Shelby Klingerman, Content Curator |

Background

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville was established in 1866 as the first teacher preparation school in Wisconsin. Presently, the student population consists of roughly 6,800 students on campus and 2,300 distance learning students.

Stephanie Cooley, a Functional Analyst who works in the Center for Distance Learning at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, presented to Quest users about how they implemented PeopleSoft Activity Guides to decrease staff workload and increase student satisfaction. Their previous method included a lot of customizations that were hard to manage, so they knew that moving to delivered functionality was the right choice for them.

Some components that the University of Wisconsin-Platteville had to consider before the move to PeopleSoft Activity Guides included the different formatting and sessions between undergraduate and graduate students as well as the overlapping enrollment timeframes between the three terms—summer, spring and fall.

Key Requirements

There were five requirements that the University of Wisconsin-Platteville knew it needed to meet if they were going to implement PeopleSoft Activity Guides. The requirements included:

• One Registration Agreement per student per career per term.
• One Payment Method per student per career per term.
• The ability to prevent registration if not completed.
• The ability to mass-assign holds and tasks before the opening of registration.
• The ability to single-assign new admissions.

Initial Implementation of PeopleSoft Activity Guides

They were able to implement their Registration Agreement Activity Guide in March 2016 before their summer term enrollment and it was a big success. They cloned and reused them for future terms.

They also cloned the Registration Agreement Activity Guide to create the Payment Method Activity Guide. The completion of the Registration Agreement task now assigns the Payment Method task. They were able to implement the Payment Method Activity Guide in October 2016, before the spring term enrollment.

The Benefits of PeopleSoft Activity Guides

The major benefits of implementing Activity Guides that the University of Wisconsin-Platteville saw was the minimal upkeep required and the ease of use. They were able to clone and reuse templates and update any timely or new information such as dates, new policies, etc.

They also saw fewer student questions and issues because the Activity Guides were more intuitive than their previous system and that saved a lot of time for the staff. It also saved the IT staff time because they were using delivered functionality instead of managing a large number of customizations.

Learn More About PeopleSoft Activity Guides

To learn more about the University of Wisconsin-Platteville’s move to Activity Guides, tips for what to watch out for and their plans for the future, check out the full presentation: Hitting the Heights! How We Used Activity Guides to Decrease Workload and Increase Satisfaction.