The
University of Texas secures more student loans
and grants in less time.
The
University Of Texas, San Antonio (UTSA) was established
in 1969. It is the second largest university in the
University of Texas system. UTSA research expenditures
place it in the top 25 nationally.
To help students pay for tuition, the university takes
an extremely active role in securing Federally backed
loans and grants. Due to its size, UTSA took an unusually
long period of time to process the financial aid applications
submitted by students. UTSA realized that it needed
to find a more efficient method of processing the thousands
of forms it receives from students each semester.
THE SOLUTION
Image-X
proposed an integrated document management system for
scanning, routing and retrieval of the scanned student
financial aid applications. The system is integrated
with the existing DTS financial aid management
application which is running on an IBM mainframe
and provides comprehensive student financial information.
The student delivers the completed application to the
financial aid office. The forms are scanned in batches
and indexed using records in the existing DTS application
with a single keystroke. Each evening the DTS application
sends pertinent information from the students financial
aid application to the Department of Education's mainframe
system in Iowa which checks the loan history of each
student and evaluates the application for completeness.
The mainframe returns a status code based on its findings
to UTSA. The results of the batch processing triggers
the Image-X workflow software and each financial aid
application is automatically advanced to the appropriate
financial aid counselor based on the status code.
Documents no longer need to be hand carried from one
desk to another, no applications are lost or missing,
bottlenecks are eliminated and documents can be displayed
with a single keystroke.
Image-X Document Imaging and Workflow system,
combined with InveStore storage management software
from Pegasus, gave UTSA the ability to award
financial aid to eligible students sooner than before.
This enabled students to take more classes in a particular
semester, generating more revenue for UTSA each fiscal
year.
Adding workflow and document imaging to the existing
application also reduced the overall cost of processing
a financial aid application. Converting paper documents
into electronic documents allowed clerical staff and
counselors to be more productive.
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