Who

Jacqueline Gatlin was primarily responsible for implementing the new CU-SIS module and getting it to work for our purposes. Allison Noel, Jennifer Phillips, and Stefan Garman were also critical to its development. We also had assistance from people at UIS, including John Hanna, Phillip Curry and Phillip Jones.

What

The Veterans Benefit Module was part of a 2014 Oracle update, but it wasn’t practical to use as delivered as it required manual entries for each student using benefits each term, and we have over 1400 students using VA benefits. The enhancement uses an OnBase form submitted by each student, which then integrates with CU-SIS and automatically update the fields in the module. This allows us to generate reports and easily track students using VA benefits, whereas before it was a manual process and students were sometimes overlooked, delaying their benefits and creating a financial burden.

Students were already submitting a Google form each term to use their benefits, but now the form is easily found in their student portal and directly ties to their SID and student email. In conjunction with the OnBase form, we created a workflow to track students through the benefits process as well as send automatic emails as needed. This change has saved time, increased accuracy, and has allowed us to provide better customer service and more timely benefit processing.

Why

Under our old system, students either submitted paper forms in person or online through Google docs. This often led to illegible or incorrect information or misplaced forms, delaying benefit processing. The new form ties to their information in CU-SIS and goes directly into the workflow for processing. The form cannot get lost and the information will be accurate. In addition, we often have to compile data for different reporting requirements and having the data query-able in CU-SIS has greatly increased the accuracy and reduced the time spent on these reports.

Where

This enhanced Veterans Benefits Module with the OnBase integration is currently only in use at UCCS, but we have been in communication with both our Denver and Boulder Veteran Services counterparts to roll this out for their summer/spring 2018 registration dates.

When

This enhancement to the Veterans Benefits Module went live at the end of October 2017, just days before our spring term registration began. This allowed us to have students use the new process once they registered for their spring classes.

Submitter's Information

Submitter's Name: Allison Noel
Submitter's Email: anoel@uccs.edu​