Meadow
meadowfi.com

Ellucian Banner

This guide documents the configuration required for Meadow's Banner integration. It is organized by integration component and covers the required Ethos endpoints, the charge export script, and payment post-back configuration.

1. Solution Overview

1.1 What Is Meadow?

Meadow is a modern, mobile student accounts receivable (A/R) solution helping hundreds of colleges and universities recover more A/R and re-enroll more students by automating the entire pre-collections process.

1.2 Scope of Integration

Meadow's Banner integration is a bi-directional data flow. Banner provides academic calendar, student, and charge data to Meadow, and Meadow posts payment records back to Banner through the Ethos API.

Banner → MeadowMeadow → Banner
  • Academic calendar (terms and academic periods) via Ethos API
  • Student data by term via Ethos API
  • Charge data (script-based export delivered to Meadow)
  • Payment post-back via Ethos API

1.3 Implementation Timeline

Meadow implementations can be completed in a few weeks across five milestones:

  1. Configure networking and access, including DNS, SFTP connectivity, email IP allow-listing, and required SIS credentials. DNS and networking setup is covered in a separate document from your Meadow contact.
  2. Create the Ethos application for Meadow and grant access to the required endpoints.
  3. Enable and validate academic calendar and student imports via Ethos REST and GraphQL APIs.
  4. Install, test, and schedule the Meadow charge export script.
  5. Configure and validate payment post-back to Banner via the Ethos student-payments API.

2. Data Imports Overview

Meadow requires specific SIS data to accurately identify student balances, communicate with students, and ensure payments are properly reflected in Banner.

3. Data Import Workflows

3.1 Academic Calendar Data

academic-periods (REST)

3.2 Student Data

student-academic-periods (REST)

persons (REST + GraphQL)

person-holds (REST + GraphQL)

person-hold-types (REST + GraphQL)

3.3 Charge Data (Script-Based)

Meadow provides a bundle of SQL and bash files that implement the default Banner charge data export. It works for most Banner institutions out of the box and may need minor adjustments for institution-specific configuration.

charges.sql

SQL*Plus script that pulls Banner transaction data for currently enrolled students and students with pre-collections holds.

Meadow.sh

config.json

Holds environment-specific configuration values:

4. Ellucian Ethos Configuration

Ellucian Ethos is Ellucian's integration platform and provides a standard framework for vendor API access to Banner. Meadow uses Ethos to import required data and post payments to the SIS. If Ethos is not already installed or configured, Meadow can assist with setup at no additional cost.

4.1 Create the Banner Integration User

  1. Work with your database administrator for URL access to the Banner Access Management application, where the Banner Security pages are located.
  2. Log in to Banner Access Management.
  3. Navigate to the Oracle/Banner Security Maintenance (GSASECR) page.
  4. On the Users tab, enter a User ID, for example API_MEADOW.
  5. Click Create.
  6. Enter a password in the Password and Verify Password fields.
  7. In the Temporary Tablespace field, select a value from the list of values.
  8. In the Default Tablespace field, select a value from the list of values.
  9. In the Default Role field, enter USR_DEFAULT_CONNECT.
  10. In the Profile field, select a value from the list of values.
  11. Select the Authorize BANPROXY check box.
  12. Select the Authorize BANJSPROXY check box.
  13. Click Save to create the new user ID.
  14. Optional: To enter institution-specific information, click Banner Rules, enter the information, and click Save.
  15. Optional: If Banner is configured for MEP, authorize the VPDI contexts accessed from APIs. Navigate to the Oracle/Banner VPD Security Maintenance (GSAVPDI) form and use the User Assignment tab to grant access to institution codes other than the system default.

For detailed information about administering Banner Security, see Ellucian's Security documentation.

4.2 Assign Security Objects and Classes (GSASECR)

Assign the applicable Banner security objects to the user who needs access to each resource.

Before you begin

Procedure

  1. From the Users tab of GSASECR, select the User ID and click Modify to open User/Class Privilege Maintenance.

  2. Enter each of the following in the Object Name field and click Save: GUAGMNU, GUAEBLK, GUAEBLL, GUAEBLT, GURINSO.

  3. To assign privileges to all objects within a user class:

    1. Review the objects included in the classes assigned to the user.
    2. Click User Classes.
    3. Filter for records where Class Code Contains API.
    4. Select one or more Class Code values. Selecting a Class Code toggles User In Class between YES and NULL.
    5. Click Save and exit the Modify page.
    6. From the main GSASECR page, click the Classes tab, filter for Class Code Contains API (for example BAN_ARSYS_API_C), select a Class Code, and click Objects to review the objects in that class.
    7. Return to the Users tab and click Modify again to return to User/Class Privilege Maintenance.

  4. To assign privileges to individual objects: insert a record on the User/Class Privilege page and select the Object Name for the resource to grant. Banner objects needed for the required endpoints:

    • API_ACADEMIC_PERIODS: Query
    • API_STUDENT_ACADEMIC_PERIODS: Query
    • API_PERSONS: Query
    • API_PERSON_HOLDS: Query
    • API_PERSON_HOLD_TYPES: Query
    • API_STUDENT_PAYMENTS: Maintenance

4.3 Create the Ethos REST API Proxy Application

4.4 Enable Required Endpoints

Additional notes:

4.5 Run the GraphQL Kickoff Data Load

In the Ethos dashboard, run the kickoff data load for the GraphQL endpoints so that persons, person-holds, and person-hold-types queries return the expected data.

5. Charge Data Script Installation

Complete these steps in the Banner test environment first. After confirming everything works as expected, proceed to production. Meadow provides Meadow.sh, charges.sql, and config.json as the standard Banner export package.

5.1 Configure config.json

Update DatabaseConnectionString and sftp.keyfile to the correct values for the target environment.

5.2 Install jq and unix2dos

Verify both jq and unix2dos are installed on the host where the script will run.

5.3 Run the Script Manually

5.4 Confirm File Delivery

Confirm with Meadow that a file was received after the script runs.

5.5 Schedule Recurring Execution

Schedule the script to run every 15 minutes, or the alternative interval agreed with Meadow.

6. Posting Back Payments

6.1 Configure GORICCR (Process HEDM)

Go to the GORICCR screen and enter HEDM in the Process field.

6.2 STUDENT.AR.CATEGORY.CODES

6.3 STUDENT.AR.SOURCE.CODES

Ensure a valid, one-character source code from TTVSRCE is translated to cash.

6.4 Validate Category and Source Code Mappings

6.5 GUAINST: Set the Local Time Zone

On GUAINST, change the Time Zone field to your local time zone. It is set to UTC by default. This ensures payments posted via Ethos land on the correct date.