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University of North Texas

University of North Texas at Denton improves data quality for more accurate student communication

 

University of North Texas at Denton struggled with address hygiene, duplicate identification and overall data quality. By implemeenting a suite of data quality tools they were able to remove duplicate database entries and effectively communicate with current students and alumni.

Objective

The University of North Texas System was looking for a new vendor to assist them with address hygiene and data quality. The system’s flagship campus in Denton experienced problems with address hygiene across the student lifecycle and saw a number of duplicate records within undergraduate admissions.

“For our outreach to prospective students during undergraduate recruitment efforts, we receive a high volume of prospective student list uploads,” said Kok Chuan Koh, programmer analyst at the University of North Texas System. “It is critical that we send timely and appropriate communications to prospective students throughout the process to keep them engaged. Duplicates can result in inappropriate communication and cause the prospective student to drop UNT from their consideration”.

While UNT already had duplicate identification software in place, the tool required between eight and 16 hours to run and was at end-of-life with limited technical support.

Solution

UNT System administrators reviewed several products, covering all spectrums of price within the market. The school needed to find a technology vendor that could provide both duplicate identification and address hygiene solutions. The product also needed to stay within budget, provide easy implementation, and show strong overall performance.

For the duplicate identification product, the school had other specific requirements. “We needed a tool that could run in a reasonable time frame and give us high-quality matches for duplicates, allowing administrators or users to start processing them within the same day,” said Koh. Experian Data Quality

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Next, UNT System administrators partnered with Experian to conduct pilot testing and allowed remote access to their environment so that Experian Data
Quality could show a live NameSearch demo using actual UNT data. This was possible due to the tool’s easily configurable interface.

“When we reviewed NameSearch, the demo showcased the product’s superior performance for accuracy and processing speed over our current search-match product. In addition, the price point for the solution was within what we had allocated for the project,” said Koh. “NameSearch provides a graphical userinterface that allows us to tweak the search-match algorithm and adjust the search criteria values, which is critical for our business processes.”

UNT System administrators also selected Experian Data Quality’s address hygiene solution because of its easy-to-understand interface that allows users
to validate addresses across all departments, without additional training. The address-matching algorithm is highly accurate, finding even very obscure addresses.

When we reviewed NameSearch, the demo proved the product’s superior performance for accuracy and processing speed.

University of North Texas at Denton
KC Koh Programmer, University of North Texas

UNT purchased both tools, with NameSearch implemented in the undergraduate admissions office and the address data validation solution rolled out across the entire UNT System.


Results

So far the University of North Texas has seen strong results from both products. More duplicates are caught by the NameSearch tool in just minutes than they could after eight hours with the previous program. Providing accurate search-match results in a timely manner allowing users to resolve duplicates records faster. This means UNT is engaging with the right prospective students in a more efficient manner.

The university is also seeing lower rates of returned mail since it implemented Experian Data Quality’s address hygiene solution in February 2014. A comparison of the return mail volume to the undergraduate admissions office between the 2013-2014 March-to-October periods shows a reduction of 39 percent by total volume. This means a significant cost savings.

“The critical part of the address hygiene process is having the ability to detect and correct bad addresses. The software is able to suggest corrections, making it easier for the employee to correct a bad address,” said Koh.

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