At ABCloudz, we partner with Ellucian to deliver streamlined, reliable integrations for universities across Europe and beyond. In a recent project, Ellucian engaged us to help an established European university with a long tradition in law education automate their complex, manual refund process.
In this post, we’ll show how we replaced labor-intensive, error-prone workflows with a fully automated solution using Ellucian Data Connect and custom APIs. You’ll see the initial workflow, the key automation milestones, and the technical architecture behind the new process. Our goal is to give you practical insights into modernizing student financial operations with Ellucian.
If your college or university is considering automating or modernizing campus business processes, this story will help you understand integration best practices, common challenges of manual workflows, and practical steps for building secure, scalable data pipelines between core systems.
Not the most pressing topic for you right now? Feel free to browse our broader portfolio of higher ed projects or explore more of our Ellucian-based solutions.
The challenge of manual refund processing
Before automation, refund processing at the university was entirely manual. Staff extracted student dates, calculated refund amounts, and updated Banner tables by hand. This led to frequent errors, delays, and high administrative workload. Even minor mistakes in data entry or calculations often required corrections in key Banner tables like TBRACCD (student charges) and TBBCSTU (contract records).
Current state architecture before automation
Prior to automation, the process included the following manual steps:
- Staff manually queried Banner to retrieve student intake start dates and withdrawal dates, essential for determining refund eligibility.
- Using predefined refund rules, administrative staff manually assessed eligibility and refund amounts for each student based on withdrawal dates, intake period, course type, and other factors.
- After manually calculating refunds, staff entered transaction data into the Banner system, specifically using the TBRACCD table for financial transactions and the TBBCSTU table for storing student contract information (these are internal Banner table names). Each manual entry carried significant risk of input errors.
Continuous manual monitoring and error resolution
Without automated notifications or validations, staff needed constant vigilance. They manually monitored each transaction, periodically checked for discrepancies, and performed manual corrections whenever necessary.
Automating refunds with Ellucian Data Connect
We executed the work in clearly defined phases, moving from analysis and design to full implementation and monitoring.
Phase 1. Analyzing root causes
We identified that manual interpretation of rules, ad-hoc data extraction, and unique calculations for each refund were at the heart of slow, error-prone processing. The project needed a single source for refund rules and structured access to student data.
Phase 2. Structuring logic and defining system roles
We centralized all refund logic in a dedicated data table within Banner. Each rule specified refund percentages by academic level, funding, student type, and withdrawal timing. We built two custom APIs: one returned all refund rules from the logic table, and the other provided student intake and withdrawal dates. These APIs became the system’s source of truth for both data and logic.
Calculated refunds flow directly into Banner tables: TBRACCD for student charges and TBBCSTU for contract records. Every automated refund uses the same detail code as the original charge, ensuring traceability.
Phase 3. Building the pipelines and automating the flow
With the technical design finalized, we moved to implementation. Our team built a Data Connect pipeline to automate the full refund process from initial data retrieval through transaction posting.
On every run, the pipeline began by pulling student IDs by term code from the database. It then called the APIs to retrieve the latest student data and refund rules. Using these, the pipeline calculated the exact refund amount for each case, matching student status, withdrawal date, and term-specific logic.
JavaScript transformation steps format and validate each record. The system posts negative refund transactions to the TBRACCD table. It updates contracts in the TBBCSTU table for deactivation if a student is eligible for a full refund.
Every processed record and transaction is saved to Amazon S3, ensuring auditability and making it easy for the university to review or reprocess any refund batch.
Phase 4. Validating accuracy and reducing operational risk
Automation alone was not enough. We needed to guarantee the solution would behave predictably under real conditions and protect against both data errors and business logic failures.
At every stage, the pipeline validated inputs and outputs. It checked for missing or incorrect withdrawal data, rule mismatches, and unexpected refund percentages. All transactions were confirmed by responses from Banner’s APIs, and any failure was logged with detailed error information.
To prevent duplicate refunds, the pipeline tracked all refund activity by student and term. If a student was already refunded in a previous run, they were automatically skipped.
Future state architecture after integration
With automation in place, the refund workflow became seamless and fully traceable:
- Data Connect retrieves all intake and withdrawal information from Banner, removing manual pulls and ensuring every decision is based on current data.
- The pipeline applies consistent logic from the custom table, removing ambiguity and reducing risk.
- Refund transactions are created, formatted, and validated automatically, ready for posting to the right Banner tables.
- Transactions are posted to TBRACCD and TBBCSTU, all fully traceable, with no manual entry required.
Comprehensive automated monitoring and error management
Automated monitoring and validation oversee the entire workflow. If an issue occurs at any stage, the system logs the details for staff.
Results and benefits
All manual steps were replaced with automation. Staff no longer calculate eligibility or post transactions by hand. Processing times decreased. Refunds that once took significant staff effort now run on a schedule, automatically. Consistent logic applies to every student, with full audit trails for compliance. Automated alerts and logs highlight any issues for staff review.
Interested in more case studies like this?
Browse our extensive project collection to discover how we assist higher ed institutions using Ellucian and other leading solutions.
Partner with ABCloudz for Ellucian integrations
ABCloudz’s expertise in Ellucian technologies and higher education integrations positions us uniquely to streamline your campus operations. Whether automating complex processes, modernizing legacy systems, or ensuring accurate data synchronization, our experienced team delivers secure, efficient, and scalable solutions tailored specifically to your institution’s needs.
Ready to modernize your university’s operational processes? Contact ABCloudz today, and let’s explore how we can transform your campus workflows.
