Session ST-13

CCCTran – Implementation and Integration with

Banner

Renee Cowing – San Mateo Community College District

Richard Oberlin – North Orange County Community College District

What is CCCTran?

• California Community Colleges statewide internet-based system for requesting, transmitting, tracking, downloading, and viewing academic transcripts among authorized educational institutions and their trading partners.

CCCTran Benefits

• Speed• Tracking• Security• Increase Productivity• Student Convenience• Lower Costs

CCCTran – Changes in the Last Year

• Live CCCs increased from 2 to 26– Now 10 Banner colleges

• Live CSUs increased from 5 to 6– Fullerton, Northridge, Sacramento, San

Diego,San Francisco, San Jose

• District-Wide transcripts supported• Mini-Grant extended to Feb 28, 2009

– $4000 to $1000 depending on the college’s go-live date

CCCTran – Upcoming Projects

• HS Transcripts• Composite Transcript Request System

Banner CCCTran Live Colleges

• Bakersfield College (Credentials)• Cerro Coso Community College (Credentials)• College of the Sequoias (Credentials)• Cypress College• Fullerton College• Moorpark College• Oxnard College• Porterville College (Credentials)• Skyline College• Ventura College

NOCCCD CCCTran Experience

• Cypress College– Live Aug 7, 2007 (14 months)– 1548 transcripts (260 requests, 1288 SSB)

• Fullerton College– Live June 11, 2008 (3 months)– 1272 transcripts (193 requests, 1079 SSB)

• About 1% are partial transcripts (pre-1989).

• About 1% of requests require offline search.

• On SSB students select electronic over paper transcript about 90% of the time.

Possible alternatives

• Credentials– Kern CCD, – College of the Sequoias

• Ventura CCD (DwT)– Views instead of packages

• Banner EDI?• Banner PESC/XML?

– UDE (User Defined Extensions)– Now separate download from baseline (see

FAQ 1-3Z61QF)

User Interfaces

• Admissions and Records– XAP Control Center

• Check status• View Offline Record Search Required

– Banner• Partial Transcript Report – replace with XAP

email to A&R staff• SHARQTC

• Student– Self-Service Banner

Implementation Steps

• First Steps• Learning about CCCTran• Decisions and Configuration• Programming• Testing, Testing, Testing• Document• Go LIVE

First Steps

• CCCTran web site – www.ccc-tran.org– Download and sign “CCCTran CCC

Institution Agreement” (under File Repository Contracts & Agreements).

• Schedule XAP Training• Control Center – administrator sets up

access for others

Learning about CCCTran

• CCCTran web site– Demonstrations– Implementation and Programming Guide– Data Dictionary

• 2 volumes – about 550 pages• About 600 fields (we used about 50%)

• Other

Decisions and Configuration

• Decisions– Admissions and Records– IT Department

• Configuration– Control Center– XAP Communicator– Banner

Programming – Windows Server

• Directory structure• Batch files• FTP

– WinSCP – free SFTP (SSH) and FTP client (winscp.net)

Programming – Request File Load

• Unix shell script– Wakes up every XX minutes– Runs SQL*Loader to load local table

• Easily converted to use External Table instead of SQL*Loader

Programming – Request Matching

• Match against Banner as defined on Control Center– We use SSN/DOB,

or ID/DOB, or Last/First/DOB

• Send Response or Transcript– Transcript Holds?

Programming - Response

• No match = Offline Record Search Required• Transcript Holds

– Recycling (complex, but simple after set up)

• Request Conditions– Example: hold until grades posted– We don’t accept (send response and transcript)

Programming - Transcript

• What fields to include? Optional?– Include everything on your official transcript

• Code translations– Example: EDI Grade Qualifier

• Banner free text to CCCTran coded field– If variable may be difficult or impossible to

translate

Programming - Transcript

• Coding is mostly based on shrtrtc.pc (transcript print program)

• Banner transcript type needed, but doesn’t use Transcript Type Rules

• Parameter table

Programming – Self-Service

• Cloned transcript package bwskwtrr– Select college to send to from drop down

list

• Also a few mods to bwskwtrr – For credit card processing– View status of transcript requests

Programming – INB (SHARQTC)

• Database trigger initiates CCCTran transcript creation– Based on transcript type code– Separate trigger from no sleep/wake trigger

• Which has small mod to exclude CCCTran transcript types

Testing, Testing, Testing

• Beta Control Center/beta server allows complete testing

• Test validation upload very helpful to the programmer

• Admissions and Records should test all info that appears on your transcript– To/from your own college (transcript views)– With trading partners

Documentation

• Local Mods– Mods to Banner Baseline objects– Local only objects– Windows Server/XAP Communicator

•Password changes!!!

• Admissions and Records Procedures– XAP Control Center settings– Offline Record Search– Partial Transcripts

Go LIVE!!!

• Contact XAP• Most Control Center settings will be

moved over – and some will not• Move code into production

– Change Process Code from T to P– Change XAP Communicator from Beta to

Live

• Notify other CCCTran Colleges

Session CCC – T

CCCTran – How We Modified

NOCCCD Software for our District

Renee Cowing – San Mateo County Community

College District

Major Steps to Installing CCCTRAN

• Software installation steps– Document CCCTran Implementation for Banner– Tables, create directories on UNIX server as

well as XAP Communicator– Szktout.sql and szktran.sql

• District-Wide Transcripts• External Table set-up• Transcript Testing • XAP Control Center and XAP communicator• Bugs

Software Installation (Part I)

• Create tables– Szrgrde.sql

• Loaded from shrgrde with modifications

– Szrtint.sql• Modifications for district-wide

– Szrtprm.sql– Szrtreq.sql – xzrtreq.sql

• xzrtreq – working file to create transcript / response.

• szrtreq.sql - archive purposes only

• Create sequence sztseq.sql – unique names for downloaded requests

• Create UTL_FILE directories

Software Installation (Part II)

• szktran.sql – Package to create transcript / response– Analyze transcript data in reference to trading partner

needs• Dean’s list• Partial transcripts• Hold for grades etc.• Fees – request initiated by trading partner vs. student• IGETC/CSU

– Establish one main contact from SMCCCD for input as to data

• How do we handle ‘paper transcripts’• Degree/Certificates• Academic renewal

Post - Installation

• Transcript testing meeting

• Include representatives of all 3 colleges

• Compare current transcript (Evisions) vs. CCCTran

• Collect feedback

Modifications from Testing Input

• Szktran.sql – modifications resulting from input from colleges– Courses not rolled to history– Repeat status on ‘old’ transcripts– Grade scale code per trading partner– Partial transcript shrgpac_term_code 000000– Honors courses– Term_c cursor – terms with no course work– NG grade – do not print– Degree applicable– Degree honors– Term deans lists– Academic renewal– Not counted in GPA calc– In progress – add units attempted– ?– ?– ?

District Wide Transcripts Changes - Data Dictionary and Local

Tables• District Identity record – 03A

– Every transcript is district-wide– 03A40 = ‘D’

• College Identity Record – 03B– One for each college that the student

attended– One for sending institution whether or not

they took courses at that college• Modify szrtint to include row for each

college delineated by szrtint_levl_code– SMCCCD has four level records, one for each

college and one for the district

District Wide Transcriptsszktran.sql – Changes in data

elements• Cursor - Institution identity record – 03A• Cursor - Colleges_attend_c

– Table shrtckn

• Change all references to GPA to be college specific– e.g. shrtgpa to shrgpac

• Others . . .

District Wide Transcriptsszktran.sql – Changes in architecture

• Change in extracting course data– Add outer for loop ‘for colleges_attend_rec’

encompassing term_c and course_c – Pass levl code to term_c– Pass levl code to course_c– Change sort of course_c, add criteria - FICE

DwT szktra1.sql – for loop

External Tables

• Code to create external table from NOCCCD– Query data from request as though it was a

db table– Create directory in OS and grant access– Put external table data in directory– Create directory in Oracle and grant access

External Tables (con’t)SMCCCD vs. NOCCCD

SMCCCD External Tables• Request pulled from

server to external table on UNIX server

• Similar directory structure• Request .dat file serves as

data source• Script to run every 5 mins• Syqtreq.sql – analyzes

request for match• Update szrtreq with

request data

NOCCCD DB Table• Request loaded into

local table szrtreq• Szrtreq (loaded via

sqlloader) holds all request data

• Insert into szrtreq causes db trigger to fire

• Trigger analyzes request data for match

SYQTREQ.sql

• Replaces NOCCCD Trigger • Reads request to find match• Creates a response or transcript• Inserts record in SHTTRAN only if

transcript is created• Inserts record in SZRTREQ for audit

purposes

XAP Communicator

• Downloading files from control site same as NOCCCD

• Requests ‘pulled ‘ from UNIX • Download to communicator same

Bugs – small – Oracle 10g only

• Parameter passed to term_c cursor– Typecast as shrttrm_term_code%TYPE

• term_code is 6varchar • Shrttrm_pidm is 8 numeric

– Result• Error: ORA06502 PL/SQL: ‘numeric or value

error: character string buffer too small’• Transcript bombed but only on newer

transcripts

Server Architecture

• Script syqtreq.sql calls DB procedure szktra1– We use external

table• Key data and

result code are loaded to szrtreq

• RESULT – CCCTranTranscript (or

response)

Go Live

• September 30th 2008 – a gradual process!

Contact Information

• Richard OberlinIT Project Leader - Information ServicesNorth Orange County Community College

DistrictRoberlin@NOCCCD.edu714-808-4867

• Renee CowingSr Programmer ISan Mateo County Community College Districtcowing@smccd.edu650-358-6741