Adirondack Solutions Users Group 2017 Creative Problem-Solving to Take THD to the Next Level Led by Kurt Ferguson, & Guy Seneque -Adelphi University

About Adelphi University Small private liberal arts school in Long Island, NY. Garden City (Main Campus), Manhattan, Suffolk County, and Hudson Valley 8000 students 1300 Resident students 7 Residence Halls on the Garden City Campus 2 Office Campus Housing Sites (Mineola, NY and Brooklyn, NY) Office of Residential Life and Housing: 37 Resident Assistants 7 Residence Hall Directors 1 Graduate Assistant Hall Director 1 Associate Director of Residential Life and Housing 1 Director of Residential Life and Housing (Responsible for On/Off Campus Housing)

About Adelphi University Online Room Selections: Returning Student Online Room Selections every April since 2005. First- Year Student Room Selections every June since 2012. Students are manually assigned spaces outside of the Room Selections. Not a Hosted Campus Currently running THD version 4.0.1000 We have been with Adirondack since 2004.

Agenda We’re going to talk about: Getting more reliable and faster results through automation: Exclusive and Informational Application Rolling Room Selection Processes SQL coding and Database Functions/Filters: Advanced Reporting, Triggers, and Scheduled Email Actions Other tools and techniques to consider

Problems and Wish List Items Qualification process is slow, labor-intensive, and prone to error. Managing post room selection applicants Better utilizing preferred names Sending personalized Happy Birthday messages Sorting students by class status (fr, soph, jr, sr) Housing Assignment Change emails

Exclusive Housing Applications Adelphi’s requirements before selecting a room: Register for classes Pay a housing deposit Complete a housing application (now required to be the last step) Why? Gives quantifiable “ready date” Allows add to lottery feature How? External Filter SQL: Field 8 = Deposit Paid Date and Field 17 = Override Option Registration Field

Informational Applications Use customized application names, Contract, and Thank You files to get students information. Students do not read - BE OVER THE TOP!

Rolling Room Selection Ran from June – August Takes students from deposit to room assignment! Informational Applications guide students through qualification process. Housing Application are specific to student status. Places students into the corresponding room selection (upperclass vs. first year). Selected from remaining beds based on their student status. Sent automated reminder emails to students. Sent list of students still in lottery to office staff.

SQL Coding THD’s language for running queries. Can be customized to run more complex processes. SQL functions work a lot like Excel formulas. Many are listed in the database functions window, there are more. A few helpful functions: Getdate() gives today’s date and time. Getdate()-1 gives last 24 hours. Isnull allows you to default to one field if another is null. Case allows you to reassign values based on conditions. W3Schools has a complete list of SQL functions.

Daily Digest of Room Changes THD’s default options for room change notifications: Trigger – automated email every time there is a new assignment Scheduled Email Action – email daily regardless of action Manipulate report to make easily identifiable when it has records. All Residence Halls at Adelphi contain word “Hall” Rename field in report “BUILDING” instead of “Hall” Use centralized email (housing@adelphi.edu) to automatically filter and forward all emails from housing with subject “Today’s Housing Assignments” and containing the word “Hall”.

Preferred Names Many students opt to list and go by a preferred name. Administrators have to choose to address letters/emails to either First Name or Preferred Name. Isnull Function allows you to select a secondary source for when the primary field is null. ISNULL([PREFERRED NAME FIELD],[FIRST NAME FIELD])

Sorting by Class Status Class statuses are not naturally sortable. Class years do not account for graduate students (may be sorted in with Juniors or Sophomores as they would have the same class year). 3 options: Renaming class status fields (1.Freshman, 2.Sophomore, etc.) Examine text for alphabetical sort options Add database function to report Case statement (WHEN ‘Junior’ THEN ‘3’, ETC.)

Case Statements CASE TBLCLASSSTATUS.CLASSSTATUS WHEN ‘Freshman’ THEN ‘1’ WHEN ‘Sophomore’ THEN ‘2’ WHEN ‘Junior’ THEN ‘3’ WHEN ‘Senior’ THEN ‘4’ WHEN ‘Graduate’ THEN ‘5’ ELSE ‘0’ END CASE can be used in many other helpful replacement applications. Reporting on prospective residents’ application statuses. Replacing terms to make reports more laymen-friendly.

Happy Birthday Emails Creating a report of today’s birthdays requires some basic coding: GETDATE() will yield “Tue Sep 19 12:03:22 GMT-0400 2017” CONVERT(VARCHAR, GETDATE() , 101 ) yields “09/19/17” LEFT(CONVERT(VARCHAR, GETDATE() , 101 ),5) will yield “09/19” Filter LEFT(CONVERT(VARCHAR, GETDATE() , 101 ),5) = LEFT(CONVERT(VARCHAR, [Date of Birth] , 101 ),5) Customize a mail merge template with your message Schedule an email action to all students with birthdays in report, and CC corresponding staff

Helpful Resources: SQL coding: https://www.w3schools.com/sql/default.asp Adirondack users and support staff Lynda.com for google suite Adirondack Solutions Users Group Adirondack Solutions, Inc. Facebook Group

Contact Information Thank you for participating! Should you have any questions regarding this presentation, please use the contact information below: Kurt Ferguson Guy Seneque kferguson@adelphi.edu seneque@adelphi.edu 516-877-6740 516-877-3650