CASE STUDY: UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA

Challenge

Founded in 1908 in Edmonton, Alberta, the University of Alberta is among the five largest universities in Canada. The university’s current enrolment is over 36,000 with more than 2,700 students from more than 128 countries on study permits. With so many students from all over the world, tuition payment becomes difficult.

The University of Alberta tuition payment counter is on the third floor, and line-ups extend from the third floor to the main floor of the building at payment deadline. The University of Alberta Cashiers and Fees staff has to manually process thousands of credit card payments along with thousands of physical cheques at fee payment deadlines. This processing led to inevitable delays, keying errors and staff overtime. The Registrars Office also faced the challenge of constantly receiving phone calls from students inquiring about their student account details.

There was no standardized level of integration into the student financial and general ledger and it was difficult to govern compliance to various banking, credit cards, IT and auditor policies. IT security compliance and auditing was difficult, expensive and unfeasible in some cases.

Solution

In 2001, Bits In Glass provided a departmental solution to the University of Alberta that provided them a standardized approach to eCommerce for all business units and Faculties.

Results

The result was a timely solution which provided a secure platform for Student Receivables over the internet, integrated with the University’s existing web portal and interfaced with the central PeopleSoft system. The IT security compliance and auditing costs and effort were reduced. It enabled centralized integration with the Credit Card acquirer, which resulted in centralized monthly banking reconciliation and GST reporting on eCommerce without campus departmental effort. The compliance to banking, credit card, IT and auditors was simplified. Student financial and general ledger integrations implemented in one place for the entire campus.

"The online payment option has significantly reduced the manual hours required to input payments. With the reduction in these labour hours, we no longer required the position of cashier and have since abolished the position. We are extremely pleased with the online payment plan and look forward to continued advancements in this area.”

    - Financial Services Department, University of Alberta

In 2005, University of Alberta requested Bits In Glass to extend the original solution to a campus wide eCommerce platform. This centralized eCommerce platform provided an opportunity to manage the needs of different business models and heterogeneous technology platforms on campus to interface with the central computing resources and credit card processors in a consistent fashion.

“With over 4000 residents living within the University residences, payment for rent has become much easier since online Visa and MasterCard payments became an option. In the past, the cashier was required to manually enter approximately 1800 to 2000 post dated authorization payments monthly, for rent from our residents. Quite often this could take up to two weeks for one individual to complete.”

    - Residence Services Department, University of Alberta

Any prospective resident who has been confirmed a space in residence, can now pay their rents online. “The Housing staff is no longer required to enter Visa and MasterCard payments from walk-in residents who used to come to the offices to pay their rent since these students can now go online and pay at their own convenience. These payments used to be entered manually by the Housing staff, which required many hours of inputting and we often needed to hire additional staff over the summer to complete this,” says the Residence Services Department of University of Alberta. “We are extremely pleased with the online payment plan and look forward to continued advancements in this area.”

For More Information
Find out more about ePayment Gateway, please visit www.bitsinglass.com/web/guest/products/epg or contact us at info@bitsinglass.com.

 

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