In mid-winter 2019 Cal State East Bay was presented with a confluence of opportunities that prompted an ambitious timeline for a project to replace its aging campus ID called BayCard. These opportunities include the simple requirement (stemming from regulation changes) of needing to add suicide information and a hotline to all student ID cards, along with reaching the limitations of the supporting infrastructure; such as the end-of-life milestone of many point-of-sale devices and aging servers, in addition to the expiring contract of BlackBoard Transact (East Bay’s ID card platform). A major factor, too, was the expiring contract with East Bay’s food services contract with Aramark.

Other drivers that motivated the team to come to this decision included improving the student experience with the introduction of a mobile payment system as well as the vendor’s incentive of paying for the aging point-of-sale devices (and its implementation).

Thus CSUEB’s Financial Services and IT Solutions embarked upon the multi-year effort to revamp and introduce a new campus ID system.

After discovery sessions and the creation of an implementation team made from various campus departments-- initiated by the catalyst of executing an RFP resulting in the selection of Chartwells as our next food services vendor-- the group decided to migrate to the TouchNet OneCard platform. The completion date set for Phase I of the project was set for June 2019 and was underway in April of 2019.

This aggressive timeline was driven by various deadlines such as bringing the food services portion online in time for the summer residence meal plans to take effect, along with events and conferences needing food services; as well as having full operational capability on the OneCard platform when Chartwells became fully functional on campus (i.e., having all food outlets online) by the beginning of the Fall Term.

What followed was a well run project and a good example of collaboration between ITS and its technical as well as its project management capabilities; focus, determination, knowledge and understanding from the stakeholders; and dedication, candor and expertise from the vendors.

Not only did the team meet the milestones and deadlines in such a short timeline, the systems migrating to SaaS and IaaS based architecture and framework, and enabling more up-to-date functionality expected out of an ID card definitely showcased the campus’ ability to evolve its technology with an eye for future growth.

To date, the solution has enabled new features such as: the ability to manage the campus’ currency (BayBucks and FlexDollars) in both a web and mobile interface; the ability for students to exchange their plan meals for outlet payments (e.g., food court payments to Taco Bell, etc.); ability to submit photos online in lieu of having to process it through the library; pay meals via mobile; and even integrate the ability to pay food trucks that we invite on-premise as a means to diversify food selection on campus.

For this presentation, East Bay’s IT Solutions team will show the challenges, decisions, and collaboration points between IT, Student Life, Financial Services, as well as the vendors Chartwells and Touchnet, who came together with other groups such as the Health Center, Facilities, and ASI, to bring Phase I to a successful completion in just four months. We will show the unique features of the solution and the roadmap of the next few phases for the OneCard platform.

Finally, we will cover the roadmap for the program which includes possible future partnerships with TouchNet that will modernize East Bay’s methodologies such as integrating all campus functions into one payment gateway, incorporating OneCard into the campus SalesForce CRM program and event management through SalesForce Communities, to even providing vouchers and credits through the ID card for student purchases through the campus bookstore.