Sprint 7 Demo Updates
Buff Experience Transformation Sprint Demo 7: Significant Progress Across Multiple Business Capabilities
Quick Summary
Sprint 7 marked a major milestone for the Buff Experience Transformation project, with significant progress made across multiple business capabilities and epics. Development work spanned appointment scheduling, interaction and activity management, advisor assignments, advisor availability, constituent management, alerts and outreach, care plans and the student portal. New functionality introduced during the sprint includes group advising sessions, student appointment check-in, peer advisor meeting notes, outreach reporting, advisor assignment notifications and enhanced student records.Ìý
Project Update
Following Sprint 7, the project will continue with Sprints 8 and 9 before transitioning into deployment, testing and other end-of-build activities for the Cloud for Good portion of Phase 1. Project teams continue to make progress across Education Cloud, data migration, integrations and supporting workstreams as implementation moves toward the next phase.Ìý
There are additional sprints planned with our own Learning Engagement Technology within OIT.
Student Experience
Sprint 7 included development of the Success Team page within the Student Experience. This functionality helps students view and access information about the advisors and support professionals who make up their success network.
The Success Team experience continues to support the project's goal of providing students with a clearer understanding of the people and resources available to help them succeed.Ìý
Appointment Scheduling
Appointment scheduling represented one of the largest areas of development during Sprint 7.
The team delivered functionality that allows advisors to:
- Create group advising sessions
- Manage group advising sessions
- Cancel group advising sessions
- Prevent overbooking of group sessions
The sprint also introduced a new student check-in experience for in-person appointments. Students can check in through a kiosk, automatically notifying advisors when they arrive for their scheduled appointments.Ìý
Together, these features help support both individual and group advising models while making scheduling efficient for students and advisors.
Interaction & Activity Management
Sprint 7 delivered several enhancements that support meeting documentation and student engagement tracking.
New functionality includes meeting notes capabilities for Peer Advisor Levels 1, 2 and 3, allowing peer advisors to document student interactions and perform advising-related activities within the system appropriate for their access level. The sprint also introduced functionality for reviewing student communications.
These features help create a more complete view of student interactions and support continuity across advising and student support services.Ìý
Alerts & Outreach
A new report called My Assigned Outreach was developed during Sprint 7. This functionality provides staff with visibility into outreach activities assigned to them and supports more effective management of student engagement efforts.Ìý
As outreach programs continue to expand, these reporting tools will help advisors and support staff track follow-up activities and maintain stronger connections with students.Ìý
Advisor Assignment
Sprint 7 included several updates designed to improve advisor assignment processes.
New functionality includes:
- Advisor assignment weighting
- Student notifications when success team assignments occur
These updates help support advisor workload management while ensuring students receive timely communication when they are assigned to a new academic advisor, academic coach or other support professional.Ìý
Coaching Availability
The sprint also delivered updates to staff availability through enhancements to Academic Coaching Topics. These improvements help students identify the appropriate coaching services when scheduling appointments and provide academic coaches with flexibility in managing appointment offerings.Ìý
Care Plans
Additional functionality was developed to improve care plan visibility and sharing. These updates support collaboration among student-facing teams by helping authorized stakeholders access relevant information needed to support student success.Ìý
Looking Ahead
Project leaders emphasized that Sprint 7 represents an intermediate milestone in an iterative development process. The functionality demonstrated during the sprint reflects work completed over the most recent three-week build cycle and will continue to evolve through the remaining implementation sprints.
Feedback from adoption leads, plus additional campus partners that participate in the weekly demos, remains a critical part of the process and continues to inform refinements, prioritization and future updates as the project moves toward completion.
With Sprint 7 complete, testing activities are underway while development on Sprint 8 begins. Two implementation sprints remain before the project transitions into final build activities, testing and deployment preparation.
Each sprint continues to expand the capabilities available to students, advisors and support professionals, bringing the university closer to a more connected and coordinated student success experience.