System CIO warns customization could put Banner outcomes at risk

CIO Michael Mondrain told the Public Universities Board of Trustees Technology Committee on May 19 that two common practices in local implementations of the Banner ERP system — overloading data fields and what he called “creative configuration” — are effectively customizations that could jeopardize the project’s intended outcomes.

“When the system gives you the opportunity to add configuration…outside the space of where it was intended…that kind of creative configuration is itself a customization,” Mondrain said. He warned that using data fields for purposes other than those intended is “brittle” and can make reconciliation across campuses and the system office more difficult.

The committee had been reviewing a written project-status readout that shows higher fidelity timelines for four CSU projects and lower fidelity for the newer CT State implementation, Mondrain said. He attributed the CT State timeline shortcomings to vendor placeholders in the schedule and said those bars will align with the others once the vendor (Ellucian) populates the placeholder data.

Mondrain framed the customization concern as a risk to outcome rather than to schedule or budget: “If we can’t resolve it, it's a risk to outcome…it's not a risk to timeline, and it's not a risk to budget,” he said. He described the issue as emerging over the prior two to three weeks and said staff have convened multiple meetings and more are scheduled to resolve the problem.

Committee members pressed for clarification on whether the committee needed to provide guidance or resources. One member said the Banner project is “a massive strategic priority” and asked to be alerted if the accessibility or customization work threatens the project’s success. Mondrain said no immediate committee action was required but that he would request reinforcement if needed.

The committee emphasized the strategic importance of unified processes and standardization across the system to support students and to produce consistent data for oversight. Members asked staff to continue reporting on progress; Mondrain said he would return if the issue required committee support.

Next steps: staff will continue meetings to reconcile custom configurations and data usage, seek to move implementations toward baseline configurations, and notify the committee if the issue risks the Banner project’s outcomes.