Title: Forms & Workflows
Members: Colleen Forest (team leader), Michael Lee, Asha Ramachandra, Stephany Rodriguez, and Melissa Silva
About: In 2023, the Registrar’s Office received and processed nearly 3,500 student-initiated requests that required staff to manually update the student record. Our team investigated ways to simplify form submissions and student-initiated requests with more automated routing and communication to improve the operational side of the student experience.
Summary of Findings:
- Most student-initiated requests are related to º£½ÇÉçÇø and campus policies that vary on who must approve an action, such as Late Add Petitions, Course Withdrawals, Couse Substitutions, Change of Major, Enrollment Verifications, and more.
- Adobe Sign is the preferred software for student-initiated requests, but it poses many difficulties such as student follow-through after the initial request and requests that require multiple approvers where the onus is on the student to find their name and email address.
- Unrelated to the workflow functionality, the complexity and lack of clarity of a particular process or policy can cause confusion and frustration for students and º£½ÇÉçÇøCI employees.
- Rapid changes in workflows and processes over the past several years created multiple formats, including fillable forms, Adobe Sign, web applications, and still the occasional static form has led to an inconsistent user experience when navigating operations.
- Adopting any of our team’s recommendations will impact multiple departments including Registrar’s Office, Student Systems, and ITS (Information Technology Services). It will be important to approach our planning and timelines by considering competing campus priorities from stakeholders.
Summary of Recommendations:
- Utilize custom web applications with PeopleSoft integration to create automated routing.
- Status Update: Facilitating departments agree and plan for the work of developing additional custom web applications, focusing on forms that have the broadest student impact. This work will begin in fall 2024.
- Ensure workflow documentation is memorialized should the need arise to migrate to
a different platform in the future.
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Status Update: This work is underway and will continue in fall 2024.
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- Prepare to overhaul student forms thoughtfully and sustainably by organizing all request
types, documenting the various approvers, and determining the most frequently submitted
forms to assist in building out a realistic timeline.
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Status Update: Facilitating departments agree and have already prioritized the list of forms and will create a timeline in fall 2024 with first-round of implementations during spring 2025.
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- Work with the Registrar’s Office to examine the resources and direction available
on our website to streamline the information to students. Processes identified as
confusing or difficult to explain should be targeted first.
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Status Update: Facilitating departments agree and plan to update website, as appropriate, upon completion of revised web applications and student forms.
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- Collaborate with Academic Advising to get feedback from students to ensure the information
is easily digestible.
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Status Update: Not yet started.
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The assumption at the beginning was that it was primarily the mechanism of submission itself, e.g. Adobe Sign or static PDF, that was the source of inefficiency, but it has also been demonstrated that the current style of communicating instructions for completing requests also needs to be updated and clarified. We hope our recommendations to improve both the workflows and communication to students will improve the user experience for all.
Click here to read our full report. (, 260 K)