Customer Story: Student Veteran Life

Overview

UW’s Office of Student Veteran Life uses Enterprise Web Services to connect veterans more quickly and confidentially to services. Student mentors now spend less time checking people in and more time delivering real value with hands-on support inside the center.

Customer Story Walk-through

Watch this short video to learn about how the Office of Student Veteran Life went from identifying challenges, setting priorities, and creating solutions using our services to achieve their goals.

Challenges

On-site mentors spent too much time working multi-column, non-confidential spreadsheets as they processed visitors into the student center and less time providing actual support. This process also made checking students in at outdoor events very difficult.

Solution

The new streamlined check-in system with autofill and checkboxes takes a few seconds, is confidential, and requires a light touch from mentors. Additionally, UW student interns built the product (with a little help from UW-IT).

Goals

• Support Student Veterans in a more personal way.
• Increase privacy during check-in.
• Replace Google sheets with something more efficient.
• Leverage UW interns from Computer Science and Engineering.

Outcomes

• Mentors spend much less time at the front desk.
• Veterans maintain privacy during check-in, and better FRPA management.
• Check-in system is portable, now used for external veteran events.
• Student technology interns built the system and put the project in their professional work portfolio.

Tools

Enterprise Web Services:

• Person Web Service (PWS)
• IdCard Web Service (IdCardWS)
• Person Search API (Version 5)
• x509 certificate
• STF-funded iPad
• Card reader (like the HUB)

Takeaways

• Auto-populated forms reduce time, expense, and inaccurate data. UW has the data and specialized forms are easy to build.