Banner, our student database system, is upgrading. These upgrades, the most significant since 2002, will allow the system to be brought fully up to date and are essential to further integrations with other systems, such as CRM, and ensuring our student data is secure and stable.
Over the last two years, colleagues from around our University have been carefully testing and verifying the system which is now ready to be rolled out. This will include an upgrade to the Banner Document Management Server (BDMS).
In consultation with service and team leads, as well as the technical colleagues who will be working over the weekend to implement the upgrade, it has been agreed that the system downtime will be effective from 17:00 Thursday 5 May – 08:00 Tuesday 10 May. These times have been chosen to minimise the disruption to the University as a whole.
During the downtime, Banner will be available as a read-only reference tool. This means that accessing grades, submitting applications and saving any changes to data will not be possible. Systems that integrate to Banner will be available, but it is important to note, they won’t be updated with new student data until the upgrade is complete.
Students and colleagues affected have been directly contacted about the downtime, and integrated programmes such as Blackboard will have a notification live on the platform throughout the period.
The dedicated Banner upgrade page provides detailed information on:
- How and whom this affects
- The advantages of the upgrade and why it’s important
- ODBC connections information and survey
- The BDMS upgrade
For queries please raise a ServiceLine ticket for the attention of the Student Systems Team.
