Campus Cafe

Pros: We like the system due to being hosted and having a wide range of fields to be able to report from. The system also allows a bit of custom controls for us to accommodate our internal processes. Client programs such as CITRIX is not needed which cuts down on helpdesk calls regrading printing and connection issues.

Cons: The accounting side has been giving us trouble, but the support team at CampusCafe has been working with us non stop to straighten out any difficulties we have been having.

Pros: Helped organize the school to operate a lot more efficiently.

Cons: There is definitely a big learning curve, but it is worth it.

Pros: Has many of the automation features of more expensive platforms. Integrates very well with platforms we were already using. Has the best feature-to-price ratio of any platform we looked at.

Cons: We never intended to use the GL functionality, so it was not a problem for us, but it does appear to be rather limited. The Advancement/Donor module is rudimentary for functional. Lack of a parent portal is perhaps its greatest weakness.

Pros: This is a comprehensive and complete Student Information System, used by almost all of our college's departments. Although we offer a wide range of programs, for students at all ages, Campus Cafe has allowed us the flexibility to support admissions, registration/enrollment, billing, and gift management for each of these programs.

Cons: I wish Campus Cafe could facilitate opportunities for us to speak with and learn from other higher education users of their software.

Pros: I like the software, merge feature, maintenance permission, expand filters etc...

Cons: I believe it should be more user friendly.

Pros: The accessibility to have everything electronically and the security of knowing the information is backed up.

Cons: The schedule preview for students. I feel like that feature could capture more information.

Pros: $83

Cons: As a result of the willingness of the company to address individual institutions' needs, sometimes the UI lacks consistency across the pages, and there are some quirks to functionality of a few areas. Permissions are less than ideal with this system, since only one permission group can be added to each single user - layering of permission sets is not possible. This has resulted in us having to build many permission groups, which requires a decent amount of testing and time. The interface for managing permissions is also very clunky and sometimes confusing, requiring double negative logic to understand what a permission is doing. The Financial Aid area of the system still has some growing to do at this point, before we will be able to move to it. We hope that will be possible within the next 12-24 months, however. There have been a few technical quirks to the system, but the vast majority of these have been addressed in a more than satisfactory manner.

Pros: Campus Cafe modules cover major components needed for Higher Education all in one program. (Admissions, Financial Aid, Student Information System, Accounting, Development, and Alumni)

Cons: Campus Cafe is a growing software company that has improved over the 8+ years that we have used the software. Keeping up with changes and ongoing training needs is challenging at times. However, customer support is very responsive to our questions.

Pros: The admissions, financial aid and registrar portion are all tied into together. The reports for regulatory are great but only if the data is entered into the system correctly.

Cons: When a change is made it is only made for future dates and does not update/correct stuff from the past. The FA portion needs cleaned up a bit. To many place to import data. Can there be one place to import anything received by the DOE and the system determines where it needs to go?

Pros: Campus cafe handles most of what we need and it allows for uploading documents without purchasing a separate imaging system. I have to admit that I do not use all of the tools as we are very small.

Cons: I wish the reporting function was easier to use but I can usually get what I need one way or another through pre- built reports or dynamic queries. The Activity Tracking used is a catch all for alot of things which does not always work for our purposes. I still use mail chimp for our recruiting emails because I had it set up before moving to Campus cafe, and I find the process of setting up workflows in Campus cafe to be cumbersome but it could be that I just need to devote more time to it.

Pros: For financial aid purposes, the software provides me detailed and accurate information I need to process students financial aid and withdrawals based on enrollment status shown in enrollment history, attendance report, transcript/grades, billing statement and other pertinent info.

Cons: I personally was not able to browse other files as they do not concern my line of work. I used to pull-out attendance report from attendance history and if it will be imported to excel file, no student name is shown for the particular attendance report.

Pros: Campus Café is very user friendly and has really helped us be more efficient. It has helped us to streamline our workflow and become more organized which of course saves us time.

Cons: Because it is so different from what we were using, it seemed a little daunting at first. There are still a few things that the software is unable to accomplish however overall, it is a great product.

Pros: Reports are easily accessible and customizable! This is such a great feature for the Registration Department as we need accurate statistics immediately. The ability to also customize webpages, email notifications, triggers, courses as needed gave us the power to be more flexible and creative with how we focus our energy and time.

Cons: There have been a few glitches in the system even after working through setup. An example of this is syncing Campus Cafe with Canvas LMS- students who withdraw or drop would sometimes sync with Canvas and other times it would not. So there was that inconsistency.

Pros: Student can access online their billing statements and can also pay online. Group billing makes my job easier as I don't have to manually charge student when they enroll for class. The software charges them automatically but I need to post it before it can be reflected on the students' accounts -- this gives me the chance to review the billing first before posting it.

Cons: Once I posted the financial aid of the student, I could not delete it anymore if I happen to make a mistake. I have to make another entry to negate it. I prefer that I can just delete the error. Some postings done I can still delete but the system does not give me a warning before I delete. I prefer that there will be a pop-up warning me about the deletion just to be sure that I review again before I delete something.

Pros: It was a one-stop shop! We had all of our information on paper and excel documents.

Cons: The learning curve, and the language of the software is not intuitive.

Pros: Getting streamlined information on campus life.

Cons: I have no negative reflection on this software.

Pros: I like how every section of the software seems to be well-balanced. A lot of SIS programs are heavy on admissions/academics and light on donor management, but this program is very strong on all fronts!

Cons: I don't like how the company doesn't seem to be up front about the price of the implementation and software.