Room scheduling software RFP

Academic Support Resources (ASR) and Office of Classroom Management (OCM) have an active Request for Proposals (RFP) for the University’s academic room scheduling system to ensure that the tools we use meet the evolving needs of the institution and comply with University policy. Astra is the University’s current academic room scheduling system vendor.

We’ve received vendor responses, conducted demos and usability with two finalists, and made reference calls to determine a fit with the University's needs. ASR is working with Purchasing, the Office of the General Counsel, and University Information Security to negotiate a contract with our top finalist. More information will be available when a contract is signed.

Update from Stacey

Thank you everyone for attending the OUE event this week, whether virtually or in person. Minnesota winter has definitely arrived!

Please be sure to check out the kudos and the OSF update section below. It’s wonderful to see ASR supporting each other. As usual, we have a lot going on. Something that I have learned in this role is that we often have work happening related to our various vendor contracts. We will have several RFP’s starting in order to follow university procedures and evaluate vendors. Parchment and Nelnet services will be going through this process soon. We just renewed our contract with NameCoach and will likely be extending our ECSI contract as well. As I said, there is a lot going on even as we enter the holiday season. Thanks for everything you do!

Vendor selected for degree planning tools

The RFP process to replace degree planning tools (i.e., Graduation Planner and Schedule Builder) is nearly complete. After extensive consultation with the University user community and a thorough review of several options, an external vendor was selected. Negotiations with the vendor have begun. Until a contract is signed and its gone through legal review, the name of the chosen vendor is confidential within the University. The Degree Planning Advisory Group will be reconvened to plan implementation of that tool, probably in stages, over time. We hope an integrated degree planning toolset will really help our students. Thank you to all in ASR who worked on this effort for more than a year!