Before their implementation with CampusESP, University of West Georgia (UWG) was struggling with a manual paper FERPA waiver process. UWG implemented CampusESP for FERPA Management in 2021 as a way to streamline their processes and create a more centralized place for faculty and staff to access FERPA waivers. CampusESP’s FERPA Management Module automates FERPA processes with digital permission waivers and provides families with easy visibility into student progress. UWG’s IT team worked with CampusESP to integrate with UWG’s Student Information System, Banner. Within two months, CampusESP and UWG IT teams worked together to set up and launch the simple integration. The FERPA Management implementation was smooth – more on that later.

Eric Cummings, UWG’s Applications Programmer, played a key role in modernizing UWG’s FERPA process through digital permission waivers. Cummings was responsible for developing the data reports for the integration. Within only two months, the integration launched – and UWG started seeing results. UWG experienced a 93% decrease in paper forms processed each month, resulting in 38 full workdays of staff time saved (and counting!). Cummings reflects on the successful implementation process, maintenance, and results from his perspective on the IT team.

“I felt like we got 90% of what we needed just from the documentation CampusESP provided.”

To help streamline the implementation process, CampusESP provides resources to university teams such as a report specification and configuration guide. Clear documentation helped UWG put together the exports in a short amount of time – UWG got their sFTP connection set up and started exchanging files within two weeks, according to Cummings.

UWG worked with CampusESP to make the following reports available to families:

• Credit hours

• Status

• Holds

• Financial Aid

• Financial Aid Requirements

• Transcript

• Account Balance

“For this type of integration, it’s a pretty simple means of exchanging information,” said Cummings. “It was very straightforward to understand what needed to be accomplished and I felt like we got 90% of what we needed just from the documentation CampusESP provided.”

For this type of project, the UWG team believes that involving the right people can help save time during the implementation and set the integration up for success in the long-run. 

“I'm a firm believer in taking the time to make sure you have the right types of people on the team when implementing projects,” said Ashlee Pollard, Director of Student Solutions at UWG, who spearheaded the FERPA Management project. “Eric mechanically understood what it takes to make an import work correctly and how to communicate with numerous relevant parties in an accessible manner.” 

“CampusESP was an exemplary implementation partner. They provided clear expectations and excellent support for integrating with our SIS. The right people on the CampusESP team were made available to us whenever we needed them. And once we got the integration off the ground, it just worked.”

– Eric Cummings, Applications Programmer at UWG

CampusESP helps improve UWG’s approach to secure student data

By switching to CampusESP, processes have also been streamlined for UWG departments involved in looking up FERPA waivers. Before using CampusESP, faculty and staff would reach out to a specific campus department to see if a student had a waiver on file. Now, the process is much more simple – more than 150 faculty and staff use CampusESP to look up FERPA waivers directly. Everything FERPA related is managed within one single platform, saving UWG faculty and staff even more time and effort. 

Additionally, providing easy visibility into student progress for families helps improve data privacy at UWG. Approved families are notified when important records change, which means they’re less likely to log into campus systems using their students’ college IDs and passwords to search for information. Since July 2021, over 2,600 UWG families have requested access to their student’s academic and financial information in CampusESP. 

“Any time that you can eliminate a manual paper based process, you're reducing all of those areas for human error in recording,” said Cummings. “Giving direct entry through CampusESP helps keep the integrity of the FERPA request in place.”

CampusESP takes security compliance and accessibility seriously, with all relevant and required processes and certifications in place (VPAT, HECVAT, etc). We’re also currently working on our SOC2.

UWG saves 38 workdays (and counting) with switch to CampusESP for FERPA Management

Using CampusESP for FERPA Management has helped streamline processes and improve efficiency for the UWG team. Prior to implementing CampusESP, UWG processed an average of 120 paper waiver forms each month. Now, they only average 8 per month. That comes out to a 93% decrease in the number of paper forms processed per month since launching CampusESP.

UWG took things a step further to calculate their exact time savings impact from FERPA processing improvements. It takes up to 10 minutes of staff time to manually enter each individual paper form into their SIS. As a result of having to do less manual data entry, UWG saved 38 full workdays of staff time over an 18-month period.

“From the IT perspective, we look at ourselves as a service provider,” said Cummings. “A win for UWG is a win for us,” said Cummings. 

The transition to CampusESP for FERPA Management from paper forms saved trees and time. UWG foresees even greater results in the years ahead. 

“One of the things I appreciate about CampusESP is that the team wants to truly partner with the institution,” said Cummings. “The CampusESP team shares ownership in achieving our institutional goals.”

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