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UTSA: Automating StudentTracker File Transfers for Better Reporting

Photo courtesy of The University of Texas at San Antonio

UTSA: Automating StudentTracker File Transfers for Better Reporting

by NSC Blog | Dec 10, 2024 | StudentTracker

In a recent webinar, Shanna Sherwood, Institution Research Analyst at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), shared her team’s experience automating their StudentTracker for Colleges and Universities file transfer process and the benefits they realized.

Improving Data Quality and Processing Times

UTSA’s Institutional Research and Analysis (IR) team identified logistical challenges in their original StudentTracker file transfer process. Extra applications for manual data cleansing were required. Users also needed to log on to the Clearinghouse’s secure SFTP site for file retrieval, which was not accessible by some team members.

As a result, the team sought to automate their file transfer process. This included:

Using the Clearinghouse’s SFTP server with direct connections from IR servers to the Clearinghouse; and
Removing “manual” processing and the need for extra applications.

Not only did these changes make data accessible to more of IR, but it also made it easier for the team to connect Clearinghouse data sources to other data sources. Sherwood gave an example: “[IR] can join Clearinghouse data to census data, and we can get additional attributes about students that way.”

“Through all of this, we’ve experienced improved data quality and processing times, which I think has led to better reporting,” said Sherwood.

To learn more about UTSA IR’s StudentTracker file transfer process, including a visual walkthrough, watch our on-demand webinar, “How UTSA Automates StudentTracker File Transfers.”