Three Summer Interns and Their RPA Projects
This summer, three interns from the Computer Systems Department participated in developing automation projects using the Blue Prism Robotic Process Automation (RPA) system. This RPA system automates manual tasks and was used to eliminate manual data entry, extract data for streamlining cumbersome manual processes, and leverage optical character recognition to create custom displays. Our students received training in Blue Prism and completed the three RPA projects that are detailed below. The students worked under the tutelage of: Dr. Jill O’Sullivan, Chairperson, Computer Systems Department; Russell Esposito, Assistant Professor, Computer Systems Department; and our consulting partner IgniteIPA. Many FSC business partners were very involved in these projects and are named in each project description that follows.
Jake Gusew
The Excelsior Transfer Credit Verification process is completed hundreds of times each semester, and is very time consuming. Credit verification requires the employee to verify each incoming transfer student's credits from their Degreeworks audit. They do this by looking at the student’s transcript in the Banner system and recording the proper term the course was completed, where it was completed, and the credits earned. This process is difficult to automate from an RPA perspective, as many of the transcripts are inconsistent in layout, and are in the format of scanned PDFs. The solution to this problem is to use Optical Character Recognition software to determine the layout and contents of each transcript. When the solution is run, it produces a document that shows the employee exactly what they would need to verify the student’s credits, instead of the employee having to pick through the transcript manually.
Jake's Teammates:
- Diane Kazanecki Kempter, Director of Student Financial Services
- Matthew Roche, Application Specialist, IT
- Yolanda David, Lead Programmer, Administrative Computing
Janelle Poukamissas
Every semester Human Resources has to input appointment information for returning and new hire adjunct professors. This is done by gathering the appointment information from Interview Exchange and inputting that data into SUNY HR. All of the appointment information has to be manually entered into the system. This can take weeks for Human Resources employees to complete, taking them away from other work they could be doing. The solution was to use RPA technology to program a robot to do this data entry process. The robot would log on to Interview Exchange, export an excel sheet that holds all of the appointment information, and save the PDF version of the appointment forms. Then it would log on to SUNY HR and input that data into the system. By the end of the project the full process was completed and tested for this process.
Janelle's Teammates:
- Amy Zambrana, Associate Director, Human Resources
- Marybeth Incandela, Director, Human Resources
- Szu Yun (Adam) Chin
Szu Yun (Adam) Chin
Every time a student is being hired or rehired at Farmingdale, the work that is needed to get the student into the system is a highly manual process that goes across multiple systems. Student information has to be onboarded to the SUNYHR system manually in order for them to be selected for awards or to be paid. As a result, not many of our students are able to meet with the Work-Study Coordinator in a timely manner, which results in problems ranging from budget issues to a slow hiring process. So, the solution is to automate the onboarding process to be able to increase efficiency and reduce average wait times at the financial aid office. Then, in the end, the process will notify the departments of the new students and budgets available to that department in a report. To be more specific, we had the system extract details from all the forms needed and update the information in SUNYHR and Banner, filling in many queries on both systems and ultimately would save the time needed to allow the coordinators to be able to meet with students. From there on, we would generate a report based on all this information during each payroll period to send to departments.
Adam's Teammates:
- Ellen Weber, Controller, Finance
- Darlene Hayhow, Manager, Payroll
- Diane Kazanecki Kempter - Director of Student Financial Services