Thursday, April 10, 2008

Breakout Session #2 - Integration Services

This session was an overview of the capabilities of the Campus Management Integration Services team as well as a list of examples for how to utilize the APIs. The session was presented by:


Pablo Civalero
Ernie Rowell

5 Ways to Use

  1. Integration with Legacy SIS systems
  2. Integration with Attendance/Card Swipe
  3. Grades to LMS integration
    1. 4 Main areas of Integration
      1. Students, courses, Grades, Attendance

  4. Lead Routing to appropriate admissions Rep.
  5. Lead Servicers
  6. Concept of Packaged solutions

    • Lower cost
    • Implement via configuration rather than programming
    • EX. eLeads Express

    Can also use Integration Services to create Integrations with the CampusVue Portal rather than the CampusVue application itself.

    Structure of Integration Services

    This group is a subset of Professional Services.

    Advantages

    Product knowledge

    Industry knowledge

    Training Methodology

    Access to Custom tool set

    Problem Solving Methodology

Session #1 - CampusLink APIs

This session was intended to be an overview of the technical components of CampusManagement's APIs. The sessions were presented by:

Phil Cutajar
Louis Ziggenhardt (? aka Ziggy)

Phil started the session out with an overview of the progression of systems architecture.
  • 1st generation - mainframe
  • 2nd generation - client server
  • 3rd generation - Web Based (Portal)
  • 4th Generation - Middle Tier
    • This is where business rules are applied
    • API is an interface to be able to interact with these business rules
Ziggy takes over Presentation
  • Framework - A new middle tier
    • Campus needed to create the business entity layer for the processes and rules
  • What do the APIs offer?
  1. Security
    • Need authentication
    • SSL
    • Transaction level security (user roles honored, auditing, rollback)
  2. Standard Messaging
  3. Validations (syntax, semantics, business rules)
  4. Error Handling
  5. Scalability
What is the Platform
  • Currently is .NET 3.0
  • Go to .NET 3.5 with V10
  • C#.NET
  • SQL Server ( 2008)
Future Strategy and Planning
  • Consolidate redundant code (remove business rules from client)
  • Partners (CRM, Learning, Cornerstone, vantage)
  • Use of Biz talk for passing transactions from client
WCF will handle all workflow areas
  • Implies that there will be a transition period
  • Business Process APIs for the "short term"
  • All new development will go through WCF and Workflow APIs
API Processing can be scheduled
  • Bottleneck becomes the DB
    • API architecture handles this better due to more efficient transaction types
Requirements for Deploying APIs
  • Software Development group well versed in SOAP based Architecture
  • MS IIS and .NET Environment
  • Mature CampusVue implementation
Support Resources
  • Documentation
  • Integration Services Group
When will Documents and Status change APIs be available
  • Currently can get these through Integrations Services but they will not be rolled out into the released product for a while.

Opening Session

This post is from the Opening Session of CampusInsight 2008. The User Conference for Campus Management software. I freely admit that I am new to this blogging stuff and because of this fact, I took substantial liberties in editing content after the event.

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The Campus Management Insight 2008 conference opened with the presentation of a video about the college learners of today. Click Here for the video.

Cathy Snoddy then came up on the screen with her 2nd life avatar and introduced several of the new tools available via 2nd life. Can we, the Higher Education Community, teach using virtual worlds? What are the advantages of using these tools? How long will it take before we can get good at it?

Cathy then physically came up on stage and went into her presentation about the history and direction of education.

Education 0.0 - Teaching in the town square.

Education 1.0 - Some structure developed along with walls and building and SILOS where sage on the stage was the predominant model.

Education 2.0 - Introduction of distance learning. This is still largely a silo environment where only students and teachers are interacting. To prepare students for the real world we need to include/involve more external input.

But this does NOT mean Education 2.1 - No creepy Tree Houses. No silo environments.

Education 3.0 - Will we be ready for
  • Blogs
  • Wikis
  • Mashups
  • Virtual Worlds (There?)
  • Ubiquitious Access using the students tool sets
Cathy's conclusion is that this is what students of tomorrow will demand.


The session then went into the parade of Campus Management Executives:

Mahendran Jawaharlal - Chief Operating Officer
• Thank yous for those who coordinated the conference
• New Records set for this conference
  • 435+ people
  • 140+ Institutions
• Next year's conference will be at the Rosen Hotel in Orlando

Tim Loomer - President and CEO (10 Minutes)
Tim spoke about his background, first 60 days, and the future of CM

Tim's Background
  • Sold Scantron
  • Fell in love with CM
  • Moved to Boca
First 60 Days
  • Committed to CM improvement processes
  • Spoke with several customers (approx. 20 within first 60 days)
  • Discussed his impression of the customer base.
Future of CM
  • Discussed desire to move learning tools inward so there are training tools etc.
  • Importance of measuring. New team being led by Tim Gilbert. Focus on metrics for various tasks.
  • Focus on finishing up initiatives in place rather than starting other new initiatives.
  • Look at release process, and review the number of releases per year. Don't want to force training sessions upon customers for new releases. STABILITY and QA focus for next 12 months.
3 Commitments
  1. Transparency
  2. Outward facing toward customers
  3. Continuous Improvement
Jason Roberts - Chief Strategy Officer

Jason's role was to put the current state of Higher Education and specifically the Campus Management Software Tools in a broad Perspective. Quick review of history of 20 years ago, 10 years ago - > This led into a very nice tribute to David Meek. While it wasn't particularly engaging from a content standpoint, it was nice to see the culture of the company paying respects to its originator.

Patric Edmondson - SVP of Product Development

OK. Lesson number 1 - this blogging thing really takes a lot of battery power and mine are about to run out. When are these conference centers going to make power more readily available?