There was quite a turnout for the 1st Banner Exchange that was held on Jan 8th. Based upon what we heard from the group during the 1st exchange, the next three sessions will focus on the following: Getting Help with Banner - what resources are available, where to find the resources, and who to call when the self-service resources are not sufficient; Data Standards and Information Flow in Banner; Getting Information Out of Banner – Using Reports. Below are the date, time and location for each session.

Getting Help with Banner (Introduction & Review of Banner Help Resources)
Monday, February 25th from 11am-12pm
Sprinkle Room

Data Standards and Information Flow in Banner
Wednesday, March 5th from 10am-11am
Sprinkle Room

Getting Information Out of Banner (Using Reports)
Wednesday, April 2nd from 10am-11am
Sprinkle Room

*No sign-up or registration required.

The Banner Database will be upgraded on Saturday, July 21st. As a result, Banner INB, Banner Web (aka Shirley), and Focus will be offline from 7pm on Saturday, July 21st to 7pm on Sunday, July 22nd. A notification will be sent informing users when the system is back online and available for use.

Below is the plan for how we will proceed with the Oracle 10G upgrade of the Banner databases this summer.

Upgrade TEST to Oracle 10G - June 10 - 15th - Complete
BTLs & AppDev Testing - June 15th - July 6th - In-process
BTL, AppDev, DBA Readiness Check - July 9th - 12th
Upgrade PRODUCTION to 10G - July 14th & 15th

If you have questions, please contact your Banner Team Leader.

If you manage lists of students, faculty, or alumni who have participated in a particular activity, been a member of a particular organization, or have received a particular award, Read On!

The Banner Team Leaders' Activities Workgroup has made lots of great changes to the Banner Activities Module. There's a new naming convention for activity codes, new types of activities, and new categories for grouping activity codes. There's new reports in DW. There's a new set of permissions that allow you can generate your own lists, including those with alumni data, without making a single request or call to another office. And, last but not least there's training!

Training will be delivered by members of the Activities Workgroup. The first two sessions will be hosted on June 27th and July 11th by Ann Douglas. These sessions are for Academic Departments ONLY. Training sessions for Student Life, College Relations, and Athletics will be held from mid-July through mid-August so keep an eye out for future announcements and invitations.

NOTE: Activity Workgroup Members include Ann Douglas, Susan Cooke, Denise Howard, Mike Goode, Leah Parrish Jones, Kenitra Smith.

Following the policy enacted in October 2006, we have “locked” all Banner Accounts for Student Workers that were not slated to return to work in an Administrative Office for the Spring 2007 term. If conditions have changed and a student will work in your office and will need access to Banner, simply email a request to create or re-enable the account to the ITS Help Desk.

NOTE: All students must have their own user accounts.

Ellen Henshaw is the new IT Specialist for College Relations. Ellen is a Davidson graduate that brings lots of experience in the areas of data management, reporting, providing technical support, and training to end users.

Marcia Stoutjesdyk is the new Assistant Registrar. Although Hansford will continue to attend the BTL meetings for the next few weeks, Marcia will transition into the role of Banner Team Leader. Marcia comes to us from Grand Valley State University where she supervised the unit responsible for student records, transfer articulation, degree auditing and imaging. While at Grand Valley State, Marcia became quite familiar with the Banner Academic History module and welcomes the opportunity to learn more.

The Banner Activities Workgroup is in the final stages of their year long project.

The first draft of the Administrative Data Security Policy is being circulated. This policy will govern the handling, dissemination, and protection of Davidson College’s administrative data. Administrative data and applications are valuable assets over which the College has an obligation to manage, secure and protect. All administrative data that reside on computers both within ITS and around campus, data as paper hard copy, and data on electronic media to include but not limited to diskette, CD-ROM, USB Removable Media (Thumb Drive, Flash Drive, Memory Stick), and DVD will be governed by this policy. This policy does not include detailed procedures for each office but provides guidelines for each department/division to follow.

If you have questions or concerns, contact your Banner Team Leader.

Banner 7.3 upgrades have been applied. Release 7.3 is a minor release and includes enhancements and problem resolutions for the Advancement, General and Student Systems.

New Banner Team Leader – Alan Chester
Alan Chester has joined the Office of Admissions as the new IT Information Specialist. Alan is a Programmer\Systems Analyst with several years of experience with Banner, SQL, Web Programming and Reporting in the higher education sector.

Update Data Entry Standards
There has been a correction made to the flow charts found on the final two pages of the Data Entry Standard document. The chart now indicates that if the person is an active student, student worker or the parent of an active student BOTH address changes and other data changes (including name, ID, bio/demographic information) should be made by the Registrar.

New “Email Student” Feature Enabled for Faculty
Within Banner Self-Service on Shirley there is a feature "Email Student" that has been enabled. This feature IS NOT part of the pictorial class roster however, when a faculty member signs into Self-Service and look under Faculty Services, Detail Class List and selects one of their classes, it will display all the students in that class. To the right of each student's name, there is an envelope icon. If the envelope is clicked, an email addressed to that student will appear in a separate window.

Banner Training
We are finishing up the first round of Banner 7-101 training with the Mac users on October 5th and one more PC class mid-October. Finding Finance Data and Entering Invoices will be the next Banner 7 training offerings. Dates, times, and locations to be announced.

Managing Duplicate IDs For Non-person Entities
To eliminate duplicate records in the Banner database for vendors, corporations, and other entities a Banner Working Group has been established. This group includes representatives from Business Services, College Relations, Athletics, and ITS. The group has proposed moving to the use of the Employer Identification Number (EIN) also known as a Federal Tax Identification Number as the Banner ID. This is already being done for vendors. Some of questions that the group is looking into include:

· How will regional contacts be tracked, if there is just one ID per organization?

· With one ID per organization, who gets the receipts from donations and pledges?

· How will one find an EIN if the organization doesn’t readily supply it(e.g. Donors)

NOTE: If you are unsure whether or not an organization has an EIN here’s a tool used by the IRS to help you. If you can answer yes to any of the following questions, then you know the organization should have an EIN and you can request it from them.

Does the entity have employees?
Does the entity operate as a corporation or a partnership?
Does the entity file any of these tax returns: Employment, Excise, or Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms?
Does the entity withhold taxes on income, other than wages, paid to a non-resident alien?
Are they involved with any of the following types of organizations?
Trusts, except certain grantor-owned revocable trusts, IRAs, Exempt, Organization Business Income Tax Returns
Estates
Real estate mortgage investment conduits
Non-profit organizations
Farmers' cooperatives

Enterprise Reporting Tool – What’s the status?
In late May, we selected the reporting tool Argos to bring to campus for an internal evaluation. The goals of the evaluation were as follows:

· Determine if Argos meets the College’s needs

· Determine if Argos could run within the current ITS infrastructure

· Determine if users with varying degrees of technical skill could develop parameterized reports (Ad Hoc, formatted, and scheduled) using the tool

· Identify implementation risks, issues, and constraints.

The outcomes of the evaluation are as follows:

· Argos in not the product for the College

· Our existing data warehouse should be updated to improve accessibility to data, improve quality and consistency of reports, and reduce operational maintenance.

Given the outcomes of the evaluation, we will not abandon the reporting tool search instead we will move forward in two phases. The first phase will focus on updating the data warehouse to establish a solid foundation from which to report regardless of the tool chosen. The second phase will focus on the reporting tool selection.

Administrative Data Security Policy
There are several federal regulations that mandate that colleges and universities make every effort to protect administrative data. The Data Protection Act 1998 alone makes it an obligation for colleges and universities to adopt a framework which provides suitable standards of security for all personal data. This year ITS will lead the effort to establish a policy that provides a framework for best operational practices in the Administrative Offices and will ensure that the institution complies with relevant legislation.

To begin development of this policy a work group is being established to serve in an advisory capacity to ITS. Current members include Wanda Underwood (Assistant Registrar), Linda Erickson (Office of Admission and Financial Aid, George Campbell (Institutional Research), Kenitra Smith (Director or Application Development).