From The Division of Information Technology's Story Team
The College Credit Plus (CCP) program allows middle school and high school students to take college courses for credit even before they graduate from high school. The State of Ohio has strict requirements for everyone involved: the school counselor, the student, the Kent State University academic advisor, and the student's parents or legal guardian. One of these demands requires that all students' schedules and educational updates are sent out to all participants, including the student's parents, by certain dates.
Kristin Bechter, the Associate Director of College Credit Plus, was responsible for this communication. But it turns out this was a lot harder than it sounds.
Thanks to an applications developer in DoIt paying attention and wanting to help, the CCP office is now saving $7,000 and two and a half days of printing, folding, and stuffing envelopes.
Recalling the tiring process of printing, stuffing, and hand addressing over 3000 envelopes, Bechter says that it was often “two or three people at a time working on it” for the better part of a week each semester.
Bechter realized that collecting parent emails would allow for an easier and faster form of communication between parents and schools. Unfortunately, the CCP team did not have access to current, validated email addresses for guardians.
Tim Bowser, a Lead Applications Developer in the Division of Information Technology (DoIT), had partnered with the CCP team before. One day while reviewing other data, he noticed that the parent emails Bechter was struggling to gather were already being collected by his department. Tim quickly found a way to connect the CCP communications to the parent email addresses in Banner, creating a path to streamline and modernize the delivery of information.
With this data, he was able to automate the communication process and eliminate the painful process of preparing a large postal mailing. The weight of the daunting task was taken off Bechter’s shoulders. She said,
“I was almost in tears because it just made me so happy to take something that time-consuming off my plate”.
The streamlined workflow not only benefited parents but also facilitated unexpected encounters. Shortly after its implementation, Bowser found himself engaging in casual conversation at the gym, only to discover he was speaking with the parent of a CCP student.
During their chat, Tim encouraged the father to check his email, revealing instant access to his son's CCP information. The father, who had regularly misplaced this important piece of physical mail, was thrilled to learn the communication method had shifted entirely to email.
Thanks to an applications developer in the Division of Information Technology paying attention and wanting to help, the CCP office is now saving $7,000 and up to two and a half days of printing, folding, and stuffing envelopes.