Academic Advisor Appointment Scheduling: Allowing Single Sign On for Students and Staff

Convenience of Single Sign On for Online Scheduling

As the students leave for summer break many colleges and universities across the nation are taking a deeper look into features that allow students to use resources online.  The newest of this engagement is student advisor appointment scheduling.  This feature gives students access to the available schedules of their advisors to book appointments conveniently online.

This resourceful option has many benefits to the student  and staff experience.  For one, the staff will notice a reduction in the number of students calling to book an appointment.  Second, student will be comfortable in managing their advisor appointments via the friendly email reminders send by the web-based scheduling system.  Still, there are many questions that arise in reviewing which solution to buy and what enhancements are available.

Does having an online appointment scheduling solution from a qualified vendor mean that students and staff must use two separate log in ID’s?  Actually NO, the for most institutions moving to towards an appointment setting system there is always the option to use Single Sign On or SSO.  SSO has improved many student portal applications.  Online reference source Wikipedia states that “With this property a user logs in once and gains access to all systems without being prompted to log in again at each of them.”* Depending on the set up of the application students and staff would access the scheduling tool and use their unique campus log in identification information.  In other case this means that any user that is logged into to their institution portal will find the ‘schedule an appointment’ button and be directed into the scheduler, no dual log in required in either set up.

Has SSO given students and staff an online experience that is virtual and engaged?  According to Janet Kalunian, Associate Director at Boston College Office of International Programs “over 80% of [our] students now use the online system to schedule their appointments with advisors – which has made a positive impact on them and [our] office operations.  Students can use the scheduler from anywhere at any time, and [our] staff members are able to perform other tasks instead of making multiple appointments by phone or email.” *  Boston College International Study Abroad program offers an appointment scheduling via a link provided on the program homepage.  Students only need to enter their Boston College log in information in order to access the scheduling tool.

The continued growth of the virtual experience within higher education institutions has defined a new era that has enabled greater interaction and over all communication.

For more information about online appointment scheduling software in your college or university go to http://ezappt.com/student_advisor.html or contact EZappt at 888-709-2778.

Reference:

*Single Sign On (SSO). (2010). Retrieved June 06, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_sign_on

*Janet Kalunian (Academic Operations, Boston College, June 4, 2010) with reference to EZappt online appointment scheduling software.

Written by:  Michael A. Sweet, Marketing Director – EZappt, LLC

EZAPPT – Improving Appointment Automation the E Z Way

Copyright EZappt, LLC 2003-2010 www.EZappt.com All Rights Reserved.  Images were used with permission of iStockPhoto.com.  References are listed accordingly.  Information in this document was reviewed by the author, colleagues, and references.

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