$how Me the Money Cost Benefits of Electronic Exchange of Student Transcripts SACRAO Conference 2015 American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers Susan Reyes, San Diego State University Matt Bemis, University of Southern California

Presentation Overview  Electronic Data Exchange Efforts at USC – Big wins and big savings in the last 3+ years  How leveraging EDI data transmission transformed USC’s processing of international degree verification  The big $$$ realized through the implementation of EDI at USC.  The real difference: Enhancing the USC Experience for matriculating students.

Presentation Overview  Electronic Data Exchange Efforts at SDSU – Keeping up the ever increasing number of applicants amid budget cuts the last 5+ years  Leveraging EDI data transformed the transfer admissions processing.  The real difference: Enhancing the Experience for matriculating students.

Building EDI Program at SDSU SDSU has been receiving EDI from 3 main feeder districts for more than 10 years 4 years ago, with major budget cuts in place, SDSU’s Enrollment Services decided they needed to utilize technology to keep up with the growing number of applicants and students 2014 we climbed to over 100 EDI partners

College Transcript Processing at SDSU Prior to 2011 Around applications for admission Several days just to get mail open 8 weeks or more to process college transcripts during peak time 15 staff and student workers opening mail and manually processing or OCRing transcripts More than 25 evaluators to update SIS and DARS and verify course matriculation

College Transcript Processing at SDSU 2014 More than 80,000 applications for F2015 More than 110 EDI trading partners 77% of College Transcripts via EDI) 4 Full-time staff to support EDI and OCR processing of Transcripts 15 evaluators who spend the majority of their time with the students because the EDI posting rarely requires manual intervention.

College Transcript Processing at SDSU Benefits for Staff No need to manually key in coursework so there are fewer data errors Staff deal with exception processing and student issues instead of handling every transcript Downside for Staff Sometimes feels like all they’re dealing with is problems If a data issue is no corrected right away student sees incorrect information and are not always happy when they find out their data was incorrect

College Transcript Processing at SDSU Downside for Students Data is sometimes incorrect so the initial information may be incorrect if the course data or DARS matching is incorrect Student rarely has control over whether the transcript is sent in EDI, paper or electronic PDF format and may be confused as to how to get their transcript to the correct person or processing center in the receiving institution

College Transcript Processing at SDSU Benefits for Students EDI is usually received and posted to the student’s record within 24 hours of ordering a transcript. Students no longer wait for months to get their matriculation information Admission decisions can be made more quickly, although all admissions offers are provisional because they are based upon automated transcript processing and self reported supplemental application information

College Transcript Processing at SDSU College Transcripts 2013 – 2014 Year# of EDITotal% EDI ,57926, % ,21128, %

Presentation Overview  Electronic Data Exchange Efforts at USC – Big wins and big savings in the last 3+ years  How leveraging EDI data transmission transformed USC’s processing of international degree verification  The big $$$ realized through the implementation of EDI at USC.  The real difference: Enhancing the USC Experience for matriculating students.

EDI transcripts exchange successes at USC -- EDI development timeline at USC  Began mapping inbound EDI transactions in late 2009 as part of the EtranscriptCA efforts  Took three weeks to go live in production – found the inbound effort very easy to configure with existing degree audit software application system  Joined the Texas Server Registrant list shortly thereafter and began expanding our trading partner relationships

EDI transcripts exchange successes at USC What we learned as we broadened our base of EDI trading partners (i.e. Texas Server deliverables):  EDI acknowledgement transactions are necessary for most senders  Handling EDI data from district schools  Imaging EDI transactions to existing systems (in real time)  Handling prior degree information in EDI transactions  Mapping FICE, ACT, and CEEB data reliably  Data rendering interface for Advisor use  Should have been doing this years ago… and so should you if you are not actively trading

EDI transcripts exchange successes at USC Other lessons learned with EDI transcripts exchange:  Handling ‘Unknown’ student transcript transactions  Handling unexpected transactions (unknown CEEBs)  How to handle EDI data for students not yet admitted  Reporting ‘change of data’ instances for administrative review  The importance of weekly reporting of EDI receipt activity  Development and production of outbound USC EDI transcript transactions – a humbling experience

EDI transcripts exchange successes at USC Where we were, and how far we have come:  inbound TS130 transactions received  inbound TS130 transactions received  inbound TS130 transactions received  inbound TS130 transactions received  inbound TS130 transactions received  What really has changed? Hassle free, hands free transfer credit evaluations for every EDI transcript received (almost)

Financial Impact on Operations  Average transaction time per paper transcript processed, including:  Mail routing/delivery to technicians  Keying in data, and quality control review  Re-keying in data to correct for data entry errors  Document management – Routing to image centers, imaging; and indexing of documents; document destruction management (hard copy and digital copy)

Financial Impact on Operations  20 minutes per 10,000 transcripts per year: 3,300 hours/year in resources were repurposed and moved to other areas  Integrity of transfer data improved dramatically  Full automation of transfer credit reporting for EDI transactions was realized  The student experience was enhanced, with turnaround time updated Transfer Credit reports for electronic transactions was guaranteed within 24 hours of receipt of EDI data.

How EDI Enabled Automation of International Prior degree Verification Services  During the EDI rollout, USC outsourced its processing of credentials evaluation services for international schools.  Worked early in the process with the vendor to discuss the potential of replacing PDF reports with EDI data transmissions  Leveraged the SPEEDE server, and educated the vendor on the use of EDI transaction sets  Since going live in October 2013, more than 2800 credentials have been transmitted through TS130 transaction sets.  Has enabled full automation of data processing and reporting  Two FTEs repurposed as a result of outsourcing/EDI

Contacts Susan Reyes Matt Bemis This presentation was brought to you by the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee