Common questions

Mostly Anthology Student (formerly CampusNexus and CampusVue), which is now an Ellucian product and which I have worked in and around since 2007. I have not worked on Banner or Colleague, and I say so on the first call. I also work on Thesis Elements. The integration, reporting and migration methods carry across student systems; the product knowledge is what saves you time. See Anthology Student consulting and my guide to the product’s names and its new owner.

Three ways, and you choose: a fixed price for a defined deliverable, a monthly retainer for a block of specialist hours, or hourly for investigation and rescue work, with the hours shown to you every week. I do not publish a rate card; the free call and the written plan that follows it set the price. The first milestone is small and easy to check: a rehearsal on a copy of your data, a check-only run, one report or one process, in days or weeks rather than months. See services.

With a free 30-minute call, then a short read-only look at the systems involved, under a confidentiality agreement, then a written plan with a fixed first milestone. Nothing is billed until you have signed that plan. Work is fixed-scope, a monthly retainer, or hourly. See services.

DataZak runs alongside my full-time architect role, so consulting work is scheduled, not on demand. Weekday afternoons Pacific time are my main call windows; early mornings suit East Coast teams, weekends work too, and I will take a call in your time zone when it matters. We agree working hours and response times in writing before a project starts. A new inquiry gets a reply from me within hours, usually much sooner.

As little of it as the job needs, inside your environment wherever possible, under a written agreement, and not by email. The details are on the security and data handling page.

You leave the call with a clear next step whether or not we work together; if I am not the right person, I say so and point you somewhere useful. If we go ahead, I take a short read-only look at the systems involved, then write a plan you can accept or decline. The work is built in your test environment in small steps, each with evidence, and you see progress every week. It ends with documentation, runbooks and a walkthrough for your team. See contact.

A plain description of the systems involved, what is going wrong or what you want to exist, and any deadline such as a term start or an audit. Then a confidentiality agreement, read-only access arranged the way your security team prefers, and a test environment to build in. Before work begins we also settle in writing which tools may see which data, and name the person at your school who approves a change before it is applied. See security and data handling.

Yes, and I would rather not work any other way. I build in your test environment in small steps, each with evidence that it does what it should. A migration is rehearsed on a copy of your data, with a check-only run that lists what would change before anything does. Production changes are rehearsed first and applied by a person, so the real run is not the first time the work has been tried. See data migration.

Yes. I will complete your vendor security questionnaire, including the HECVAT, and sign your data security or data protection addendum once we have agreed its terms. For student records I work as a contractor under your direct control, as FERPA’s school official exception describes, and I complete FERPA and information security training every year. There is no such thing as FERPA certification, and I do not claim one. The details are on the security and data handling page.

AI agents speed up the reading, comparing and checking around the work: studying your systems, drafting code and reports for review, and running the same checks on every record. Whether an AI tool sees your records at all, and which ones, is your decision, made in writing before work starts. Where the answer is no, the agent works on structure, rules, code and counts, and the record-by-record work is ordinary code inside your environment. More on the approach page.

Not directly. Where you have agreed to it, an agent reads a live system, and the tools it is given there are read tools. Changes are rehearsed in test and applied by a person. The full method is on the approach page.

Small is welcome. Many engagements start with one painful report, one process that causes rework each term, or one task chosen so that success is easy to check. At the other end I have built whole-population migrations and the integration layer that keeps several systems in step, and larger programs move to a monthly retainer once the first piece is live. DataZak is one person alongside a full-time role, so I do not take on more than I can deliver to the agreement we sign. See services.

Yes. Several of my engagements have been through consulting and staffing firms, under their agreement with the institution, working as their specialist alongside their team. If the vendor is your software vendor, I work through the product’s supported interfaces, not around them, and I am independent of the vendor, so my advice is about what works for your school. Education technology companies also hire me to build their product’s connection to the student system. See Anthology Student consulting.

Mostly not. I work remotely, across the United States, from Vancouver, Washington, in the Portland, Oregon metro area. Your systems stay where they are and I connect the way your security team prefers, so the work does not depend on my being in the building. If you are in the Portland area I can come to you when a meeting calls for it, and travel farther is by arrangement, planned ahead. See about.

Every handoff includes a walkthrough for your team along with the documentation and runbooks, and I build reports and validator checks that your staff run for themselves rather than tools only I can use. For technical staff, I can set them up with the same agent tooling I use for my own work. If your team needs more than a walkthrough, say so on the first call. See applied AI.

You own everything I build for you. At handoff you get the code, the documentation, the runbooks for how it works, how to restart it and how to switch it off, the evidence from the build, and a walkthrough for your team, so another engineer can take it on. A hosted integration is defined in code with an exit plan written down, so it can move to your own team when you are ready. See security and data handling.

Yes, in a shape we agree before go-live. Often that is a monthly retainer: a block of hours for a team that needs a student-system specialist to turn to, without hiring one. For an integration I host, a flat monthly fee covers hosting and maintenance, with alerts coming to me and the response hours set out in writing. Either way the handoff means you are not dependent on me. See managed integration hosting.

Yes. I can host and maintain it on Microsoft Azure, in your subscription or in a dedicated environment set aside for your school. See managed integration hosting.

It is a fair question, and three things are built in from the start. You can take the work over: in your own subscription you are the owner, and in an environment I run the agreement gives you the right to take it over, with the steps written down. Runbooks for how it works, how to restart it and how to switch it off are delivered to you. And the code is yours, so another engineer can pick it up. See security and data handling.

Yes. References from past clients are available on request, and my full work history, with each engagement listed individually, is on LinkedIn. The case studies on this site leave names, screens and figures out on purpose, because the work touches student records and runs under confidentiality terms, and I can walk through any of them on a call within what each organization allows. See work.

I worked admissions, the registrar’s office and the financial aid desk before I wrote integration code, so I build for the person who has to use the result. And every delivery comes with evidence of what changed and how it was checked. More on the about page.

It is designed to be run again. A run that stops partway is restarted and changes only what still needs changing. You can try a small working model of that in the financial aid migration case study.