Making Limited Advising Time Count

In community colleges and large public institutions, academic advisors carry high caseloads, often meeting students in brief 20- to 30-minute appointments.

Advisors frequently spent the first ten minutes of each appointment asking basic intake questions: How are your classes going? Do you have transportation issues? Are you working full-time? Do you need tutoring or emergency aid? By the time non-academic obstacles were uncovered, little time remained to discuss course planning or degree requirements.

Whether an institution is implementing Guided Pathways, proactive case management, or first-year retention initiatives, advising leadership faces the same hurdle: advisors lack advance visibility into what students actually need before the appointment starts.

The Advisor Preparation Workflow

Proactive academic advising workflow: connecting pre-appointment student check-ins to Ellucian CRM Advise
Proactive academic advising workflow: connecting pre-appointment student check-ins to Ellucian CRM Advise

The institution deployed a SurveyDIG pre-appointment advising survey, integrated with Ellucian Banner and Ellucian CRM Advise.

The key operational shift was simple: students complete the check-in survey before their advising appointment.

How the Process Works

  1. Pre-Appointment Survey: During registration and advising periods, students receive a mobile check-in link prior to scheduled one-on-one advising appointments.
  2. Targeted Questions: The survey asks about academic confidence, career plans, transportation reliability, housing and food security, and tutoring needs.
  3. Direct Advisor Access: When an advisor opens the student's record in Ellucian CRM Advise, they have direct access to the student's SurveyDIG survey summary.
  4. Prepared Advising Sessions: Because the advisor reviews the student's responses before the appointment begins, they can prepare specific support options in advance—such as setting up tutoring referrals, discussing credit load adjustments, or connecting the student to campus emergency resources.

Scaling Across Terms

The initiative handled high volume across multiple semesters:

  • In peak terms, single-semester responses exceed 15,000 completed surveys.
  • Across the program, the system has processed over 75,000 student surveys.
  • Aggregate data helped college leadership identify common retention challenges and direct student support funds where they were needed most.

Collecting intake feedback before the appointment gives advisors the context they need to make every conversation practical and helpful.