale
staff can pull up all imaged documents associated with a student's record. These
can include financial aid worksheets and grant applications.
That access
will be critical to providing students with quality service. The key to that is
the software's tracking capabilities, Huff says. The interface between the OTG
and Banner software allows the system to take advantage of Banner's tracking
capabilities. When an imaged document is indexed to a student record, the
software automatically and simultaneously updates a related document tracking
record.
"The real value is from the interface," Huff says. "It gives us
the capability to do document tracking along with indexing, all in one step.
Finding and updating document tracking simultaneously will minimize the time we
spend now on filing and tracking. It also will minimize the possibility of loss.
Financial Aid deals with thousands of pieces of paper. During peak times, we
rely on students and temporary help. Sometimes they don't all update the
tracking file. Our hope is that the imaging solutions will minimize these
issues. We'll have more timely processing and less handling of
documents."
Huff adds, "The integration is key. Without it, this
solution would not have been as attractive to us. The interface is not something
we would want to do ourselves."
For more information, contact Ernst Huff at ernst.huff@yale.edu.
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