The number of forms at the University of Delaware, just like at any other higher ed institution, is large. From course withdrawals for students to facilities requests by staff, a stakeholder is often required to fill out a specific form deep within various web applications in order to make a business action happen on campus. For an institution like UD that serves over 21,000 students and employs 4,200 faculty and staff members, taking a streamlined approach to organizing these forms and other campus resources just makes sense.
“The question to be answered was: ‘Where can a student, staff member, faculty member or parent go to do business?’” says Joy Lynam, director of IT Web Development at UD.
The answer was found by implementing a single solution where all business applications and forms are indexed and searchable in one location: OneCampus by rSmart. Implemented at UD in August 2015, OneCampus is a cloud-based platform that allows users to quickly find and discover campus services, applications and resources in a simple, intuitive way. Whether a student needs to find a Google application or a professor needs to recall a book at the library, they visit My UD Business and can call up what they need instantly without needing to know the formal name of the form or which department manages it.
“Users can search using their role, a specific category or even a keyword,” says Lynam. “OneCampus works the way people work, and it works on any device, anytime, anywhere.”
Descriptions and tags can be added to each form or task as desired, so no matter what a user searches for, they are likely to find what they are looking for quickly. Security concerns are mitigated because even though OneCampus is stored in the cloud, business processes, access rules and data reside on UD secure servers. OneCampus is also customizable on many levels. For example, UD changed the look and feel to match University branding.
“If a user chooses not to log in to their UD account, they can still use My UD Business,” says Lynam. “But if staff members or students log in, they’ll be shown forms they and others recently used.”
Users can set favorites that show up at the top of the page when they log in to My UD Business. If a form or web application allows for single sign-on, they will be automatically signed in to the form they are accessing.
The implementation process was quick and simple and required few support requests, Lynam notes. The team at rSmart offered initial setup and training, as well as quick guides, FAQs and quarterly webinars. But Lynam’s team has found it easy to manipulate the system and add new tasks.
“You need just one task modeled in OneCampus to get started,” she says. “And for student users, we have received feedback that the system is as easy to use as a social media platform.”
As a solutions partner, rSmart is receptive to ideas from its campus users, says Lynam.
“rSmart has an enhancement process in which users can submit OneCampus ideas for other users to vote on,” she says.
One month after going live, My UD Business saw 51,000 unique visitors. The most popular uses for the site include parents paying tuition bills and students accessing UD’s student information system.
“My UD Business takes away the burden of going to different websites and simply makes locating forms and web applications easy,” says Lynam.
“Staff members have commented that through My UD Business, it is now much easier to locate the forms needed to complete a task,” she says. “Students have said they would rather use My UD Business than Google.”
For more information, visit rsmart.com or call 866-874-4338
Photo courtesy of UD.
