Merry Christmas from AIS

top row, left to right: Dean Nakamura, Gail Garrett, Sheila Pallotta
bottom row, left to right: Lisa Ciccone, Scott Nebinger

We will be observing the College holidays, and will be closed the week of December 20 - 24, 2010. 

 

Get Ready for an INFORMER upgrade

What is INFORMER? Informer is a web-based reporting tool that reports directly from the Colleague database. We have a new upgrade, Informer 4,  in the works, which provides an even cooler look and feel than before. Take a look at the new product on You Tube at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zSvZGcHfTY
or on the Informer website itself ("Download Webinar" link): http://www.entrinsik.com/solutions/informer/webinar.php?series=57 (If you watch the Informer video, fast-forward to the 19:30 minute mark, where the demo actually begins).

AIS will be working with departments with their existing reports, which will be converted when we go live with Informer 4. Watch for announcements of live demos and training in January.

 

Do you want to implement Informer in your department? or enhance your usage of Informer? Call AIS (X4375) - we can help!

DUG 2011 Conference & Expo Website is Live!

Register Online Now for Special Early Bird Pricing

The DUG 2011 website is now live, and online registration is open. That means our annual Conference is right around the corner, and it's time to start planning your schedule and itinerary.

March 6–9, 2011
Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center
National Harbor, MD. 

Registering online for the conference is quick and easy — and you can make your hotel arrangements at the same time. If you register and submit payment by January 31, 2011, you can lock in Early Bird registration rates and the lower hotel rates at the Gaylord National Resort or the Marriott Residence Inn National Harbor. The Residence Inn, which is offering the lowest room rate, likely will be sold out within the next few weeks — so register and make your reservations accordingly.
Register for DUG 2011 at http://conference.datatel-users.org and please take a few minutes to peruse the Conference website. It is loaded with valuable information — including registration fees, hotel pricing, and lots more.


Just like those before it, the upcoming DUG Conference promises to be a truly inspirational experience.

 

How the SMC Email address is updated in Colleague

Hint:  It's MAGIC!!!

Email accounts are generated for faculty, staff and students automatically on a twice-daily basis. Twice daily, a file with all current accounts is delivered to Colleague, and twice daily Colleague updates student, faculty and staff records with the Saint Mary's email address. New addresses are added, and any addresses that are no longer valid are removed.

The Saint Mary's College email address is flagged in Colleague with a type of "LO" = "Local". The account name (the part before "@stmarys-ca.edu") can be seen in the header of most person-related forms in Colleague.

Because Colleague is updated directly from the email system, no one should ever add or remove an email address with a type of "LO".  This is reserved for automatic processes.

REGISTRATION arrives AGAIN

Believe it or not, next week (November 15-18, 2010) is another week of Undergraduate Online Registration. You will receive emails with reminders, but for now, here are the three guidelines for Good Digital Citizens:

1.  Limit your login time - log out if you aren't actively using Colleague
2.  Restrict reporting - save large queries for times when resources are not at a premium
3.  Release records - remember that students need to be able to access their records to register.

The most critical times for student registration are around 1:00PM and after 3:45PM 

SAVEDLISTS and HOLD files

AIS, with input from some of our Power Users, has established guidelines for deletion and retention of SAVEDLISTS and HOLD files.

SAVEDLISTS:  retained for 45 days. Any SAVEDLIST over 45 days old will be deleted on the 6th of each month, with exception of any savedlist that begins with "XSMC". 

HOLD files:  retained for 100 days, any HOLD file over 100 days old will be deleted on the 6th of each month. If you need to keep a file longer than 100 days, you may save to your PC, or contact AIS to have it moved to an archived Colleague folder. (HOLD files are created when you send a report to "HOLD" instead of a printer or email.)

How YOU Can Help Make Registration Easier for Students

October 18-21 is Jan Term registration for undergraduates

Students register for classes through GaelXpress, which connects them directly to the Colleague database. Because you, at your desktop, are also connecting to Colleague, the way that you work in Colleague can affect the student experience, either negatively or positively.

How can you help students register with fewer problems?

1.  Log out when you are not actively using Colleague. This is absolutely critical in the hours between 12:30 and 2:00PM, and again from 3:30 to the end of the work day. All  desktop logins use software licenses, and students registering also use software licenses. If administrative staff use up all the licenses, there won't be enough for students.  PLEASE LOG OUT. 

2.  Keep out of student records as much as possible. Adding information or changing a record actually locks up the records, so that others cannot change the record at the same time. When you lock the record of a student, the student cannot register (because the record is locked!).  If you need to work on a record, open it, do your work quickly, and finish out. While you are in the record, what the student sees is an hourglass, and they think "the system is down", when really, it is just that their record is in use.

These two modifications to the way you use Colleague during registration week can have a huge impact on how quickly students are able to register.



Questions?  Email AIS@stmarys-ca.edu

What is a FRIEND? A brief explanation of Source Codes

When looking up a PERSON in Colleague, you might occasionally see "Alumni", "Parent" or "Friend".  These are source codes, and are assigned by Development.  Below is an example of three people, each with a different source code. 

Source codes identify a primary relationship with the college, with the most common codes being

1 - Alumni - this indicates a person who is either a former student, or, at certain times of the year, an undergraduate senior who is about to graduate. 

2 - Parent - the parent of a current or former student 

3 - Friend - a person who is not an alum nor a parent

6 - Corporation

CS - Current Student

These codes are used for federal fundraising reporting. They should not be changed, except by Development.

If you have a question about a source code, or believe it might be wrong, contact Joan Goularte, goularte@stmarys-ca.edu (X4344) directly.

CORE Team forms Subcommittee

The CORE Committee has formed a subcommittee to look at addresses, address types, guidelines for maintenance of addresses, and any other issues that might relate to addresses for applicants, students, alumni, donors, vendors and employees. 

Members have been notified of the date of the first meeting. If you would like to be included, contact Joan Goularte at X4434, or call AIS at X4375.

Informer Conference, October 11-12, 2010

The first annual Informer conference, ICON, will be held October 11-12, 2010 in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Conference attendees with have an opportunity to enhance their Informer knowledge and learn about plans for the future of Informer. 

Interested in attending? Register at the conference website.  Registration is limited to 200 participants, so you will want to register soon.

For more information about our Informer report-writing tool, go to http://www.entrinsik.com - and, feel free to call AIS if you have questions.

Uppercase / Lowercase -- How does Colleague work?

In the name and address forms (as well as some others), Colleague will re-format the text that you key in, according to some rules. First of all, in a name, or an address, it will capitalizethe first letter of each word (characters separated by spaces). So, if you type in 15 main street, Colleague will automatically translate it to 15 Main Street 

However, Saint Mary's College has identified some exceptions to this basic rule: 

Converting to Upper Case

These words will always be translated to all uppercase:  PO, RR, NW, NE,  SW, SE, II, III, IV, V, APO, FPO, DVC

These words will NEVER be converted to uppercase:  and, in, the, by, for, of, a, an, on, de, la, to -- e.g. "corner of 4th and main" will convert to "Corner of 4th and Main" -- the words "of" and "and" will not be capitalized

The word following these words will be converted to uppercase:  Apartment, Apt, Box, Room, Rm, Suite, Ste -- therefore "box a" will become "Box A"

These character strings will be considered prefixes and the next letter will be converted to uppercase:  Mc, Mac, O', D' -- example: mcdonald will be converted to McDonald. 

Letters following these characters will be converted to upper case:  the period (.), the hyphen (-), the forward slash (/) -- e.g. smith-jones will be converted to Smith-Jones, the "J" capitalized because it follows a hyphen. 

And that's not all... 

Not converted to Upper Case

If these strings of characters follow a NUMBER, they will not be converted to upper case: th, st, nd, rd -- e.g. 1st, 2nd, 3rd

And then there are the EXCEPTIONS to the upper case rules:  Macon, Machine,  Macroeconomics, Mack, Machado -- if the upper case rules were invoked, Macon would become MacOn and Machine would become MacHine.  We have attempted to identify the words most often causing capitalization problems and placed them in the exceptions list. 

What to do if the rules are not working for a specific name or address? 

To override the uppercase rules in a name or address, begin with an equals sign (=) and then key in the characters exactly as they should appear.   For example, Machiavelli would normally convert to MacHiavelli. To keep this from happening, key in =Machiavelli. 

Questions??  Contact AIS@stmarys-ca.edu

Web Interface to Colleague

We have had Web U.I. available for Colleague for close to a year now. Check it out - we think you will find it convenient, and maybe a little faster than the PC based interface you might be currently using. Also, with the web-based interface, the scripts never update!! ya-hoo!

To access Web U.I., open your browser, and go to http://datatel.stmarys-ca.edu. Note that 1) A message saying the digital signature has an error will appear. Click the box that says "Always trust content from this publisher" and then click "RUN", 2) an SSL Certificate check will come up, and you can click "YES".
A new login page will pop up - choose "Colleague" or "live" for your Environment.

The Colleague CORE Team

The Colleague CORE team reviews issues with Colleague data that extends beyond one functional area. In most cases, this involves demographic information. The team evaluates problems and makes recommendations for changes to processes, procedures, or data elements.

A recent example of CORE team work involved changes in ethnicity and race reporting mandated by federal regulation. The team evaluated options, and developed a new code structure for ethnicity and race.

We urge all departments to have representation on the team. If your department would like to volunteer a staff person to serve on the Colleague CORE Team, send an email to AIS@stmarys-ca.edu, and we will include add them to the roster.

Colleague CORE membership:
Sam Agronow (Institutional Research)
Shiralee Batten (Admissions)
Jeanne Dematteo (Financials)
Joan Goularte (Development)
Linda Granko (Accounts Payable)
Lyone Harris (Registrar)
Robert Henderson (Provost)
John Hills (Payroll)
Sue Hooks (Financials, Accts Receivable)
Jane Joyce (Graduate Education)
Linda Judge (Financial Aid)
Ann Kelly (Human Resources)
Gwen Lucero (Student Life)
Priscilla Muha (Financial Aid)
Julia Odom (Registrar)
Cyndie Paul (Graduate Education)
Michael Viola (Facilities)

NEXT MEETING:
Friday, July 30th, 10:00AM in FAH 205

Datatel Users Group Conference and Expo 2010

Datatel Users Group Conference and Expo will be held March 29 - March 31 this year (2010). Sign up early! Registration begins on January 20th. Link: http://conference.datatel-users.org

New Ethnic Codes

Beginning Friday, January 22nd, 2010, data entry procedures for ethnicity codes will change. This change will fulfill our need to accommodate new ethnicity collection required for federal reporting. There are two new guidelines:

1. Discontinue using "Archived Ethnics" at this time. The "Archived Ethnics" field should NEVER be changed in the future
2. Begin to use these two fields: "Races" and "Ethnics".

Watch your email for documentation, scheduled to arrive on Thursday, January 21st.

Changing your Colleague font

Some Colleague users have noticed that the person lookup resolution screen is displaying in a font just slightly too small to read comfortably. You can customize the fonts in Colleague.

INSTRUCTIONS
a. from a menu, click on "Options" on the top task bar
b. select "Fonts"
c. the three choices will allow you to change the regular form font, the report display font, and the lookup resolution font. Choose a font and a size and you're ready to go!