10 th Anniversary 1999 - 2009

1. 10th Anniversary 1999 - 2009 Prospective Student Portal - Building MyFuture By Rebecca Bond

2. General Announcements: • Please turn off all cell phones/pagers • If you must leave the session early, please do so as discreetly as possible • Please avoid side conversations during the session • Questions will be answered ….. Thank you for your cooperation

3. Outline For This Session • Brief Introduction • PSP Project Development • Technical Roadblocks • Building PSP • Where Are We Now? – including a brief demo • Future Plans

4. Brief Introduction • Disclaimers • I’m not a Banner nor Luminis expert – my colleagues are here to help me with questions on those subjects. • Prior to this project, I had no prior experience in Admissions Recruiting – my background is IT. • This is my first PABUG • I was asked to take on the PSP Project due to my experience with using Luminis for our Accepted Student Portal (since 2006) • My work on this project was part-time (around 18 hours a week)

5. PSP Project Development • Development began in January 2009 with a goal to launch PSP in June 2009. • First Steps • Searched for other examples of PSPs • Polled Admissions staff to learn what prospects need and want to know. • Assessed existing resources that we had available to use for content and images. • Brainstormed about technical issues to address

6. PSP Development: First Steps (cont) • Narrowed down guiding concepts for development, which included: • Recycle/reuse existing content resources as much as possible. • Make content contribution and management easy to access and maintain. • Emphasis on personalization of content, engaging recruits on an ongoing basis with relevant and comprehensive content. • Established general site organization.

7. Technical Roadblocks: Out of the Box • Luminis Issues • Content management within Luminis requires a lot of effort. • We decided to use blogs for content management. • Feeding blog entries into Luminis using categorized RSS feeds. • Example: Internet / No Internet • Channel migrator from test server to production dropped all non-role based prospect attribute “Audience” criteria on channels.

8. Technical Roadblocks: Out of the Box • Luminis Issues (cont) • Refresh delay of changes to channels in Luminis 4 force wait of about 10 minutes for changes to take effect. • A fragment MUST include a tab • We had hoped to create fragments to push to recruits that were just a collection of channels. • SCT tells us that adding our own Prospect Attributes is not possible right now. • We had hoped to have a “Recruiter” attribute in order to target content to each recruiter’s prospects.

9. Technical Roadblocks: Out of the Box • Luminis Issues (cont) • “Filter Groups” concept is not used by published/targeted channel “Audience” criteria. Each channel/section requires you enter everything every time. • Role criteria: 5 clicks each • Attribute criteria: 8 clicks each • Example: • Internet Access • No Internet Access

10. Technical Roadblocks: Out of the Box (cont…) • User Account Issues • There is no mechanism in place to handle forgotten usernames or passwords. • Admin reset of passwords on linked accounts in Luminis disrupts BSSA connector. • Solicited account usernames limited to 8 character username: 1st initial + last name • Unsolicited accounts are the email address provided by prospect.

11. Technical Roadblocks: Out of the Box (cont…) • User Account Issues (cont) • Documentation on how PSP accounts link to banner is inadequate. • How are unsolicited accts matched to banner? – SRIPREL • How do we change associated banner ID due to human error? • What default values in banner need to be set for use by matching process?

12. Technical Roadblocks: Out of the Box (cont…) • User Account Issues (cont) • SCT says customization needed to require unsolicited users to enter mailing address and phone at account creation. How do we dup check during banner matching without that? - ITS figured out how to require them.

13. Technical Roadblocks: Out of the Box (cont…) • SSB Issues • PSP access to Self-Service Banner is tricky. • Prospects have no way of updating their banner interests within the PSP. • Not clear how to set up fragments that know whether user account has or has not been linked to banner record (an issue with unsolicited accounts only).

14. Our Fragment Definitions

15. Our Fragment Definitions

16. Our Fragment Definitions

17. Building PSP: Collaboration • ITS Developed: • My Information form: a self-service banner (APEX) form to allow users to update interests, addresses and more, PLUS the mechanism for controlling the flow of these changes into Banner. • RSS Reader to display blog feeds • Implemented the portal layout designed by Marketing/PR • SSB Application Checklist channel • In Luminis / As Channel

18. Building PSP: Anatomy of a Targeted Content Channel • Sample screen shot walkthrough • Internet Access • No Internet Access

19. Building PSP: Pilot and Launch • Once testing was far enough along, we proceeded to full blown development which was completed in late May 2009. • We implemented two pilot test groups • 1st pilot – June ‘09: about 20 hand picked recruits, mostly employee dependants • 2nd pilot – July ‘09: about 150 recruits with strong interest • Launched in September 2009 • Postcard campaign to all HS Seniors and Juniors • Added link to MyFuture on Admissions website

20. Where Are We Now? • Number of accounts created so far • Site Demo: http://myfuture.messiah.edu • Username = guest • Password = dem0stu • Site Demo (if no internet access)

21. Future Plans: ITS • ITS Projects • Develop channel that we can let recruits respond to a fun poll and see all responses. • Develop a Slideshow style RSS Reader – to rotate through feeds one at a time. • Develop “Forgot my password” feature (and possibly “Forgot my username” too) • Source tracking: A form for recruits to answer, “Where did you hear about MyFuture?” and import to Banner.

22. Future Plans: Admissions • Admissions Projects • Life-cycle strategy: plan out content/fragments for recruits from prospect to deny. • Content Plan: create a plan of content of 1 year for each channel. • Better organize paper and electronic content resources. • Work on relieving text-heavy site, without losing depth. • Develop content for transfer and international recruits. • Feature important events, including announcing counselor high school visits to appropriate recruits. • Review interest codes due to paradigm shift from “What are you doing?” to “What do you want to know about Messiah?”

23. Open to the Floor • Questions • If we run out of time, you can contact me at: rbond@messiah.edu or 717-766-2511 x2292 • Comments