The registrar’s first 90 days on a new SIS
A practical sequence for registrars inheriting an implementation: what to configure first, what to defer, and which legacy workarounds to retire deliberately.
Key takeaways
- Configure the catalog year before anything touches scheduling
- Retire workarounds explicitly, with a written reason
- Delay custom reporting until after the first parallel term
- Publish the degree audit to students in term one, not term three
Sequence matters
The catalog is the foundation for scheduling, registration and degree audit. Configuring it first — with effective dating and a single institutional owner — prevents the most expensive category of rework.
Scheduling can be built quickly once the catalog is correct. It cannot be built at all while requirements are still being debated.
- Days 1–20: catalog year, programs, requirements, prerequisites
- Days 21–45: academic calendar, registration windows, holds
- Days 46–70: schedule build, room and faculty constraints
- Days 71–90: degree audit validation and student publication
Retiring workarounds
Every institution carries processes that exist only because a previous system could not do something. Write each one down and decide deliberately: policy, or workaround. Rebuilding workarounds in a new system is the most common way a migration wastes its opportunity.
Publishing the audit early
Registrars who publish the degree audit to students in the first term report far fewer advising escalations, because students and advisors are finally reading the same document.