The future of Colleague User Interface

There has been some speculation about where Datatel intends to go with the User Interface with Colleague. Since the Datatel Users Group, it is apparent that Datatel intends to phase out the User Interface as we now know it. Currently, there are two interfaces available from Datatel: The User Interface Desktop, and the UI Web Interface. The Desktop version is the one we all currently love and use. The UI Web interface looks similar to the desktop version except users access it through a normal web browser. We have the green light to install the UI Web Server on a production server and we are in the process of deploying it.

What is in store for us in the future is UI 4.0, which is based on UI Web, but 4.0 is much more robust. In using UI 4.0, users will have to think about processing records in a slightly different way. The current versions of UI, both desktop and web, use the process model. What that means is that you select a process like NAE, and then you look a person up. UI 4.0 is not like that. It is person based. What this means is that a user would first select a person or a group of people and then use that list against a process or a number of processes. What is good about this model is that unless you have a record open on the screen, you don't lock all the others you have selected to work on. The other good thing is that you have a list of say potential graduates that you want to work on and you know who they all are. You create your list and then process them through whatever screens you need to and so it's easier to keep track of what you have done and who you still need to process.

So what does this mean? At some future date UI 4.0 will be delivered. So potentially, you could access Colleague through UI desktop, UI Web and UI 4.0 simultaneously. The word on the street is that about a year after 4.0's delivery, Datatel would most likely announce the cessation date of support for UI desktop which will give schools another year or so to use the UI Desktop before it stops being supported.