In this section we will try to answer the following questions:

What is Colleague?

The answer to the first question is that "Colleague" is the name of a college and university data handling system was developed and is supported by the Datatel Corporation.  

You will also hear Colleague described as an "off the shelf " system.  This means that it was purchased and installed with little or no modification or customization to the system's code.  Future updates to Colleague from Datatel will be much easier to install since local changes are not made.  

Who uses Colleague at Brookdale?

Colleague is used by all the departments of the College.  As was mentioned above, the system consists of four major components that are the Student System, The Financial System, The HR and Payroll System and CORE.  

The Student System is used by Faculty, Counselors, Admissions, Registration, Financial Aid, Career Services, Division Offices, Business and Community Development and others dealing with students.  New features and enhancements will allow greater use of the system by students for class information, schedules and grades.

The Financial System is used by Finance, Accounting, Procurement, the Bookstore, Business and Community Development and all departments who track budgets and expenditures.

The Human Resources and Payroll System is used by those departments to maintain up to date information on employees, benefits, leaves, and of course to make sure employees are paid accurately and on time.

CORE is used by everyone.  Users in one area will share "CORE" data elements with users in other areas. Some examples are: Name, Address, Social Security Number, Phone Numbers etc.  This will be discussed in greater detail in the "Data Entry Standards" part of this course.

Why do I have to learn Colleague?

The Colleague system has replaced many of the local or departmental systems that were in use.  New applications are being developed and it is imperative that employees become familiar with Colleague.  Nearly all departments at Brookdale are now using some feature of this system.  All employees are encouraged to take every opportunity to learn more about Colleague.  

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Since many departments at Brookdale share information through the CORE systems feature, we will discuss and learn a little more about how we get the key data elements of information into Colleague.

The Colleague system is designed using screens or templates that are displayed on a computer monitor. The user enters commands and and data directly to spaces or "cells" on these screens.  One screen that will be discussed in detail is called the NAE screen. 

No matter which part of Colleague you are using, whether it is the Student, Financial or HR/Payroll module, the key information concerning name, address and social security number is entered into the Colleague system by a screen known as the NAE screen.  This is the Name and Address Entry screen.  

You will be trained in other department specific screens that your department or function uses to complete its tasks.  But common or CORE screens such as NAE are used by all.

We will take a closer look at the NAE screen in more detail, but first your attention is directed to the Course Handouts page where you will be able to print some information about entering data.

To continue, please click on the Course Handouts button.  If you wish to exit at any time, click on the "Home" button at the top left of any of the screens.

Course Handouts