York University

Re-engineered Systems Create
a Cohesive, Adaptable Business Environment

Background

York University is located in Toronto, Ontario, and has a total enrollment of over 43,000 students. As a province-supported coed university, the University awards bachelor's, master's, doctorate, and first professional degrees to students from around the world.

Challenge

Historically, York University's Registrar, Housing, Telecom, and Parking offices each had its own tracking system to track and record students accounts receivable (e.g. tuition, room and board, telephone bills, parking permits, etc). This disparate systems have evolved independently over time and lack consistency in functionality and design. Each department has its own set of procedures for tracking and recording student revenue, and its own payment model. As a result, each departmental application is maintained separately.

To deal with these problems, York University decided to consolidate the departmental revenue tracking systems into a single, enterprise-wide application. The goal of the new system is to create a consistent and unified revenue tracking application which will be easier to use, offer higher levels of customer (student) satisfaction, and transparently interoperate with various technologies accross the University. The system also needs to enforce university-wide business policies and accounting procedures. Because these policies and procedures are subject to change, the system has to be adaptable enough to quickly and easily accomodate changes in the future.

Solution

To consolidate their multiple revenue tracking systems, York has chosen USoft Developer as their core design and development environment. The final unified system, referred to as the Student Accounts Receivable System (STARS), provides functions for cashiering / cash management, financial aid (including deferrals, payment plans and short-term loans), human resources (employee waivers, Canada revenue tax statements), and produces monthly accounts receivable statements for students.

USoft Batch Server loads EDI bank payment transactions into STARS as well as processes revenue transactions for other systems (Registrar's office, Housing, Telecom, etc). STARS consolidates these transactions for a summarized feed to the Financial Reporting System.

The USoft Server/Client toolset enables the STARS application to seamlessly interoperate across heterogeneous environments that include many diverse technologies, including: DCE, DDE, Microsoft Windows Clients, Sun Solaris / Sun SPARC 10 Servers, Chrystal Reports, Card Swipe Keyboards, Receipt printers, and EDI. USOft's transparent deployment also will enable STARS to interoperate with the Human Resource System and the locally developed Student Information System.

USoft's dynamic repository and object architecture provide STARS with the required ability to quickly modify the application as their business changes. For example, half way through the development project the University made a major change to the chart of accounts structure which is fundamental to the STARS business model. If York had been using a 3GL or 4GL development tool, this change may have meant an entire redesign and reconstruction of the application. Instead, the development team at York has been able to quickly modify the system to reflect these changes by updating the central system definitions stored in the repository.

Benefits

The development of STARS enables York to enforce university-wide policies and procedures under a unified, enterprise-wide revenue tracking system. As a result, York reduces costs by eliminating redendant activities across many departments. It also improves customer service by creating a simplified payment model which consolidated univewrsity-related expenses into a single statement for each student.

USoft's Server/Client software toolset provides York with the ability to leverage its technology to build and deploy a highly cohesive IT environment. USoft's transparent interoperability accross heterogeneous environments allows York to focus on addressing their business problems instead of the underlying technologies. And when the University's business requirements (i.e. accounting procedures) change, the application is easily adapted to meet these changed needs.

Conclusion

USoft's Server/Client software toolset is the only solution capable of enabling York University to create a unified revenue tracking system across disparate technolgies while accomodating significant midcourse changes to fundamental business requirements

USoft: The Server/Client Software Company

To investigate a partnership with USoft for developing and implementing server/client solutions, call toll-free at 1-800-For-USoft, or call one of our offices.
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