ORU Cloud Modernization - Resources

Admissions

The process by which colleges and universities select students for enrollment based on various criteria, including academic performance, standardized test scores, extracurricular activities, essays, and letters of recommendation.

API (Application Programming Interface)

A set of rules that allows different software applications to communicate with each other.

Argos

A third-party reporting tool used for approximately 1,200 reports, mostly in Finance. Allows users to report on data within the Banner and Salesforce systems.

Banner

Ellucian's comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) system used in higher education to manage student information, HR, finance, financial aid, and more.

Banner Enrollment Management

Encompasses recruitment, admissions, and enrollment processes managed within the Banner ecosystem, supporting student lifecycle management from prospect to matriculation.

Banner Finance

The financial management module of Banner, supporting budgeting, procurement, accounts payable/receivable, and general ledger functions.

Banner Fin Aid

A module in Banner that supports the full lifecycle of student financial aid, including awarding, disbursement, and compliance with federal regulations.

Banner HR

The human resources module within Banner, used to manage employee data, payroll, benefits, and organizational structure.

Banner Registration

A component of Banner Student that facilitates course registration, waitlisting, add/drop, and scheduling.

Banner Student

A module of Ellucian Banner that manages student records, registration, grading, transcripts, and academic history.

Bolt-on

Additional applications connected to your ERP systems (e.g., Degree Works, Ellucian Apply, CRM).

CARM (Customer Architecture Reference Model)

Process flows and user stories that reflect a customer's business functional processes.

Change Management

The structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. With expectations and requirements to keep up with technology and regulations, businesses and organizations must constantly make changes and adjustments to their practices to keep business processes efficient and cost-effective.

Cloud Computing

The practice of using remote servers hosted on the internet to store, manage, and process data.

CSM (Customer Success Manager)

The CSM provides guidance aligned to your institutional goals, leveraging insight and knowledge across Ellucian's customer base and best practices.

Customizable Forms

Ellucian Forms, which allow for conditional logic, permissions, and visibility rules to be configured by each department.

Dashboard

A visual interface in Ellucian tools (like Experience or analytics platforms) that displays real-time metrics, KPIs, alerts, and statuses to support data-driven decision-making.

Data Connect

A low-code integration and automation platform within the Ellucian Cloud. Enables quick data pipeline creation between Ellucian and third-party systems, streamlining integration and data movement for institutional agility.

Data Migration

The process of transferring data between different storage types, formats, or systems.

Degree Works

An Ellucian solution that provides degree audit and academic planning capabilities, allowing students and advisors to monitor progress toward graduation and make informed course selections.

ECC (Ellucian Customer Center)

Formerly known as the Customer Care Center. A single point of entry to a wealth of self-help tools and information.

EIFS (Ellucian Identity Federated Services)

Identity and authentication services to connect (federate) a customer's Active Directory environment to the Ellucian cloud environment.

EIP (Ellucian Intelligent Platform Processes)

A no-code workflow builder for automating institutional approvals and forms. Automates processes like change-of-major, refunds, and departmental approvals in Experience. Orchestrates cross-departmental workflows, boosting efficiency and consistency.

Ellucian Banner

A comprehensive ERP system designed for higher education institutions.

Ellucian Experience Premium

A unified user experience and portal interface for students, faculty, and staff. Provides personalized dashboards, mobile app, and customizable cards for daily tasks and notifications. Serves as the primary user interface uniting all Ellucian components in one environment, allowing personalized customized views and minimizing screens users have to navigate between.

Enrollment

The function responsible for recruiting and advising prospective students, guiding students through applications and admission processes, evaluating eligibility for admission, and maintaining and updating student records including grades and transcripts.

Enterprise Extensibility

An open extensibility framework within the Ellucian Platform. Allows institutions to build custom logic, fields, and connectors in a SaaS-safe way, ensuring long-term adaptability and innovation across systems.

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)

An integrated system that manages core institutional processes such as finance, HR, and student information across departments.

Ethos

Ellucian's data integration platform that enables real-time, secure data exchange across Ellucian products and third-party applications. Ethos provides a unified data model and API framework for seamless connectivity.

Ethos Integration Framework

A unified data model and open API architecture for cross-system interoperability. Connects Banner, Apply, Experience, and external systems with consistent data exchange, serving as the integration backbone ensuring clean, secure data flow across the enterprise.

Experience

A customizable, role-based dashboard that centralizes access to key systems, tasks, and communications for students, faculty, and staff.

Experience SDK

A developer toolkit for custom cards and features within Experience. Allows institutional IT teams to build branded extensions, dashboards, and new workflows safely, facilitating UI customization without affecting SaaS upgrade paths.

Finance

The part of an organization responsible for managing all financial processes and decisions, controlling income and expenditure.

Financial Aid (Fin Aid)

Any form of funding that helps a student pay for college, such as a Pell Grant, loan, or merit-based scholarship.

Form Fusion

A third-party forms and document creator by Evisions for higher education. Allows institutions to use pre-built forms and document templates and create custom forms and documents. Integrates with the new Intelligent Platform and accommodates any shortcomings in the Banner system as it relates to forms.

Human Resources

The division of a business that finds, recruits, trains, and manages employees. HR also ensures compliance with labor laws and fosters a positive workplace culture.

Insights

A SaaS-based reporting and analytics solution that allows institutions to unify their data across Ellucian and non-Ellucian sources with its data lake and data-warehouse-as-a-service.

Integration

The process of connecting different systems and applications so they can share data and functionality.

IntelleCheck for Accounts Payable

A third-party check writing forms and design tool by Evisions for higher education. Enhances the AP payment process with greater efficiency and customization while providing substantial savings. Streamlines and offers more design control over AP output, student refund payments, and direct deposits.

IntelleCheck for Payroll

A third-party check writing forms and design tool by Evisions for higher education. Enhances the payroll process with greater efficiency and customization while providing substantial savings. Streamlines and offers more design control over AP and Payroll output, student refund payments, and direct deposits.

ISE Enterprise Scheduler

A third-party job automation suite for Banner environments. Automates batch jobs, data loads, and reports; handles dependencies and notifications to keep critical Banner operations running reliably and efficiently.

Lead Consultants

Team members responsible for defining and configuring functional aspects, ensuring that the solution aligns with business needs and processes. Requires a deep understanding of Ellucian products and customer business processes and capabilities.

Metadata

Descriptive information about data that helps identify, locate, and manage it (e.g., date created, file type, author).

Microsoft BI

A third-party reporting tool with Business Intelligence capabilities. Used for most departments outside of Finance. Allows users to report on data within the Banner and Salesforce systems.

Project Coordinator

A critical member of the project management team who supports project managers by overseeing project-related administrative tasks, communicating with stakeholders, and ensuring team resource availability for the project team.

Project Manager

Manages the overall project, ensuring it meets its goals within the constraints of time, budget, and scope. Focus is emphasized on project planning, scheduling, resource management, risk management, and communication with stakeholders and other key leadership teams. Senior leader of the project management team.

Provost

The senior academic administrator responsible for managing academic programs, faculty, and students; upholding academic integrity; and developing a strong vision for the college or university.

RACI

A matrix tool used in project management to define roles and responsibilities. It stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed, and is commonly used in Ellucian implementation projects.

Registrar

The office responsible for overseeing student admissions, maintaining student records, student registration, transcripts, enrollment verifications, course scheduling, commencement services, conducting degree audits, ensuring institutional compliance, and managing the graduation process.

Registration

The process by which admitted students enroll in courses for a given academic term, including course selection, schedule building, and finalizing class enrollment.

Risks

Identified factors that could impact the success of a project or process, often tracked in modernization efforts. Common risk categories include scope, schedule, budget, and technical readiness.

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

A system of assigning permissions based on users' roles to ensure secure access to data and functions.

S3 (Amazon Simple Storage Service)

A service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that provides object storage through a web service interface.

SaaS (Software as a Service)

Application software that manages all needed physical and software resources. This is a more complete service than Infrastructure (IaaS) or Platform (PaaS) services.

SaaS Data Lake (Ellucian Insights Foundation)

A managed data warehouse-as-a-service with 2 TB storage and embedded Business Intelligence and AI. Aggregates data from SIS, Finance, HR, Apply, and other sources, enabling analytics and reporting as the central analytical hub feeding dashboards and decision support tools.

SAE (Strategic Alignment Engagement)

A full-day workshop to align a customer's expected functional outcomes with the project team.

Scope

The sum of all the work that was agreed to upfront. Project scope is a way to set boundaries on your project and define exactly what goals, deadlines, and project deliverables you'll be working towards. By clarifying your project scope, you can ensure you hit your project goals and objectives without delay or overwork.

Self-Service Data Admin & User Provisioning (Ethos)

Configuration and identity provisioning features within the Ellucian platform. Allows secure user provisioning (via Ethos) and limited role configuration without IT intervention, empowering departments to manage access while maintaining governance and security.

SEP (Student Education Planner)

A Degree Works module that allows students and advisors to build personalized multi-term academic plans aligned with program requirements and career goals.

Single Sign-On (SSO)

A secure login method that allows users to access multiple applications with one set of credentials.

SIS (Student Information System)

A software application used by educational institutions to manage student data and administrative tasks. It integrates various functionalities such as student registration, scheduling, grading, and attendance tracking.

Solutions Architect

A team member primarily focused on design, supporting and contributing to planning, governance, and implementation of a project. Shapes the vision and architecture to realize customer goals and benefits. Designs and models viable best-practice solutions across Ellucian products.

SSB8/9

Self-Service Banner versions 8 and 9.

Student

Someone who has been admitted to a college or university.

Student Recruitment

All activities aimed at planning and delivering campaigns and events that aim to recruit and convert undergraduate and postgraduate students to the organization.

TE (Transfer Equivalency)

A feature in Ellucian systems that evaluates and maps course credits from other institutions to equivalent courses at the home institution, aiding in credit transfer and academic planning.

Technical Architect

Designs the detailed technical architecture of the solution, including hardware, software, and integration points. Focuses on the technical aspects of the project, such as technology selection, system design, and ensuring scalability and performance.

UAT (User Acceptance Testing)

A phase in software implementation where end users test the system to ensure it meets their requirements.

Workflow

A set of automated processes within Ellucian systems that route tasks, approvals, and data across departments. Helps streamline administrative functions such as hiring, course approvals, and financial transactions.