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Problem
Poor inventory tracking and inefficient process management
UCLA Student Affairs, committed to enriching student life through housing, wellness, leadership, and co-curricular programming, plays a vital role in supporting student success across campus. However, departments like Financial Aid and Student Affairs faced growing inefficiencies due to fragmented systems. Key workflows—such as financial aid tracking, event management, and student onboarding—were spread across Google Sheets, Airtable, and manual coordination, creating silos and delays.
Program coordinators struggled to track event attendance accurately, reconcile participation data, and ensure students met program requirements. Financial aid processing was similarly disjointed, with separate spreadsheets for aid distribution, academic progress, and event involvement—slowing down verification and diminishing service quality. Event planning required manual updates and constant cross-departmental coordination, often without real-time visibility.
To better support students and streamline operations, UCLA needed a centralized system that could unify financial aid tracking, automate onboarding and verification, and give coordinators a clear, real-time view of student engagement across programs and events.
Q1
Solution
Centralizing operations and automating workflows in SmartSuite
UCLA partnered with SmartSuite to centralize its Student Affairs and Financial Aid operations into a unified, automation-driven platform. The implementation included:
- Procurement Management - Streamlined purchasing across Student Affairs, uniting 20+ departments under a more consistent, efficient, and transparent system, replacing scattered tools and email-based workflows.
- Student Affairs Management: UCLA's student onboarding, financial aid tracking, and program management were consolidated into SmartSuite’s workspace. Custom dashboards provided real-time visibility into student progress, financial aid status, and attendance records, enabling coordinators to monitor student requirements at a glance.
- Event Planning and Attendance Tracking: SmartSuite’s event management solution was customized to allow UCLA staff to create, monitor, and track student attendance seamlessly. Role-based views and permissions ensured that program coordinators and event managers could easily manage events, monitor attendance, and send automated reminders.
- Financial Aid and Verification Workflows: SmartSuite’s automation capabilities allowed UCLA to automatically verify student eligibility and update financial aid statuses in real-time. Linked records between event attendance and aid status ensured that only eligible students received funding, streamlining the verification process.
- SSO Integration: SmartSuite was integrated with UCLA's SSO (Single Sign-On), allowing secure and simplified access for staff and students.
- Real-Time Collaboration: Program coordinators, financial aid officers, and event planners could collaborate directly within SmartSuite, eliminating the need for fragmented email chains and manual spreadsheet updates.
- Procurement Management - Streamlined purchasing across Student Affairs, uniting 20+ departments under a more consistent, efficient, and transparent system, replacing scattered tools and email-based workflows.
Q2
Results
Improved efficiency, collaboration, and data-driven decision making
The transition to SmartSuite provided UCLA with:
- 3x faster student onboarding and financial aid verification
- Centralized dashboards for real-time visibility into student status and financial aid progress
- Streamlined event planning, reducing manual reconciliation of attendance records
- Automated tracking of student aid and attendance, ensuring compliance and accurate reporting
- Improved role-based access control, securing sensitive student information while enhancing team collaboration
UCLA's integration of SmartSuite has modernized its Student Affairs and Financial Aid departments, laying the foundation for efficient, real-time data management and cross-departmental collaboration.
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