Migrating from Ellucian Banner On-Prem to the SaaS version is never just a technical upgrade. It reshapes how information flows, connects, and stays consistent across the institution.
A leading university in the United Kingdom with a student population in the tens of thousands faced this transformation firsthand. Their on-prem environment had a well-established process for updating student and degree records, but once they moved to Banner SaaS, that integration stopped working. The direct database connections used by their legacy scripts were no longer available, and the workflow had to be rebuilt within Ellucian’s secure cloud ecosystem.
This story walks through how our team approached the challenge, analyzed the legacy setup, and built a new integration model that preserved business accuracy while adapting to the SaaS architecture. If your institution is preparing a similar migration, this case will show what a smooth and reliable transition can look like within Ellucian’s modern cloud environment.
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Life before automation
Before the migration, the university already had an established automation running in its on-prem Banner environment. The setup relied on a combination of database scripts and manual checks to keep student and degree information accurate. It worked reliably within the local infrastructure, but every update still required some human oversight.
Staff identified students eligible for graduation, verified their academic status, and entered updated details into Banner’s internal tables such as SHADEGR, which stores degree data, and SGASTDN, which holds general student information. Reports and spreadsheets were then used to confirm that all records were correct and that no students were left out.
This hybrid process was functional but not future-ready. It depended on direct database access and manual validation, which made it incompatible with Ellucian’s SaaS architecture.
Automation in action
Our work on the new automation began with a deep dive into the university’s existing logic. The team reviewed the old on-prem scripts, SQL queries, and validation steps that used to manage graduation and student status updates. Each rule and transformation was mapped and translated into modern, API-based workflows suitable for the SaaS environment.
We then rebuilt the process using Ellucian Data Connect as the central automation engine. The new pipeline retrieves student and program data through Ethos APIs, applies transformation logic, and updates Banner automatically. It reproduces the same business rules that staff once followed manually but executes them faster, consistently, and without human intervention.
Each run goes through clear, traceable stages. Data Connect pulls eligible student records, populates graduation dates, updates degree outcomes, and validates all results. If any record fails a check, the system logs it automatically and adds it to an error report. The output includes both success and validation reports, giving staff full visibility into what was processed and why.
Results and impact
The new integration now operates entirely within Ellucian’s SaaS ecosystem. All of the university’s original data logic was preserved, but it now runs through Ellucian Data Connect and Ethos APIs, ensuring full compliance with modern SaaS standards.
The process is faster, traceable, and secure. Data moves automatically between systems with no manual intervention, and administrators gain complete visibility through built-in reports. This migration not only restored the institution’s existing functionality but also positioned it for long-term scalability and smoother adoption of future Ellucian capabilities.
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Build your SaaS-ready integrations with ABCloudz
This story highlights the type of work we deliver through our Modernize integrations with Data Connect and Ellucian Ethos offering. As higher education institutions transition their Banner environments to the cloud, existing integrations often need more than just a lift and shift. They need to be redesigned to operate natively within Ellucian’s SaaS ecosystem. Our team rebuilds these connections using Ellucian’s native tools, creating secure, reliable, and fully SaaS-aligned workflows.
If your university or college is preparing for a Banner SaaS migration or wants to modernize current integrations, we can help you plan and implement a seamless transition. Let’s talk about how to make your data integrations fully cloud-ready and built for the long run.
