Background: High Volume, Manual Entry, and a Persistent Backlog
Pasco-Hernando State College processes a high volume of transfer and external-credit documents through Banner, with peak periods in January (after the December break) and July (as newly graduated high-school students finalize their plans before the fall term). The evaluation team handles transfer credit alongside special-admission and limited-access programs, state reporting, and graduation work.Â
We spoke with Ryan Truitt, Pasco-Hernando State College’s Registrar, about what changed after the institution implemented Smart Panda Tools.Â
The Challenge: Manual Entry, and a Persistent Backlog
Before Smart Panda Tools, the workflow was manual. Staff entered every term, course, grade, and credit value from each transfer document into Banner by hand, and with the team also responsible for special-admission programs and state reporting, the data entry was the bottleneck.Â
“The most time-consuming thing was manually entering everything into our student information system. It’s not even close. That’s the most time-consuming part of it.”Â
The consequences showed up at just the wrong moments. During peak periods, the backlog climbed to as many as 1,600 documents waiting to be processed. Postings to student records stalled, and staff felt the pressure of weekly goals they couldn’t always hit when a program deadline pulled them away.Â
“Depending on the peak time of year, we’d be sitting with up to 1,600 documents waiting to get done.” Â
For transfer students, that delay carries real weight: many will commit to the first school that confirms their credit.Â
The Solution: Automated Extraction, Team Verified, Posted to Banner
Pasco-Hernando implemented Raptor, integrated into their Banner environment through our integration partners, BeBravo. Documents arrive in the institution’s CRM: many delivered automatically, others uploaded by staff. A query identifies new, unprocessed documents and routes them to Raptor, which extracts and structures the academic history. Evaluators review Raptor’s output, verify it against the source, and push the verified data into Banner’s transfer articulation screens.Â
Crucially, the institution’s investment in its own articulation rules does the heavy lifting on familiar coursework, so most documents from high-volume sending schools flow through with only a quick check.Â
“You still have the human looking through it, you’re just not doing the manual entry. And it’s more than OCR, because we’ve already built our articulation table. For the schools we get the most transcripts from, unless it’s some really off-the-wall program, I almost don’t have to look at it. Do I have ten courses in and ten courses out? It’s done.”Â
The BeBravo team also built in automation the institution hadn’t expected: holds that apply automatically when a transcript shows in-progress coursework, so a student can’t register for the next term until their final transcript is posted.Â
“The BeBravo team even created automated holds that activate if courses are listed as ‘in progress,’ so a student can’t register for the next term until we have their final transcript.” Â
Operational Results: Throughput Doubled, Backlog Nearly Gone
The volume the team could process climbed quickly. Against a pre-launch average of roughly 400 transfer documents a month, output rose sharply once the new workflow was live.Â
“Before we went live, we averaged around 400 transfer documents a month. The first month we were live was up 75%, May was up 100%, and now we’re over 100% for June.”Â
The backlog that used to define peak season has nearly disappeared.Â
“According to our current count, we’re at about 200. I think we’re on the verge of being completely through that backlog.”Â
The team is now closing in on same-week turnaround, posting documents within the week they’re received (even through the July peak), and students are notified automatically once their documents are received and posted to their record, rather than waiting and wondering.Â
Strategic Impact: A Less-Stressed Team, Refocused
With data entry no longer dominating their week, the team has room to do the work that needs human expertise.Â
“They seem to be less stressed, and they’re able to devote more time to their other duties.” Â
The change was clear enough that Ryan raised the team’s weekly processing goals, and expects the workflow to keep getting easier as the remaining manual queries are automated. The reclaimed time goes to graduation work, the institution’s limited-access programs, and direct communication with students about their status.Â
On the implementation itself, often the part institutions dread, the experience stood out.Â
“This was the easiest, most stress-free implementation you could possibly imagine. The teams were very responsive. I moved the goalposts on them a little, I asked for some extra data for our state reporting, and they got it in before we went live.” Â
If you have the room in your budget, you’re going to save a lot of time. For me, it lets me refocus the team on other things: graduation, our limited-access programs, communicating with students. They still do this work, but they don’t have to spend as much time on it.”Â
— Ryan Truitt Registrar, Pasco Hernando State College