10 th Anniversary Prospective Student Portal - Building MyFuture By Rebecca Bond

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

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

Brief Introduction Disclaimers Im 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)

PSP Project Development Development began in January 2009 with a goal to launch PSP in June 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

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.

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.blogs Feeding blog entries into Luminis using categorized RSS feeds.categorized RSS feeds Example: Internet / No InternetInternetNo Internet Channel migrator from test server to production dropped all non-role based prospect attribute Audience criteria on channels.

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 recruiters prospects.

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

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: 1 st initial + last name Solicited Unsolicited accounts are the address provided by prospect. Unsolicited

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?

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.

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).

Our Fragment Definitions

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 In LuminisAs Channel

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

Building PSP: Pilot and Launch Once testing was far enough along, we proceeded to full blown development which was completed in late May We implemented two pilot test groups 1 st pilot – June 09: about 20 hand picked recruits, mostly employee dependants 2 nd 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

Where Are We Now? Number of accounts created so far Site Demo: Username = guest Password = dem0stu Site Demo (if no internet access) Site Demo

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.

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?

Open to the Floor Questions If we run out of time, you can contact me at: or x2292 Comments