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

2. 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)

3. 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
We have been with Adirondack since 2004.

4. 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 Actions
Other tools and techniques to consider

5. 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 s

6. 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

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

8. 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 s to students.
Sent list of students still in lottery to office staff.

9. 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.

10. Daily Digest of Room Changes
THD’s default options for room change notifications:
Trigger – automated every time there is a new assignment
Scheduled Action – 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 to automatically filter and forward all s from housing with subject “Today’s
Housing Assignments” and containing the word “Hall”.

11. Preferred Names Many students opt to list and go by a preferred name.
Administrators have to choose to address letters/ s 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])

12. 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.)

13. 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.

14. Happy Birthday s
Creating a report of today’s birthdays requires some basic coding:
GETDATE() will yield “Tue Sep 19 12:03:22 GMT ”
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 action to all students with birthdays in report, and CC corresponding staff

15. Helpful Resources: SQL coding:
Adirondack users and support staff
Lynda.com for google suite
Adirondack Solutions Users Group
Adirondack Solutions, Inc. Facebook Group

16. Contact Information
Thank you for participating!
Should you have any questions regarding this presentation, please use the contact information below:
Kurt Ferguson Guy Seneque