Student Systems Renewal Program
In 2025, the Student Systems Renewal Program (SSRP) shifted from a dedicated program to become part of the Institutional Project and Portfolio Management process. SSRP was York's most significant effort to modernize the technology systems underpinning student life. The program's goal was to replace aging, divided platforms with integrated solutions built around our community. It provided key institutional lessons, delivered four solutions and set a technological foundation that York continues to build on.
Active Projects
While SSRP has transitioned, work remains. This work now focuses on delivering a modern admissions platform and a unified data and analytics environment.
Active
Admissions Project
SSRP's CRM solution improved York's communication with prospective students. The Admissions Project goes further by building a modern end-to-end technology solution for recruitment, application, and admissions.
Active
Institutional Planning and Analytics (IPA)
SSRP’s Enterprise Integration Platform cleared the ground for York’s data framework. The IPA initiative is now building the city on it, consolidating institutional data into a unified, Azure-based platform that supports government reporting, enrolment planning, and more informed decision-making across the university.
What was Delivered
SSRP delivered four solutions to the York community between 2023 and 2024. Each replaced a legacy system or manual processes and contributed to the integration foundation that the university now depends on.
Completed — Summer 2023
Identity and Access Management (IAM)
Developed the foundational infrastructure York needs to unify and secure access to our systems across the institution.
Provided a framework for the consolidation of identity management and access controls. The ongoing evolution of IAM capabilities will help eliminate silos and reduce friction for students, faculty, and staff who navigate multiple platforms.
Completed — July 2023
Enterprise Integration Platform (EIP)
Replaced a fragmented set of legacy systems with a cloud-based integration layer that allows York's applications to share data in real time.
This platform now underpins our Institutional Planning and Analytics (IPA) and Admissions Projects
Completed — Fall 2023
Phase 1: Constituent Relationship Management (CRM)
Refreshed and redesigned York's platform for managing communications with prospective and current students.
Gives real-time visibility into York prospects, introduced new automated workflows and sped up cycle times.
Enhanced tracking and reporting capabilities to better support marketing and communication functions.
Completed — Summer 2024
Financial Aid, Awards and Scholarships (FAAS)
Improves the student experience by replacing fragmented forms and disconnected processes with a cloud-based solution integrated with key student systems.
Students can now search for, apply for, and track award applications in one place, with some awards automatically matched to student profiles year-round. One place, endless opportunity.
What was learned
The SSRP generated institutional learning and experience. Its lessons inform the projects continuing the work
Start with the people, not the technology
Transformation works best when it is rooted in the needs of the students, faculty, and staff it is meant to support. Early engagement helps ensure designs reflect how people actually do their work, not just how a system functions out of the box.
Admissions is applying this lesson by prioritizing strong early business and technical engagement, conducting 57 workshops before initiating the implementation phase. That upfront investment helps keep the solution grounded in the people who will use it.
Build once, connect everywhere
York's legacy systems were islands. Data lived in silos, staff duplicated work across platforms, and students navigated disconnected tools to get a single answer.
The Enterprise Integration Platform was built first specifically to connect those islands, and every solution since has been designed to join the many rather than add another silo.
IPA is centred on connecting and unifying data, guided by the principle that the right data should be accessible to the right people at the right time.
Redesign the process before the system
Swapping out old software for new, without changing how work gets done, only masks the real problem.
Projects need to be scoped to redesign the underlying workflow: reduce manual steps, eliminate redundant handoffs, and ensure the new way of working is genuinely better than what it replaces.
Aim for adoption, not deployment
A solution that goes live without prepared users is not a success. One of the clearest lessons was our need to support people based on the work they do, not a product's features.
Every implementation should include training and adoption support for the people who will use it. Adoption leads, role-specific job aids, training resources, help guides, and onboarding support are core deliverables.