You know for any sort of turnaround time and because each - each area has its own
card. And you know, then we're just generating
usage reports based on dates and not different groups. It was it was the
difference between night and day. Welcome to FOCUS, a podcast dedicated to the
business of higher education. I'm your host Heather Richmond and we
will be exploring the challenges and opportunities facing today's higher
learning institutions. Today, I'm talking with Bob Mask, the director of campus
card services at the Colorado School of Mines. He has a creative way to get even
more out of their campus ID system and who - by his own words - is proof that you
can teach an old dog new tricks. Thank you, Bob, for being our guest today to
talk about using credentials beyond the student ID card. Well thank you so much.
It is my absolute pleasure to be here today.
Great. Well, Bob I know on a lot of campuses IDs are used to differentiate
students, faculty, visitors, with those proper permissions, but you have one more
constituent base that you have to account for every summer, right? That is
absolutely correct. Every summer here at Mines, we in conjunction with our
student conferences services area, we have a large
number of different events going on on campus. Different camps and different
things. Some of them are you know some are athletic camps, that our athletics
folks do. Some of them are different department and research conferences and
research gatherings and same length things like that. So I guess you might
actually say we did everything from preteens to phd's. Wow, that's quite a
diverse group that you bring in over the summer. So let's talk about these
conference groups. How many events are there each summer and what are the
facilities that they're using on campus? Well I tell you taking last
summer as an example we had over 30 events - 30 separate events - here on campus
with over 2,500 separate individual attendees. And that is not including
the attendees that we're not issuing a card to. Those would be like athletic
camps that have a lot of students but are really are guided by a counselor. So
so those don't even enter into the equation. But yeah they're all using, well
I say all of the folks that are here on campus are either and/or
using our campus housing and our dining services. Wow, that's a lot in a short
amount of time using all your facilities. So well, let's first talk
about housing. So I know you figured it out a unique way to accommodate all
those campers with a quick turn of those groups. Yes, actually we did, talking a
little bit about each one of those groups is issued a what we call our
Blaster card. But it's a generic card it's not specific to that person, but it
is specific to the building that they are staying in. So each one
of those proximity cards has access to the outer doors of that building and to
the different doors that allow them onto each floor. We do not have the ability
right now to use those for individual doors to the individual rooms. So we do
have a hard key assigned to that card as well and those are both attached with a
lanyard. Now the thing to keep in mind is when we started doing this, we created a
number code for each one of the cards so that if one of our staff members look at
it we know exactly what building, room and everything that that card is
attached to. But because we don't have that information on the card because
it's sort of in a coded number, if someone were to lose that card, someone
couldn't pick it up and go oh look I have access to to this building
and this floor and this room. Oh that's smart. So each of the cards the campers
for instance would only have access to whichever level that you gave them
because of the proximity. Absolutely correct. Okay, wow. That's really
cool and unique way of being able to identify it for your staff
and you, if you need help with them, but then also keeping it a little discreet.
So that's a good tip for others if they're thinking about doing something
like this. Sure. Excellent, well and so I know you also figured out something with
the with the meal plans and a good system to accommodate both campers and
the conference group is to bill after the event. Can you talk a little bit
about that? Absolutely, what we've done is we have
tried to streamline the process that we do and instead of creating multiple
different meal plans for multiple different organizations, we have
basically just created one meal plan, which we call our our summer conference
plan, and that plan is attached to each one of those
proximity cards. Now using the TouchNet meal system, we create, what we
basically done is, has created a just a block plan that allows for a single
swipe for breakfast, a single swipe for lunch, and a single swipe for dinner, for
each day, for each card. So it really allows some control over how the card is used and it also helps us keep track of when it's used.
To be quite honest I actually was inspired by the Disney dining program. My family and I
do Disney quite a bit. And when they first
started rolling out their dining program, I was thinking you know this there I bet
there were some things that I could use in that in creating a plan for people
who come and go on campus, not necessarily you know who are
here as students or staff members or whatever, but people who just come and go,
which is basically let's be honest that's what that's what happens when you
go to Disney. You're not living there you just come and go even though we probably
would like to live there. Right, that's great, and really a great thought process of,
like how can I replicate this over here for this special group of campers that
come in. Sure and you know actually that just to kind of build on that that
is one of the things - I have been in the card industry
for you know going on twenty years now - and I think that some of the
best ideas that I've ever had, I really didn't have. Someone else told me
about it or something like that and I've been able to use those and that's the
beauty of you know what we do here in the card industry, is you know talking to
different people and doing those kinds of things and looking what other folks
are doing. So you know I always try and anytime I can help somebody with
something like that I always like to do that as well. I think that's great and
that's why we're talking today. So just to clarify you were able to
set up the block plans to where each camper doesn't have like all-you-can-eat
but you were limited to each meal, right? That's absolutely correct. That's
one of the things when we were trying to figure out how to do this, because each
- in the past when we would create different meal plans for different
things - you know sometimes people the groups wouldn't understand what to ask
for or how the plan was set up. So we would basically set them
up how we thought they wanted them, and then you know there would be somebody
would have extra access to meals or something like that. And then the groups
might be upset because they would say hey you know we didn't
want to have them to have you know we didn't want them to have this open
access, and then, unfortunately, we had to come back and say, well you know this was
what you gave to us. So in this new in this new system
we've decided that creating this basic plan and letting the groups know
in advance this is how the plans work, that with it, really it really helps to
control, you know that kind of thing, because let's be honest you just never
know how many times somebody's going to go back and swipe a card. So yeah and the
nice thing about it is we also work very closely with our food service area and
if if for whatever reason a group needs something beyond that plan, they'll work
with our food service and our food service will work with them to make sure
they have what they need. Okay that's great. And then I know you
are also talking about - because the way you set this up - the conference group has
an easier way of billing after the event. Can you talk a little bit
more about that? Absolutely, and so basically as I said, so what happens is
we've created a - an anybody who uses TouchNet and it uses a
meal system - knows what a basic block plan is. And so basically what is
going to happen is that when these plans are assigned, we know exactly what
they're going to do. So at the end of that event or that conference or
whatever, the conference services will contact me and say can you generate a
report for this range of cards from this date from the start date to the end date.
And so we know exactly how many meals were were used by each card through the
through the time that they were here. And that way it doesn't matter how many
swipes have been used on the card, we're only concerned about the swipes that
happened between that time frame. Okay so somebody's getting breakfast for
instance they're not being charged for that you're just saying in this time.
Exactly, yeah, exactly, exactly. That's great and that's also what lets you
because you can do the reporting by date range,
that's what's lets you just have the central card that can be used as the next
group comes in the next time, right? That is the foundation of
everything. That's very cool. So how did this work before? How does this all differ
from what you did before? Well I don't know if if any those who are listening
who have seen me before know that I'm bald, when I started this job I had hair.
And when I first came here to Mines, it was broken down into a
couple of different ways that we would address things. We would create
a meal - an individual meal plan for every group that came on campus. So figure
if we had approximately 20 to 30 groups come on campus over the summer, we
were creating twenty to thirty meal plans
over the summer. So each time a group would be here, we would have these
generic cards set aside, but they weren't assigned to anything. They basically just
said summer conference or Colorado School of Mines summer conferences
blaster card. And so I would get a list from conference services that says, hey
here's exactly what the you know the number of people that are coming, here's
where they're staying, and here's the type of meal plan they want. So I would
have to create that meal plan, then go in and add that meal plan to each one of
the cards that we were assigning to that group. Then I would have to go back and
add the access levels that the door access levels to each one of those cards
for the areas that they again - that the living areas that they were
assigned to. So every group required that that process to happen every time. There
were some ways that I was able to batch downloads and things, but it
was still a laborious and very manual process in getting all that done. Not
even taking into account the fact that there is turnaround time for each one of
those groups. So we have we had at the time we had X number of cards created,
and so we said, okay let's say - and I'm just pulling some numbers out of the air -
let's say we had a hundred cards. And the first group that came in at the
beginning of the summer had 75 people. So I would set that group up with 75 with
75 cards. Now let's say the next group had 25 people.
So again 25 more cards - that's a hundred. We still have plenty of cards. Now right
after that first group, leaves we've got another group coming in that next day. So
now the turnaround time - I have to generate reports to determine meal plan
usage, remove those meal plans from those from those cards, add the new meal plan
to the new card, remove the old access, add
new access, and make sure we get those cards back, and back to the next group in
that turnaround time. So needless to say there was a tremendous opportunity for
human error, and just not being able to to take care of the things you needed
to take care of in a timely manner. Oh sure and I think you said sometimes that
turnaround time is the next day, right? Oh yeah and sometimes it was even less than
that. Wow, well I know what you were doing all
summer long. Absolutely, absolutely. So how does your staff react the first time
they didn't have to turn around hundreds of cards in that one day? Well if to be
quite honest if you're using the term staff, that's a really nice way of
saying me, because I'm pretty much a one-man shop here at Mines. So I was
ecstatic because once again that was that was taking hours out of my day away
from other things that were on my plate to do because this was something
important that needed to be done. So now once we created this new process that
basically removed the need to you know for any sort of turnaround time,
because each area has its own card. And you know and then we're just
generating you know we're generating usage reports based on dates - and not
different groups. It was it was the difference between night and day. That's
amazing. That's great. Well I know you're also sometimes asked to look at where
someone has accessed a room or even shut off access. Tell us a little bit about
that. Well you know as with as with any is with any group or anything that
happens, not everybody is going to you know follow the rules per se, exactly as
they should be. And so you know obviously sometimes we have we have issues and the
good thing is that because we have these cards set up and assigned to individual
areas, all I need to do - if something were to happen -
I'm just contacted by by conference services. and then they would say to
me hey we had an incident in this residence hall on the third
floor. Can you generate a report that shows us you know what
acts, or you know what was - who came through the doors, and who did it at that
time. And so then they can work with the the leadership of the group for
whatever, you know disciplinary or discussion needs to happen about that.
Right, so I bet you get more rowdy phd's and preteens, huh. You know I don't I -
nothing surprises me anymore after this time, after all this time, I'm not
surprised by anything. You just never know. That's great, well you know from a
visiting organization's perspective has this newer process for room and board
management improved their experience? Well, you know what, I would like to think
so. I really haven't received a lot of feedback, but as anybody who works in
with with campus cards knows these sort of things really tend to get very, very,
very little notice, unless they're not working and at which point in time then
everybody notices. And quite honestly since we started this process, I really
have had quite a few less interaction with anybody. So basically
the whole idea of no news is good news is kind of what I'm working on.
Yeah that's always the case. You only hear about if there's a problem, but they
don't tell you when it's great. That's wonderful. Well because you've really - you
know - done this transition and thought creatively about how to bring this new
group in in a most efficient way possible, any other tips or tricks for
somebody else thinking about doing something like this? You know it's interesting that you asked that because we were actually having a
discussion just the other day about how we are going - to the campus is very much
looking at doing having proximity readers and card access to
individual residence hall rooms - and so we actually had a sit-down meeting the
other day to discuss how this might affect our process and you know
and how we were going to how we were going to do things. And I think that
my biggest takeaway from the meeting was that not to be afraid to
make a change. As long as you're not making a change just just simply to make
a change, but if there's a if there's a good solid reason for it, and in the long
run it may it will actually make things better for you, is don't - you know - don't
be afraid to to look at your look at your process, and no matter how good you
think it is, maybe it can be better. And this is coming from a guy like I said
who's been doing this for quite some time and and if anything I'm proof that
you can teach an old dog new tricks. That's great.
Well it also sounds like it's quite be a side business for the campus. So do you
know, this brings new revenue to the university too, right? You know it really
does. Like I said this last summer, we had over 30 events with with over 2,500
people here on campus. And I know for a fact the the that is more than we have
had in the past. And I think that it - I won't say it's all because of this - but I
think this process really makes it more efficient and more streamlined and able
for us to to accommodate more groups and different you know and different venues
and things like that. So I'd say yes. I really I really think that what we're
doing here makes a difference. That's great. Well, Bob, thanks so much for
sharing your insights. It sounds like a great business model that other schools
can begin to adopt. Well I hope that I was I was helpful and you know as I said
earlier I love talking to people and and you know and and talking about different
kinds of things. So I'm always available anytime anybody wants to chat.
They can certainly pick up the phone and give me a call. A long time ago when I
started my when I started my career at the Texas A&M; University in College
Station, Texas, I was on the phone constantly with people. So I try to
pay that forward. Well we really appreciate that. Thank you so much, Bob.
Alright, have a great day! Thanks for tuning into this episode of
FOCUS. Don't forget to subscribe so you can stay up to date on the business of
higher education. For more information, check us out at www.touchnet.com.