Case Studies

Helping a leading math and science academy improve processes

The Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) is an internationally-recognized pioneering educational institution created by the State to develop talent and stimulate excellence in teaching and learning in mathematics, science and technology. IMSA's advanced residential college preparatory program enrolls 650 academically talented Illinois students in grades 10 through 12 each year. More than 14,000 teachers and 20,000 students in Illinois and beyond have benefited from IMSA's professional development and enrichment programs. IMSA serves the people of Illinois through innovative instructional programs, public and private partnerships, policy leadership, and action research.

Several software packages were used to facilitate the administration of IMSA. IMSA received a technology grant to update its technical infrastructure and wished to replace the existing set of applications and move to a tightly integrated solution providing a single repository for all student information. In addition, IMSA wanted this student information package to be closely integrated with a new financial information package and human resources administration system. IMSA recognized that limited internal resources would be available for selection and implementation.

To reduce escalating costs of disparate systems and achieve operational efficiency, IMSA sought to create a tightly integrated solution for student, financial and human resource information.

Impart helped IMSA identify application needs, perform vendor selection, and finally to implement the new student information and financial systems. The following business functions were required for each component:

• admissions
• curriculum and scheduling
• records and registration
• grading
• attendance
• student accounts
• student life

• general ledger
• accounts payable
• accounts receivable
• cash management
• asset management
• procurement
• budgeting
• grant management

• payroll
• recruitment
• employee relations
• contract administration
• classification
• compliance
• benefit administration
• student employment
• time and attendance

Impart met with several functional user groups within IMSA to identify requirements, manage the selection process and evaluate vendor responses to determine how well they met IMSA's needs on functionality, support and costs. Impart recommended ACRUX LLC, a vendor with innovative software solutions for student and financial management. The implementation of the student management was a phased approach starting in October, 2003.

For both system implementations, Impart facilitated a series of workshops to ensure that the student and financial systems were used to IMSA's advantage in critical areas. Users participated in review and sign-off of functional requirements, frequent user validation group meetings, and user acceptance testing.

The student management system provides full functionality for student information and scheduling. Impart implemented the following solutions through a customization toolset within the student system:

• Admissions - Provides the ability for applications to be submitted via the web. The review process for applicants is managed entirely within Acrux. Applicants are able to view the status of their application file through the entire review process and pay the application fee online
• Student records and registration - Allows advisors to make appropriate adjustments to student schedules. Provides ongoing and annual maintenance for student information. Prints official transcripts and grade reports.
• Grading - Allows faculty to submit interim performance reports between official grading periods. Also automatically notifies faculty of students taking coursework pass/fail.
• Attendance - Provides attendance clerk the ability to monitor attendance records throughout the day and send notifications via email to students, parents and residence life counselors of unexcused tardiest, absences and potential repercussions.
• Student life - Helps track residence life and housing information, community and work service, medical history and insurance information, extracurricular activities and counseling/disciplinary actions.

Impart implemented the first module for the financial management system in April, 2004. IMSA uses zero-based budgeting for the budget process. Aside from the base-budget request, the challenge for budgeting was that any other request had to be identified separately, such as software or infrastructure equipment. To meet this challenge, Impart created another school district within the application with an additional element added to the account code structure. Once the budget was approved after several reviewing processes, the budget request had to be summarized at the standard account code structure and loaded in IMSA's financial district. An additional district was added to track student funds for clubs and extracurricular activities, as well as one for a non-for-profit organization that raises funds for IMSA.

The remaining modules - purchasing, accounts payable, account receivable, and human resources - went live in July 2004. IMSA is an Illinois state agency; therefore a majority of the checks are generated by the Illinois Office of the Comptroller. Historically, IMSA manually typed the voucher documents and mail to the Comptroller's Office. Impart helped build an interface using PL/SQL in which a flat file is generated and uploaded via FTP to the Illinois Computer Management Service and from there interfaced to the Comptroller Office's Statewide Accounting and Management System.

With Impart's strategic solutions, IMSA now has a flexible student system in which additional functionality can be added to replace old systems. Student information is produced from a single source of data held in a relational database. The financial system provides greater financial control and easy-to-use inquiry and drill-down functionality.

The implementation of an integrated student and financial management system streamlined seven core business functions: admissions, academic administration, student life, scheduling, accounting, budgeting, procurement, and human resources. Impart helped IMSA reduce cycle times and paper volume and facilitate better decision making through real-time information.