Financial Aid Student Center Solution

The Vendor is required to provide cloudbased constituent communications solutions that support centralized service delivery for the financial aid office.
- Purpose
• Identify a single, modern solution that enables the financial aid office to manage all student interactions within a centralized platform across all communication channels.
• Assess the capabilities, functionality, and maturity of available solutions.
• Inform internal planning, budgeting, and potential future procurement activities.
• Evaluate how solutions support effective Omni channel engagement, improve operational efficiency, and meet compliance and regulatory requirements.
- Omni channel communications
• Unified constituent record that consolidates all service interactions (e.g., cases/tickets, calls, emails, appointments, and walk-in visits) into a single view for staff
• Capture all interaction types (e.g., phone calls, emails, appointments, walk-in visits, and cases/tickets) and associate them to a record ensuring complete chronological interaction timeline within the record
• Include filtering and search capabilities for interaction history
• Support automated routing and assignment of interactions across channels to the appropriate queue, service area, or staff member when intervention is required
• Omni channel interaction capabilities delivered natively within the solution
- Telephony and contact center support
• Phone and contact center capabilities natively
• Integrate with the university’s existing cisco platform for phone and contact center functionality
• Clearly describe any required licensing, middleware, configuration, or professional services needed to support this integration.
1. Call handling and queue management
• Inbound and outbound calling
• Interactive voice response (IVR)
• Configurable queues
• Custom queue-specific hold messaging and hold music
• Queue callback options
• Estimated wait times and the number of callers ahead in the queue
• Call routing based on queue, number dialed, and caller input
• Warm and cold call transfers
2. Agent tools
• Agent softphones that are browser-based and desktop-based
• Standard call controls (e.g., answer, hold, transfer, mute)
• Support agent status management (e.g., available, busy)
• Allow agents to enter call notes during and after calls
3. Call logging and case management
• Automatically log call metadata including date/time, duration, agent, queue, hold time, and call outcome
• Functionality for associating calls with constituent records and documenting the interaction history (e.g., voice-to-ticket)
• Automated routing and assignment of phone interactions to the appropriate queue, service area, or staff member when intervention is required
- AI assisted capabilities
• The solution must provide AI-assisted call summaries
• Real-time AI-assisted agent guidance from a knowledgebase
- Video communications
• Allow agents to escalate an active phone call to a video session, enabling constituents to join through a simple link or invitation without interrupting the interaction
• Browser-based video meetings and not require constituents to install software or create an account
• Screen sharing during video sessions
• Must log video interactions as part of the constituent interaction history
• Constituents to initiate an on-demand video support session and be placed into a virtual queue for the appropriate service area, like the experience of calling a contact center.