With Phase 1 complete, the project team has been working to refresh the Aurora Self Service user experience and has continued work to develop a foundation to support new capabilities for an improved student and staff experience. This will include improved usability, mobility, capability and introduction of new features.   

Aurora Self Service Refresh is divided into 4 different stages over the next three years, in order of release to the University community: 

• Aurora for Advisors
• Aurora for Students
• Aurora for Academics
• Aurora for Administrators

The 1st stage– Aurora for Advisors— has been in development for about 12 months and the team includes Advisor working group representatives from faculties/academic units, Student Affairs, Grad Studies, Privacy and Records Management, Change Management and Project Services and IST.  This past fall the technical and functional work was completed and this provided valuable guidelines and feedback to enable Pilot Groups to start working with the new Aurora Self Service for Advisors in March 2021. 

What does this mean to you?  

If you use Aurora Self Service today to perform tasks or access information in students’ records, this refresh will modernize how information is displayed and how you navigate the system. The project team developed Aurora for Advisors, focusing on the Advising Student Profile and Banner Document Management (BDM). This will create the opportunity for digital notes and electronic document storage in BDM for student records. This will also allow increased transparency and efficiency in advising and communications between advisors and students.  

Training & Upcoming Advisors Meeting 

Advisors will receive an invitation to an upcoming meeting this spring that will share information about development done by the working groups, and feedback from the Pilot Group experiences. Information about access to training materials and Q&A training sessions will follow. This meeting will be a follow up to the Town Hall meeting held in June of last year where advisors were shown a look/view of the new features. You can view the previous town hall notes on the website. Aurora for Advisors is expected to go live in late spring 2021. 

How will this Refresh improve Aurora for Advisors?   

• A new look and feel that is intuitive and modern  
• Greater flexibility to run Aurora for Advisors on any browser, tablet or mobile device  
• Integrated Student information with a “view at a glance” capability, including a picture
• Digital advisor notes capability with electronic document storage through BDM allowing transparency of information
• A solid foundation to deliver additional capabilities that can be utilized in the future
    

Please note this first stage will only affect Academic Advisors and other frontline staff providing services to students; all other users will continue to use Aurora Self Service as they do today.   

Aurora Refresh is the second phase of the Banner Enhancement Program. The first phase updated the Banner Administration pages in 2018. Aurora Refresh will be divided in 4 different stages over the next three years, in order of release to the University community: 

• Aurora for Advisors
• Aurora for Students
• Aurora for Academics
• Aurora for Administrators

What does this mean to you? 

If you use Aurora today to perform tasks or access information in students’ records, this refresh will modernize how information is displayed and how you navigate the system. A project team has been established to develop Aurora for Advisors, focusing on the Advising Student Profile. This refresh will allow creation of digital (paperless) notes and files for students, with an increased transparency and efficiency in advising and communications between advisors and students. This first stage will also create the ability for students to be able to view information and advice Advisors provide regarding their academic progress.

Training materials will be provided to help familiarize you with the refresh, as new features are released to the community. The project team will develop and provide training materials that advisors may access to familiarize themselves with the updated features. Advisors will be invited to a Town Hall meeting in late April to get a look/view of the new features. Aurora for Advisors is expected to go live in late Fall 2020.

How will this Refresh improve Aurora for Advisors?  

• A new look and feel that is intuitive and modern
• Greater flexibility to run Aurora Self Service on any browser, tablet or mobile device
• Integrated Student information with a “view at a glance” capability
• Advisor Notes capability with electronic document storage.
• A solid foundation to deliver additional capabilities that can be utilized in the future 

Please note this first stage will only affect Academic Advisors and other frontline staff providing services to students; all other users will continue to use Aurora as they do today.  

If you would like to provide feedback or have any questions, please contact Aurora-Refresh@umanitoba.ca

The University of Manitoba is updating Banner Administration Pages (Finance and Student) to a newer version. This upgrade begins Friday, January 24 at 5:00 pm and with expected completion by Sunday, January 26 at 6:00 pm. 

WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOU: 

During the upgrade Aurora Administration Pages, Aurora, Extended Education Registration System, BDM, Workflow, Argos and FAST will be unavailable.  Other processes and systems that connect to Banner (e.g., UM Achieve, EPIC, Concur, My Research Tools) could be inaccessible or have limited functions during this time.  

Please note that any preferred name changes made in Employee Self-Service (ESS) will not take effect in any other systems until Monday, January 27 after the upgrade. 

This upgrade will include several enhancements:

• Improvements to the log in experience to minimize errors.
• Welcome Page with options to search pages or enter a page name without being presented with options.
• Ability to set your preferred settings on page filters:
  • Change the order columns are displayed
  • Keep commonly used filter options
  • Save how many rows of information are shown
• A new Favorites function to save your most used pages for easy accessibility
• Improvements to page printing
• Tax compliance updates
• Security patches

Aurora Banner and Self-Service will be temporarily unavailable from Jan. 24-26 as the system upgrades. Other processes and systems that connect to Aurora Banner (e.g. FlexReg, FAST, UM Achieve, EPIC) could be inaccessible or have limited functionality during this time. More information will be provided as we approach the update period.

What this means to you:

Do you use Aurora Banner Administration Pages to view, create, or update records and transactions such as students’ records or journal entries?

This update will provide you with improvements to the overall system and align the University to regulatory requirements. Your key data, general functions and the business rules you follow to perform functions in Banner will remain the same.

Using Aurora is something that many of us do on a regular basis. You will need to prepare – and we can help you.

How to get ready?

We are working to minimize the impact of this shutdown, but you may need to take some actions beforehand, like ordering transcripts, ordering enrolment verifications, registering for winter term, running a degree audit, downloading class lists or uploading grades.

Students, we recommend you speak to your academic advisor if you have any academic-related issues.

If your account is on hold, do your best to pay your fees before the shutdown, otherwise payments received during the shutdown will be processed in the order received once the system is back in service. If you foresee any issues with this, please contact your academic advisor. 

For students interested registering for Winter/Summer term spanning distance and online courses, registration opens November 28.

Here’s a recap of what systems will be working and what won’t during the shutdown:

Not Available:

• Aurora INB and Self-Service
  • No transcript ordering
  • No Enrolment Verification ordering
  • No Winter registration activities
• UM Achieve
• Argos reports that pull from PROD

Available Services:

• UMLearn
• Admissions (through Radius)
• Library services
• Active Living Centre
• Jump/Webmail
• Direct access to Argos for ODS reports (until Friday 6pm)

Partial Access:

• Ad Astra – ability to view all room bookings, add/delete events only

For questions about the upgrade, please contact: Banner9@umanitoba.ca

To be successful, we need your support.  Thank you for your understanding.

By now, everyone should have received an orientation invite.  If you haven’t been invited and think you should have been, or if you have any questions, please contact the coaches at Aurora.Coach@umanitoba.ca. For more information, visit the Banner 9 website.  Aurora Finance training will be separate from the Registrar’s Office training, please visit the LOD for more information.

The upgrade has a new look and feel; it is a web-based design that allows users to easily access, view, and update information. It is important for all staff to become comfortable navigating the new design. We want to assure you that even though the design has changed, your processes have not.

Orientation sessions are offered at both the Fort Garry campus and Bannatyne campus. General navigation orientation at the Fort Garry campus started on October 23 and hands-on workshops begin November 7.  General navigation and hands-on workshops for Bannatyne campus are held October 29 to November 2. The targeted go-live date for the upgraded Aurora system is November 26.

It is important to note that in order to hit the go-live date, the system must be shut down.  Students and staff members will not be able to access certain systems from November 21 at 5pm through to November 25 at 12am. The systems that will be unavailable during this time are listed below.

Not Available:

• Aurora INB and Self-Service
  • No transcript ordering
  • No Enrolment Verification ordering
  • No Winter registration activities
• UM Achieve
• Argos reports that pull from PROD

Available Services:

• UMLearn
• Admissions (through Radius)
• Library services
• Active Living Centre
• Jump/Webmail
• Direct access to Argos for ODS reports (until Friday 6pm)

Partial Access:

• Ad Astra – ability to view all room bookings, add/delete events only