From Ellucian Updates to Impact: Closing the Gap in Higher Education Technology
By Jessica Ashbrook, Vice President for Professional Services, David Kent Consulting
In higher education, technology doesn’t stand still – and neither should the teams that rely on it.
Yet across campuses, a common pattern persists: updates from Ellucian are applied, but rarely fully understood, operationalized, or leveraged for meaningful improvement.
At David Kent Consulting, staying current with the latest updates from Ellucian isn’t just a best practice – it’s a core part of how we deliver value to our higher education clients.
From Ellucian Banner to Banner Self-Service and DegreeWorks, we make it a priority to monitor, understand, and operationalize every meaningful enhancement released.
Key Takeaways:
- Proactive Ellucian release monitoring closes the capability gap: Many institutions apply updates without fully leveraging them, creating a widening gap between what Banner can do and what’s actually used. Continuous monitoring and analysis turn each release into an actionable improvement.
- Hands-on expertise – not just awareness – drives adoption: Staying current requires ongoing training, controlled -environment testing, and real -world Banner experience so teams can effectively apply new features rather than ignore them.
- Prioritization prevents update fatigue: Not every Ellucian release requires immediate action. Focusing on high-impact enhancements aligned with institutional goals maximizes value while minimizing disruption to campus operations.
- Comprehensive Banner assessments unlock more value than new features: The biggest gains typically come from optimizing existing Ellucian Banner functionality, eliminating manual workarounds, and aligning processes with higher education best practices – not from what’s newest.
Proactive Monitoring of Ellucian Releases
Ellucian regularly delivers updates, patches, and new features across its product suite. While these releases are packed with valuable improvements, they can be easy to overlook amid the day-to-day demands of campus operations.
That’s where we come in.
David Kent Consulting closely monitors Ellucian releases – reviewing release notes, technical documentation, and upgrade paths as soon as they become available. We don’t just scan for changes; we analyze them with a critical eye toward:
- Functional improvements that impact end users
- Regulatory or compliance-related updates
- Performance and security enhancements
- Opportunities to streamline business processes
Our goal is simple: maximizing Ellucian updates by translating technical updates into actionable insights for our clients.
Most higher ed institutions don’t have the bandwidth to fully evaluate and operationalize these updates.
Over time, this creates a widening gap between what your system can do and what your institution is actually leveraging.
Continuous Training & Expertise
Technology evolves quickly, and staying effective requires more than awareness – it requires expertise. We don’t just monitor updates – we interpret them through the lens of institutional impact.
Our team actively engages in:
- Ongoing Ellucian training programs
- Product webinars and higher education certification updates
- Hands-on testing in controlled environments
- Peer collaboration and knowledge sharing
This commitment ensures our higher education consultants are not just informed, but they are fluent in how new Ellucian features actually work in real-world Banner environments.
Identifying What Matters Most
Not every update requires immediate action. One of the biggest challenges institutions face is determining:
What should we implement now, and what can wait?
We help higher ed clients cut through the noise by:
- Prioritizing high-impact enhancements
- Aligning updates with institutional goals
- Identifying quick wins vs. long-term improvements
- Avoiding unnecessary disruptions
Whether it’s a new workflow in Banner Self-Service or an advising enhancement in DegreeWorks, we focus on what delivers the most value to your campus community.
Comprehensive Banner & Module Assessments (What Sets Us Apart)
Where David Kent Consulting truly stands out is in our ability to go beyond updates and deliver full Banner and module-level assessments.
We don’t just look at your system – we evaluate how it’s being used across your institution.
Our Banner assessments include:
- End-to-end business process review
(Admissions, Registration, Finance, HR, Student Accounts, Advising) - Configuration analysis within Ellucian Banner and related modules
- Alignment with higher education best practices
- Identification of inefficiencies, workarounds, and risk areas
- Gap analysis between current state and system capabilities
These assessments deliver practical insight you can act on immediately.
Because the biggest gains aren’t found in what’s new – they’re found in unlocking the full potential of what you already own.
Aligning Technology with Best Practices
Many institutions underutilize Banner simply because processes have evolved organically over time.
We help you:
- Eliminate manual workarounds
- Standardize processes across departments
- Leverage delivered functionality instead of custom fixes
- Align operations with proven practices across higher education
By combining release knowledge with real-world process expertise, we ensure your system isn’t just up to date – it’s optimized.
From Insight to Implementation
Knowing about an update is one thing – implementing it effectively is another.
David Kent Consulting supports clients through the full lifecycle:
- Assessing readiness and dependencies
- Recommending improvements based on assessments
- Configuring and testing new features
- Supporting change management and training
- Ensuring smooth deployment with minimal disruption
We bridge the gap between “what’s new” and “what’s working.”
Driving Continuous Improvement
By staying closely aligned with Ellucian’s evolving ecosystem – and pairing that with deep institutional assessments – we help colleges and universities move from reactive maintenance to proactive optimization.
The result:
- More efficient administrative processes
- Improved student and staff experiences
- Better use of existing technology investments
- Reduced risk and technical debt
Curious how your Ellucian Banner environment is really performing – and where it could be doing more?
David Kent Consulting partners with institutions in a variety of ways to support your goals and maximize the value of your technology investment:
- Comprehensive Banner & module assessments to evaluate system usage, configuration, and alignment with best practices
- Business process reviews and optimization across functional areas like Admissions, Registration, Finance, and Student Accounts
- Targeted improvement roadmaps that prioritize high-impact enhancements
- Implementation support for new Ellucian features and updates
- Banner Self-Service and DegreeWorks optimization to improve the student and staff experience
- Interim or project-based functional and technical support
- Training and knowledge transfer for staff to build internal expertise
Whether you’re looking for a full assessment or focused support in a specific area, we can help you uncover opportunities, streamline operations, and position your institution for what’s next.
About the Author
Jessica is committed to successful client engagements. As the Vice President of Professional
Services, she draws from her extensive experience, over 23 years in higher education, as a
business analyst and project manager. Her focus is quality of delivery with competency and
professionalism from any functional consultants at David Kent Consulting. She has led
several ERP conversion efforts and software development projects, such as Banner 9
Self-Service, Course Program of Study (CPoS), Degree Works, and Banner Security
Administration. She also has experience with third-party software applications like Argos,
Dynamic Forms, Slate, TouchNet, and UC4/Automic. She holds a Master of Science degree in
Information Resource Management as well as a Project Management Professional (PMP)
certification.
Frequently Asked Questions
Staying current with Ellucian updates ensures institutions are leveraging new functionality, maintaining compliance, improving performance, and avoiding the gap that forms between system capabilities and actual usage over time.
Prioritize high-impact updates that align with institutional goals, improve efficiency, enhance the student experience, or address compliance requirements. Not every Ellucian release requires immediate action, and quick wins should be separated from long-term improvements.
Higher ed Institutions that don’t fully evaluate Ellucian updates often rely on outdated processes, miss opportunities for automation, increase manual workloads, and accumulate technical debt and compliance risks over time.
A comprehensive Banner assessment includes a review of system configuration, business processes, module usage, and integrations – plus identification of inefficiencies, gaps, workarounds, and opportunities for optimization across functional areas like Admissions, Registration, Finance, and Student Accounts.
Higher education consulting firms help improve Banner environments by interpreting Ellucian updates, optimizing configurations, reducing manual processes, improving reporting, and guiding implementation with minimal disruption to campus operations
