Defining a single architecture for an awards application and administration system to work across the university’s diverse faculties' needs

When a new student program, "Place and Promise Awards", required rollout across multiple faculties and course catalogues, the university needed a single, consistent approach to administer and deliver the awards. They chose to partner with Bayleaf to define a single architectural approach to accommodate disparate information requirements, processes, systems, and associated integration.

Client Name

University of British Columbia, Place and Promise Awards Program

Consulting

Services

  • Academic Goals and Education Priorities
  • Business Process Design
  • Solution Formulation
  • Project Management
  • Integration options

Technologies

  • Student Information Systems
  • Learning Catalogues
  • Financial Systems integration

Client Needs

The Go Global Office responsible for international learning experiences faced the challenge of rolling out the new “Place and Promise Award Program” across faculties at the university. At issue was the diverse eligibility criteria across faculties, multiple funding sources, and a myriad of funding disbursement criteria and channels. Administering the program across faculties was rapidly becoming overwhelming and messy. There was also the additional complication of pilot programs already under way, increasing the university’s need to demonstrate progress in creating a coherent system.

The Go Global office came to Bayleaf to craft a solution because of our experience in the Higher Education environment and our demonstrated integration skills. Ultimately, they needed a single dashboard to review the key metrics of the program, such as total award amounts, number of students, number of faculties, and outstanding financial obligations.

Our Solutions

APPROACH AND ASSESSMENT

Working with the Program Director and other stakeholders, we developed and outlined an approach to address these challenges. Key to the solution was understanding the defining factors across the disparate faculties and programs. As it was unrealistic to interview all stakeholders across all the faculties, Bayleaf determined that interviewing a sample of faculties and programs would provide sufficient information to develop a singular, unified approach to the problem at hand.

Unearthing defining factors like payment schedules, funding sources and eligibility allowed us to develop a singular approach to manage the standards and exceptions in business processes. During the interview process we were able to identify integration requirements and determine the key metrics business decisions hinged. Armed with these definitions and requirements, we were able to formulate a compelling solution design.

With a clear architecture recommendation articulated, the program was able to implement the solution and move forward with the program rollout.