

Overview
To help you maximize your return on investment on Ellucian Banner, Astute Business Solutions offers, what we call a “health check”. We conduct a high-level assessment of your Banner Environment! Rule of thumb is most Ellucian Customers have not realized the benefits of latest features in Banner or realized any efficiencies. This is primarily because they continue to use Banner the way they used it when they first implemented it. Let Astute assess your Banner environment and provide a road map to improve efficiencies and help you use Banner effectively!
Assessment For Ellucian
Banner Implementation
The main objectives of a Health Check are:
Business Needs Analysis:
Analyze what underlying strategic and tactical business goals and objectives are driving the development of the business intelligence solution, including whether executive sponsorship and funding are available.
Organizational Analysis:
Analyze the existing business and technical organizational structures, including the level of IT/business partners in place, the organization's culture and leadership style, its understanding of business intelligence concepts, whether roles and responsibilities have been established, and whether people with the appropriate amount of time and skills are in place.
Technical/Methodology Analysis:
Analyze whether the appropriate technical infrastructure and development methodologies are in place, including all related hardware and software, the quality and quantity of the source data, and the methodology and change control process.
Opportunities for AI implementation:
Identify opportunities to modernize the use of Banner using AI tools either to augment your Banner process or to supplement your Banner processes.
Let us work together to help you streamline and strengthen your use of Banner!


Assessment Process
The Health Check is designed to be fast, focused, and minimally disruptive. Our team uses structured templates, system discovery tools, and stakeholder interviews to gather critical data about your environment.
What we evaluate:
- Current business process design and workflow effectiveness
- Use of Banner's latest features and modules
- Integration with third-party systems and data sources
- Opportunities to improve user experience and reduce manual effort
- Technical infrastructure and environment readiness
- Data quality and reporting capabilities
- Gaps between current state and best practices
- Readiness for AI adoption or automation
Deliverables
What you’ll receive at the end of the health check engagement—clear, actionable insights to guide your next steps.
Improvement Roadmap
A prioritized roadmap for aligning your Banner environment with institutional goals. This includes recommendations for process improvements, new feature adoption, system upgrades, and AI integration opportunities.
Comprehensive Assessment Report
Delivered within days of engagement, this report summarizes key findings, benchmarks your current setup against best practices, and outlines short-term and long-term recommendations.
Executive Presentation
We wrap up the engagement with a detailed presentation to your leadership and project teams, highlighting observations, actionable next steps, and a plan to move forward with confidence.
Assessment Focus Areas
Business Needs Analysis
Understand the strategic and tactical goals driving your current Banner usage and assess whether executive sponsorship, stakeholder alignment, and funding are in place to support change.
Organizational Analysis
Evaluate your organizational structure, IT-to-business collaboration, leadership readiness, business process ownership, and whether the right roles and skills exist to support growth.
Technical and Methodology Review
Examine your infrastructure, development methodologies, change control processes, and data architecture to assess whether your Banner system is optimized for performance, scalability, and adaptability.
AI Opportunity Assessment
Identify practical ways to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) into your Banner environment—either to augment existing processes or introduce new levels of automation and intelligence.
Discovery
We begin with a collaborative discovery phase that includes:
Discovery (5 Days)
Who:
Astute's assessment team works directly with your Banner technical and functional leads.
What:
Initial discovery meetings are conducted to understand your current environment and goals. We gather documentation, review system architecture, identify modules in use, and assess integrations and customizations. Our team also reviews business processes and ongoing challenges faced by your staff.
Review (5 Days)
Who:
Astute’s team, working independently with occasional clarifications from your staff.
What:
Using the information collected, we conduct a detailed review of your Banner environment, configurations, custom objects, reports, interfaces, and your current use of AI, if any. We compare your current setup against best practices and identify missed opportunities and pain points.
Analysis and Report
After discovery, we synthesize our findings into a comprehensive report that includes:
Analysis (5–10 Days)
Who:
Astute's Banner specialists and solution architects.
What:
Our team performs a gap analysis between your current state and the Banner platform’s potential. We assess your business, technical, and organizational alignment. This includes evaluation of process efficiency, Banner module usage, infrastructure readiness, and opportunities for automation or AI implementation.
Report (5 Days)
Who:
Astute’s consultants and your executive or project sponsors.
What:
We prepare a comprehensive report summarizing our findings, recommendations, and a roadmap with prioritized next steps. This includes effort estimates, timelines, dependencies, risks, and areas of immediate improvement. We conclude with a presentation to your leadership team and stakeholders.


Outcomes
The Banner Health Check equips your team with:
- A prioritized roadmap for process optimization and feature adoption
- Strategic recommendations aligned with institutional goals
- A clear path for maximizing the value of your Banner environment
- Executive-ready insights to guide funding and project planning
- A high-level plan for potential AI use cases that enhance efficiency