Pratt Institute moves constituent services online.

When Pratt Institute's CFO, Ed Rutkowski, identified inefficient business processes he knew that it was time for changes. New approaches were needed to keep Pratt Institute competitive, but also provide updated and efficient services to students, faculty, and staff.

For Pratt, complying with federal student regulations and enhancing services are top priorities. With over 1,000 international students, Pratt had to update the processes it used to track these students, and deploy an integrated Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) in order to be compliant with new federal mandates.

To remain competitive, Pratt also had to move constituent services online. That meant establishing a Web-based, self-service solution that constituents could access anytime, form anywhere. The solution had to be easily implemented and easy for Pratt's current staff to maintain.

Since Pratt uses Datatel Colleague, a leading Enterprise Resource Planning system in higher education, for many processes institution-wide. Pratt turned to Datatel for expert advice on how to overcome their current challenges. After careful evaluation, Pratt enlisted a Professional Services Consultant to review its business goals and current resources, and to provide a comprehensive plan for success.

"Throughout the process, Datatel provided sound business advice," said Rutkowski. "They did a lot more than just recommend which technologies to use, they put together a complete business plan that incorporated best practices for higher education, and a long-term strategy with well documented processes to help us get the most out of out investment."

Pratt deployed Datatel Colleague Student SEVIS--a solution designed specifically for Datatel clients. The implementation and integration went very well. With its newly enhanced system, Pratt was now able to automatically report information to the federal government, meet federal reporting requirements for international students, and maintain the data in Colleague.

Colleague Student SEVIS moved Pratt's International Student's Office to a fully automated system, virtually eliminating the need for manually produced documents and spreadsheets. "By using the Student SEVIS solution, student information can easily be pulled from Colleague, eliminating the errors that typically come from re-keying names, addresses, etc.," said Rutkowski.

Pratt also implemented WebAdvisor, Datatel's Web-access solution, to provide a higher level of constituent service. By bringing student services such as class registration and grade inquiry online, Pratt has increased student service and satisfaction, without increasing the size of its staff. Offering a wide variety of online services has also greatly reduced the burden of administrative tasks for faculty and students.

By seeking expert advice from Datatel and following the recommended action plan, Pratt gained greater functionality to improve their business processes. With the implementation of Student SEVIS and WedAdvisor, Pratt was able to change the way it did business and provide better services to all constituents, most importantly to its students.