With a new Banner system, some students are questioning why they are running into so many problems.

“There’s only a problem until we solve it,” said Bill Witsman, project director for Banner.

Witsman said some of the solutions turn out to be better than expected.

But some solutions are worse.

He said employees ask themselves two questions to begin to figure out the solution: “How does this work? How do we make it do what we need it to do?”

Witsman said they have many sources for their solutions.

The school has consulting from SunGard Higher Education for the program.

There are also Web sites to search for the problem and find a solution.

The program also came with manuals and documentation to search.

With close to 1,000 institutions using Banner, Witsman said the institutions are also other sources to find the solution to problems.

There are listservs, blogs and message boards where different institutions can help each solve problems with the system.

One of the advantages of the Banner system is that it helps to gather information better about students, employees and alumni to better serve them, Witsman said. Keeping names and addresses for students, employees and alumni all together is another advantage of the system.

With the old system that same information had to be kept in multiple databases.

Another advantage is that students can now be paid biweekly.

Witsman said students have been requesting this for a while, and now they can provide this service.

Registration now provides better options for students with this system as well.

The Enterprise Information System Enhancement is the “labor for the fairly large project to replace the information systems,” Witsman said.

He said EISE, along with Banner, is a set of software to Eastern.

There are five components to Banner. The first component is finance, where accounting and purchasing take place.

The second is human resources, where the information about employees, benefits and payroll is kept.

The third component to Banner is financial aid, which exists for students on campus.

The fourth and largest component is student, which processes student information such as admissions, grades, basic information, transcripts and registration.

The final component is advancement. This component is for alumni development and displays information pertaining to alumni.