Forward Progress for Students and Staff
Updated January 09, 2020

Forward Progress for Students and Staff

Alicia Meyer | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Colleague Student

Colleague tracks students across departments around the university. My institution uses it as a comprehensive student tracking tool, monitoring everything from housing assignments, billing, class scheduling, student discipline, and chapel attendance. It keeps all relevant student data in a single, secure source, and it ensures that professionals across campus are aware of student needs and status. In Student Development I primarily use it for student housing. Once I make a housing assignment, accounting has instant access to it for student billing without my sending a roster to them.
  • Colleague offers a single reference point for all student data, which creates consistency and unity across campus and ensures students hear the same information from every source.
  • Colleague recently updated its interface to be more accessible to all people. Previously, it was not accessible through any browser aside from Internet Explorer.
  • Colleague provide helpful user restrictions that prevent departments from altering or erasing data they do not typically use. For example, I cannot change student billing and accidentally wreak havoc for the cashier's office.
  • Although user restrictions are helpful, they require intense forethought and preparation. Prior to use on campus, system administrators must carefully consider user permissions to decrease the likelihood of information sharing disasters.
  • Accessibility also has some challenges. The new interface opens on all browsers, but the software does not contain all of the functions of the previous version. Users must choose accessibility or information; they cannot have both.
  • Colleague's operating system does not mirror common systems, so learning it can be a long, slow process.
  • Colleague unites campus and translates well across departments, which eases communication between employees working with student data.
  • Colleague tracks students and alumni, which reduces the amount of new data entry. A student in the system remains there forever, thus offering a holistic perspective of a student's history with the institution.
  • Colleague's systems limit data access and browser use, which does not encourage widespread use on campus.
I did not use Jenzabar as extensively as Colleague, but they perform similar functions for student information tracking. I think Colleague is more appropriate for use across campus, as its student billing and scheduling options exceed Jenzabar. Jenzabar, however, offers better tools for use exclusively in student affairs. If an organization wants to track all student data, they should consider Colleague.
Colleague ensures all campus officials have access to the same information in a central location. It ensures students are scheduled for courses and automatically matches the registered courses with fees for student billing. Similarly, it automatically syncs housing assignments with the proper billing amount and updates as students pay tuition and fees. It is least helpful in student conduct, and my institution recently adopted a new, comprehensive software to fill the gap. Colleague tracks student data, not student interactions.