Education

Senate® has world class capabilities in the development and management of applications, IT project delivery in complex environments, and service delivery. The company wide capabilities are leveraged to provide world class solutions to the Education sector.

Our accredited consultants form part of our dedicated Education Practice that focuses on delivering Education Projects and Services globally.

Senate® provides "vision to completion" enterprise services and solutions for:

• Project strategy and planning consultation
• Project budgeting
• Vendor selection
• Custom development
• Project implementation and integration
• Hosted services

For more than a decade, Senate® has been a leader in providing business application solutions to higher education clients globally.

Our higher education expertise is tailored specifically to meet the demands of different educational institutions. It may be a community college, traditional college, university, research institution, public, private or for-profit institution. Senate® also possesses strong skills in IT infrastructure management services and application development. We assist clients with maintenance, conversions and upgrades to their technology infrastructure across all major platforms.

We have helped our application partners develop an array of custom solutions tailored to the needs of higher education institutions. This includes recruitment, admissions, student records, academic advising, transcripts, graduation, financial aid, student billing, and alumni management.

Higher Education Services

Strategic Guidance

Building a sound strategy is the cornerstone for a successful project. Senate® provides best practices and industry recommendations that allow your institution to create a business plan and support your project planning efforts. Our strategic planning includes:

• Assessment of project costs and resources
• Business processes and methods
• Operations
• Data flow and usability
• Technology
• Performance parameters

Project Definition, Planning and Budgeting

Project definition, planning and budgeting are crucial foundational activities after the definition of the project vision, scope, objectives and governance. Senate®’s project definition and planning examines the level at which your institution is prepared for a new enterprise system initiative or implementation. This phase provides the assurance that project participants, including executives, administration, faculty, and students understand the project goals. All of them need to agree on how the project objectives will be achieved. Project Definition and Planning addresses factors such as:

• Project Governance and personnel skill set
• Infrastructure
• Project milestones and timelines
• Project risk assessment

Your institution might be facing the challenges of:

• Replacing legacy systems
• Staying competitive to attract high-quality students and faculty
• Streamlining business processes
• Improving the quality of information to facilitate better decisions – often within a declining budget

With our experience and network of higher education customers, we can help you to accurately estimate, validate, and justify the real costs for meeting these challenges.

Organizational Change Management

Organizational change management encompasses activities that help institutions successfully manage the user acceptance of new processes and systems. Ultimately, the ability to realize your vision for a new enterprise system lies with the users who must change the way they work. Senate® works with you to develop a change management strategy and form a dedicated team of “Change Agents”. This is done to successfully implement and achieve acceptances of the changes in organizational policy, business processes, and technology.

Business Process Assessment

Business process assessment, a necessary course of action when a new system or application is implemented, helps ensure a smooth transition to the new environment. This assessment analyzes and redesigns business processes and workflows prior to implementing a new system.

Senate®’s Business Process Assessment includes:

• Documenting and mapping current and needed business processes
• Prioritizing business processes based upon value impact analysis
• Facilitating workshops to design new business process models
• Preparing implementation plans for business process improvement, testing and deployment

Enterprise Security Assessment

Senate® offers a full suite of assessments to evaluate the security practices, vulnerabilities, risks, regulatory compliance, and overall security strategy of higher education institutions. Our assessments provide a comprehensive, objective review of the presence and effectiveness of technical and programmatic security controls. Senate® can provide several types of assessments to meet your security needs:

• Risk and Vulnerability Assessment
• Regulatory Compliance Analysis
• Institution Security Strategy
• Identity Theft Assessment
• Business Continuity Management

With these assessments, Senate® will provide a full range of monitoring and management services for reliable and consistent protection. This includes:

• Real-time 24x7 event monitoring
• Security device and vulnerability management
• Event correlation
• Compliance reporting
• Incident investigation
• Response and recovery

Implementation and Integration Services

Senate® provides a unique combination of technical software knowledge, functional expertise, and project management experience. This combination helps customers streamline decision-making and reduce implementation time. Our implementation services adhere to a proven methodology that helps control costs, effectively manage project schedules, and minimize risks.

Based on Senate®’s experience with a wide range of hardware, software and enterprise solutions, we have developed a well-deserved reputation for providing best-in-class Integration Services and Solutions. Senate® has developed powerful toolsets that integrate different applications and systems together, link front and back-office systems and connect legacy components with the latest technology.

Upgradation and Migration Services

Upgradation and migration services are important and essential steps in expanding the depth and breadth of your system. Senate® works with your team to ensure that your upgradation and migration are well planned and seamless, thus maintaining the integrity of your existing data.

Application Development and Management

Senate® works with technology companies to provide cost-effective solutions to deliver operational development activities like redeveloping modules into updated thick and thin client applications.

Senate® offers scalable end-to-end application development and management solutions from requirement analysis to deployment and rollout. We have a wide expertise in design and development in diverse platforms, best-of-breed tools and techniques, combined with industry best practices,

Our mature and proven service delivery framework instills stringent quality measures in our processes to enable us in providing predictable, low-risk, high-quality development and maintenance services.

Senate® services span the following application lifecycle stages:

• Application Development – Providing end-to-end development from requirement analysis to deployment and rollout. The application may be bespoke or a COTS-based product.
• Application Maintenance – Changing or enhancing software to meet changing or increasing business demands in the post-rollout phase of an application.
• Application Support – Providing first, second, third line support, and on-call support. On-call support further includes Gold (24x7), Silver and Bronze support.
• Application Integration/Migration/Transformation – Replacing, migrating and integrating legacy or bespoke systems with COTS products.
• Application Management – The application management layer cuts across all software engineering activities listed above. Senate® takes complete ownership of the outsourced suite of applications as per the agreed scope and manages the support. This typically involves transition management, project management, proactive risk and scope change management, quality management, SLA management etc.

IT Operations

Senate®’s outsourcing solutions helps to achieve the following throughout an organization:

• Reduce risk
• Lower cost of ownership
• Streamline IT management
• Minimize downtime

Our experts can help improve user community and IT infrastructure support without upfront investments or management hassle. This lets off your internal resources for focusing on the new initiatives that adds value to your institution. We will keep you up and running while you concentrate on extending the capabilities of the investments you have made in administrative systems.

Business Intelligence

Senate® offers a unique approach to Business Intelligence (BI) specially tailored to the needs of higher education. This gives you the analytical tools to make the right strategic decisions for your institution. To cite just a few examples, you’ll be able to:

• Minimize the repeated efforts often involved in preparing reports with increased automation.
• Track students in ways you have imagined in the past – the original prospect referral source, how many submitted admission applications, how many enrolled, how many graduated (retention), and how many are contributing alumni. You can drill even deeper to understand the demographics of the students you are harvesting (recruiting) and where they come from.
• Analyze every facet of your fundraising activities, such as, institution campaigns, fundraising, gift giving, or memberships to understand exactly what’s succeeding and what isn’t.
• Give your department heads a full view of their budgets and the impact of spending options in compliance with the many financial requirements they must meet. You can also provide the ability to do year to year comparison across all modules, such as, admissions, student records, academic advisement, financial aid, student financials, etc.