Ellucian Colleague vs. Gradelink Student Information System

Ellucian Colleague is well suited for student academic information recall, such as advisement details, courses, primary choice, GPAs, and demographic information critical to in-time decision-making for faculty and institutional leadership. Less appropriate scenarios would include our financial management needs, such as accounting, ledgers, and financial transactions. These functions are better suited to other CRMs.

Incentivized

Gradelink is well suited for schools of all sizes, as it is able to expand based on enrollment and will fit into a variety of budgets. Users are able to input and access data in many useful areas, ranging from attendance to discipline.

• Colleague offers a single reference point for all student data, which creates consistency and unity across campus and ensures students hear the same information from every source.
• Colleague recently updated its interface to be more accessible to all people. Previously, it was not accessible through any browser aside from Internet Explorer.
• Colleague provide helpful user restrictions that prevent departments from altering or erasing data they do not typically use. For example, I cannot change student billing and accidentally wreak havoc for the cashier's office.

Incentivized

• It is easy to keep grades online.
• Students and Families each have a log in so grades are visible to all.

• Develop API's that are vendor agnostic rather than selecting specific vendors (Clearinghouse, ImageNow).
• Colleague tends to be to reactionary to the changing needs in higher education rather than developing the future.
• Hound clients to pay extra for consulting (consultants are usually bad), rather than helping institutions to use the product. Seems to be the first thing help line personnel jump to rather than working with clients to figure out creative solutions.

Incentivized

• Some features are complicated.
• Can't send multiple messages at a time.

Incentivized

Ellucian Colleague rates highly for its usability and functionality. Ellucian Colleague serves as a comprehensive solution, making it easier for students, faculty, and staff to communicate, find the information, and accomplish multiple tasks. Colleague has provided enhanced visibility into data and improved decision-making to drive strategic institutional outcomes. A colleague has created efficiencies for staff.

When the administrative assistant has emailed the company with questions on our behalf, the response has been quick, accurate and efficient

Ellucian Colleague offers exceptional value for the money compared to the pricier options in Blackbaud's suite of products. Ellucian Colleague stacks up well against Blackbaud and other CRMs in terms of its value for the money, ease of use, and customer service. Overall, Ellucian Colleague provides greater value for the money.

We have only used Gradelink even when other options were presented to the administration for consideration.

• With Colleague Student, we have been able to be more efficient in our department which has given us the opportunity to take on other projects that are helpful to our students.
• Colleague Student has enabled my department to cut down on our paper consumption which has been a huge budget savings. Our old system was so untrustworthy that we were printing many things to keep in case we couldn't get the information out of the system again. With Colleague Student we do not have to do this. We have stopped printing many things we used to print.
• Colleague Student has also helped us have a better handle on which students are preparing for graduation each semester. This allows us to more accurately print commencement materials, etc.

Incentivized

• Instant parent access.
• Communication tool.