One of the biggest considerations when rolling out Banner 9 Self Service applications is navigation! There is no single point of entry for Banner 9 Self Service like there is in Banner 8 Self Service. If we want to ensure a cohesive student and employee experience, we need to think about how they get to the right places in the discrete Banner 9 applications.
The main way that colleges are directing people to Banner 9 instead of Banner 8 is by adding links in the same places that are used today. Wherever you have links to Banner 8, can we add or update those to point to Banner 9? Colleges that have a portal (Luminis or otherwise) can create portlets to link into each major self-service function. Updating links is true of any web page; so if there are links to Banner from the financial aid public website those can be updated to point to Banner 9 when they are ready for students to make the switch. Some clients are finding that because Banner 9 is more than one URL and they all support SSO, it might make sense to have links from each department web pages into Banner 9 as appropriate.
The Student Self Service and Faculty Self Service applications have fully customizable landing pages. You can use these pages to create your own content page/menu with links to all features a student or faculty member may be seeking, which means you can provide a single link as the starting place to get into Banner 9 for those population. Some clients are also creating menus or landing pages in Page Builder. This allows a lot of flexibility and the menu can be aware of what roles the person has in Banner and show a custom set of links. Some feature pages, like the Student Profile, also give us the ability to add and change links for navigation.
While Banner 8 Self Service is in use, any individual menu links in can be updated to point from Banner 8 to Banner 9, or new links added to make both available at the same time. This menu structure gets displayed both in Banner 9 applications and in Banner 8 but it is the same menu content. If you want to stop people from using Banner 8 remove the links to Banner 8 from these menus, if you want to give them a choice then allow both links to Banner 8 and Banner 9 from those menus. Just remember there is only one set of Self-Service menus, they get configured in Web Tailor or GUASMNU, but they get displayed in both 8 and 9. In Banner 9, this four-square menu works best with fewer levels of submenus, so you may want to move links around to flatten the hierarchy as part of the Banner 9 Self Service rollout.
Ellucian is recommending clients implement Ellucian Experience, and they are rapidly developing the features and connections available. Experience is still rather new, but Ellucian is investing heavily in the platform. Banner 9 Self Service and Admin Pages are now capable of being displayed within the Experience frame (in select release as of Summer 2022, soon to be generally available). There is an Experience Foundation tier, which has no additional cost, but all content must fit into templates provided by Ellucian. The Premium tier has an additional cost but comes with more content and a SDK which allows you to fully customize your content.
Here are a few useful links for additional information and troubleshooting:
- Article # 000046066 – Banner 9 – Moving to Banner 9 Self Service – What are my options for menus and access https://elluciansupport.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=000046066
- Article # 000044556 – In Banner 9 Self Service- Troubleshooting the four square menu. https://elluciansupport.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=000044556
- Article # 000042379 – Banner 9 – How do we configure the four square corner menu on the Banner 9x Self Service header? https://elluciansupport.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=000042379
- Change Request CR-000150278 – Banner 9.x SSB Style apps will not display the SSB 8.x menu entries correctly. https://elluciansupport.service-now.com/customer_center?id=standard_ticket&table=ellucian_product_feature&sys_id=ffe7e511875bc910fb8e43b6cebb3542
- Article KB000500383 – Banner Self-Service 8 (SSB8x) to 9 (SSB9x) FAQ. https://elluciansupport.service-now.com/customer_center?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB000500383
