Banner SaaS Transition

What is Saas?

Think of SaaS (Software as a Service) like switching from owning a car to using a high-end rideshare service. Instead of buying a car, parking it in your own garage, and having to change the oil and fix the engine yourself, you simply use an app to access a vehicle that is maintained and fueled by someone else.

In the tech world, instead of Southern owning the software and keeping it on physical servers in a building on campus (which requires our staff to manually install updates and fix hardware), we subscribe to it over the internet. The company (Ellucian) handles all the heavy lifting, like security updates, backups, and improvements in the cloud. For you, it means the system is more reliable, works from any web browser, and always stays up to date without us having to take the system offline for a weekend to fix the engine.

What are the Benefits?

• Always Up-to-Date: No more waiting for Version 9 or Version 10. Since the software is hosted in the cloud, updates and new features are rolled out automatically. You will always use the most up-to-date version of Banner.
• Enhanced Reliability: By moving off of campus servers and into Ellucian’s dedicated cloud environment, we significantly reduce the risk of system downtime during critical periods like grading or registration.
• Work from Anywhere: SaaS is built for the modern world. Whether you are in your office in Engleman Hall, working from home, or traveling for a conference, you’ll have the same fast, secure access through any standard web browser.
• Top-Tier Security: Your data is protected by industry-leading encryption and security protocols that are monitored 24/7 by dedicated experts. This move adds a massive extra layer of protection for student and faculty records.
• Better Integration: The SaaS platform makes it much easier for Banner to talk to our other campus tools (like Blackboard or Slate), creating a smoother experience across all the apps you use.

Banner Modernization?

By moving our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Student Information System (SIS) to a cloud-based SaaS platform, Southern is empowering our faculty and staff with more accessible, intuitive, and real-time tools. This transition is about more than just technology; it’s about providing the high-level support our students deserve while streamlining the operations that keep our campus running.

By reducing our reliance on legacy infrastructure and embracing automated, cloud-based updates, Southern will remain agile, secure, and efficient. This shift allows us to spend less time managing software and more time on what truly matters: delivering an exceptional education and supporting the success of every Owl.

Key Outcomes of our Modernization Initiative

• A Superior Student Experience: Providing students with a modern, mobile-friendly interface to manage their academic journey from anywhere.
• Data-Informed Decision Making: Access to near real-time data and enhanced reporting tools to help us better understand and support our student population.
• Focus on Our Strengths: Standardizing routine administrative processes so we can focus our energy on the unique programs and personal mentorship that differentiate Southern.
• Streamlined Campus Operations: Simplifying business processes to reduce red tape and improve the workflow for departments across the university.
• A Resilient, Secure Infrastructure: Leveraging a modernized system that offers higher availability, seamless scalability, and industry-leading security with significantly less downtime.
• Continuous Innovation: The ability to deploy new features and updates instantly, ensuring Southern’s digital tools are always at the cutting edge.

Ellucian Experience is designed to solve familiar problems we all face: too many systems, too many logins, and too many disconnected places to find basic information.

Instead of asking students, faculty, and staff to jump between separate platforms for grades, financial aid, schedules, announcements, email, and other campus resources, Experience brings those tools together in a single dashboard. The goal is not to replace every system behind the scenes, but to make the front door to those systems much easier to use.

The dashboard is organized around cards, which function a lot like widgets. A student might see cards for class schedules, account balances, grades, campus announcements, email, or dining information. A faculty member might see teaching schedules, class rosters, advisee information, or other tools tied to their daily work. Staff dashboards can be tailored around the systems and updates most relevant to their roles.

One of the biggest benefits is single sign-on. After logging in once, users can move between connected services without repeatedly entering credentials. This removes a lot of friction from the day-to-day campus experience.

Ellucian Experience gives the university a clean digital entry point. It takes information and services scattered across multiple systems and organizes them in one place, with a layout that works across desktop and mobile. For students, especially, that means less time searching for the right link and more direct access to the information they actually need.

If Ellucian Experience serves as the front door to the digital campus, Ellucian Journey is more focused on the path after students arrive.

At its core, Journey is designed to connect academic planning with career outcomes. That matters because students are increasingly asking a very practical question: how does this course, certificate, or degree translate into a job?

Rather than starting with a traditional course catalog, Journey begins with career goals. A student, adult learner, or continuing education participant can explore potential career paths and see the skills, credentials, and labor market demand associated with those roles. For example, someone interested in data analytics, healthcare administration, cybersecurity, or project management could use the platform to better understand what employers are looking for and which skills are commonly tied to those opportunities.

From there, Journey can help map those career goals back to the institution’s academic offerings. Instead of leaving students to sort through dozens of courses, certificates, or micro-credentials on their own, the platform can recommend a more structured path based on the student’s goals, prior experience, and available programs.

The other key piece is progress tracking. Rather than showing academic progress only through credits and grades, Journey is built around skills and competencies. A student can see not just that they completed a course, but what capabilities they are building along the way. That creates a clearer connection between academic work and career readiness.

Journey helps make education feel less abstract. It gives students a better answer to the question, “Why am I taking this class?” by showing how individual courses and credentials can contribute to a broader career path.

Scholarship Universe is designed to make the scholarship search process more manageable for students.

Looking for scholarships can be frustrating and time-consuming. Students may spend hours searching online, sorting through opportunities that do not apply to them, or trying to determine which sites are legitimate. Scholarship Universe brings that process into a single, secure campus platform.

The experience starts with a student profile. After logging in, students answer questions about their academic background, major, GPA, interests, activities, career goals, and other relevant criteria. That information is then used to match them with scholarship opportunities that may be a good fit.

Those matches can include both internal scholarships offered by the university, colleges, departments, or specific programs, as well as external scholarships from vetted outside organizations. Instead of asking students to search broadly and guess which opportunities they qualify for, the platform narrows the list to scholarships that are more likely to be relevant.

Students can also manage the process from one dashboard. They can review scholarship matches, track deadlines, save opportunities they want to revisit, upload required materials, and request recommendation letters when needed. That gives students a clearer view of what is available and what steps they still need to complete.

External scholarships listed in the platform are reviewed before they are presented to students, which helps reduce the risk of scams, hidden fees, or questionable scholarship sites. Scholarship Universe means less time searching through unreliable information and more time applying for funding opportunities that actually make sense for them.