Frequently asked questions

We’re proud to have more than 50 consultants on our team with a range of skills, from highly specialized technical database expertise to administrators in higher ed. 

Our team prides itself on flexibility. We use whatever collaboration tools your institution is comfortable with: from standard emails to private Slack channels and video conferencing. It’s the closest you can get to having us as your employees.

David Kent Consulting was founded in 2000. Since then we’ve built a large network of IT professionals with the unique ability to deliver functional and technical database, Banner and Elucian expertise to higher-ed institutions. Our founder and CEO David Kent also brings more than three decades of experience as an IT director and long time Banner database administrator at Michigan Technological University, a public research university in Houghton, Michigan, with nearly 9,000 students, faculty and staff.

Our consultants are your consultants – every project is managed individually to ensure you’re only paying for productive time that delivers exactly what you need. Our consultants are all seasoned professionals with specialized skills who are accustomed to working on small, collaborative teams.  We encourage you to rely on our consultants as you would your own staff.   With our collaboration and conferencing tools, and direct access to the consultants serving your institution we povide an experience that is the “next best thing to being there”.

Three words: expertise, specialization and service. We work exclusively on Banner and Oracle. You’re not working with a firm that spreads its expertise thin. And unlike the “big” consultants out there, we don’t charge a large upfront fee for consulting hours. When you work with a smaller group like David Kent Consulting, you have immediate access to all of our expertise – and only the expertise you need. Whenever you reach out to us, you will be talking directly to one of your dedicated consultants – not an anonymous help desk.

We’ve executed hundreds of projects for dozens of higher-ed institutions. You can see some of  the schools we’ve worked with on our home page.

We provide the best Oracle Technical training solutions tailored to Institutions running Banner software. Our courses are taught by Oracle professionals with extensive field and classroom experience (a rare combination in itself). All of our courses combine lecture and in-depth hands-on lab instruction. Our labs feature the use of actual banner objects so that students become familiar with banner data while learning the Oracle course topic. In addition, upon completion of each course, students will be prepared to take the corresponding Oracle Certified Professional Examination.

Yes. We have a number of seasoned Oracle database administrators who, for a nominal fee, will monitor your database at regular intervals (daily, weekly, monthly), and provide database support and maintenance as needed. We also have tools that can monitor databases remotely, alert us when there is a problem, and even take corrective action in certain instances. In addition, we can provide database and SQL statement tuning services, and Banner or Oracle upgrade services as required.

When the need for a particular service arises, we will only propose experienced consultants who are actively involved in, and/or have extensive experience with the task, specialty area, and data required by the project. Most importantly, you have the option to meet, interview, accept, reject, or request particular consultants before the start of each project. No other consulting firm gives clients this much autonomy.  Our “no rookie” guarantee ensures that you will always be served by a seasoned practitioner.

None. Clients are billed monthly only for actual hours worked.

We realize that in today’s volatile business climate, many things can happen suddenly — budget woes can cease projects without notice, priorities can change, or a better opportunity may present itself. Because you are only committed to pay for actual hours expended since your last bill, financial risk is minimized.

We’d be happy to set up a Discovery Call with you so we can get a better understanding of your challenges. You can fill out our online form or simply call us at (872) 529-5368. We look forward to hearing from you!