Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary streamlines student services with Transact IDX®
April 13, 2023
Coordinating student services across locations in South Hamilton and Boston, Massachusetts, as well as Charlotte, North Carolina and Jacksonville, Florida was no easy feat for Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (GCTS), one of the largest evangelical seminaries in North America. Prior to their launch of Transact IDX®, Transact’s new cloud transaction system, GCTS needed to digitally manage and track meal plans, balance checks, and discounted points purchases among other transactions. They were looking for a way to save time, provide students with detailed account information upon request, streamline daily operations, and improve the overall student experience.
Launched over a year ago, Transact IDX® is an integrated, mobile- first, cloud-native, fully hosted transaction system designed to simplify student services. Focused heavily on optimizing workflows and user experience to help provide the most efficient experience, so administrators and users of Transact IDX® can do more, in less time.
“Continuous innovation is part of our culture at Transact, and cloud technology gives us a platform where we can continuously release new features and functions quickly out into market. It allows us to close the gap between innovation cycles, new features, and tech we want to bring and get that out to our clients as quickly as possible. We pioneered the way in higher ed with our Mobile Credential, and now are focused very heavily on Transact IDX®, bringing that expertise, and aligning it with our cloud strategy. Having cloud is critical to what we want to bring to our client base,” Rasheed Behrooznia, General Manager of Campus ID Solutions at Transact, told Andrew Hudson on a recent CampusIDChats podcast.
Transact IDX® was developed largely with clients in mind, leveraging valuable partner input and feedback. More than 20 client focus groups weighed in on their goals and needs, and students were surveyed regarding features and designs. Transact’s Ideas Portal yielded 400+ user feature suggestions and Request for Proposals (RFPs) were analyzed over a four-year period, to create the most efficient solution possible.
A 2023 Transact IDX® Case Study of GCTS revealed Transact IDX® freed up valuable staff time and simplified daily operations.
“Transact IDX® is starting to pay dividends for students and staff,” said Keith Doyle, IT Systems Analyst and Applications Development Lead at Gordon-Conwell. “I like the fact that we can give people direct access to their accounts. It’s a huge win for us.”
Highlights of the Transact IDX® solution include:
Seamless student experience: Provides direct access to student accounts for an improved, frictionless experience.
Simplifies daily operations: Reduces time spent on daily operations and makes custom integrations seamless.
- Easy third-party integrations through certified partners and API gateway.
- Cashless and convenient: An intuitive user experience allows students to use just one card or mobile credential to make purchases.
Transact IDX® serves as a one-stop shop for campus card programs. The platform brings together all the applications together, not only just Transact applications but the integrated partner applications as well. Since the applications are all secured and integrated, Transact makes switching between applications seamless and quick. And with all the data safely secured in the cloud, Transact IDX® provides dashboards and insights into the business operations on campus. For GCTS, the single sign-on solution makes administration more cohesive and intuitive. GCTS can also quickly customize Transact IDX® with their branding, colors, and other specific features. For now, GCTS is using the core features of IDX® , largely centered around stored value and card production, but as the school’s needs grow, IDX® will scale in both size and features to support the vision of where GCTS is going. Along those lines, IDX® provides a variety of APIs and an array of third-party technology providers, and more are added regularly.
“Bringing a fully integrated solution in IDX® to our clients, that provides a connected, enjoyable experience for the students, is exactly what IDX® is all about,” says Rasheed Behrooznia, GM Campus ID Solutions.
With IDX® being fully deployed in the cloud, software updates and features are continually rolled out, and seamless to GCTS. Multiple software releases have been made to IDX® with no impact or downtime to GCTS.
Campus administrators can easily access transaction reporting, including detailed reports by account type transaction summary, transaction detail, and account holder balance summary. Critical reports are available on-demand, filtering is easy, and reports can be exported to multiple formats.
GCTS students have greatly benefited from IDX®, with real time access from their mobile phone to their students’ accounts, they now have a mobile first experience, making their interaction with their student account frictionless and saving them time.
“I like the fact that we can give people direct access to their accounts,” says Doyle. “That’s a huge win for us.” We’re confident that we’re off to a strong start with Transact IDX®,” said Doyle.
Would your students benefit from a simplified cashless purchase experience? Learn more about Transact IDX®.
Guest Contributor: Rasheed Behrooznia, General Manager of Campus ID Solutions