Intro to CWIS

Overview of CWIS

As an alternative to accessing Banner data via Banner Forms, Ellucian created Banner Self-Service which includes several products (Student Self-Service, Faculty Self-Service, etc.). Curry implemented some of these products under the name CWIS to allow constituents, such as students, staff, and faculty to access and update their data via a web interface.

Many of the options available within CWIS are supplied by Ellucian as a part of this product, such as Web Registration, Detail Class List, and Final Grades. Other custom applications were developed at Curry to allow access through this interface such as Course Assessments and Order Books Online. One of the most frequently used aspects of CWIS, by staff, is the Reports Menu, which is a Curry custom application for providing reporting capability from the Banner Database. It can be directly accessed by the “CWIS Reports” icon on the myCurry portal.

Accessing the Curry Web Information System

Access the Curry College Web Information System by:

The myCurry portal Quick Launch CWIS icon or Reports Menu icon
Other myCurry locations: Faculty page link, custom links embedded in tabs and pages such as under the myInfo tab.
The CWIS icon on your desktop (available from the Banner Icons folder on the Common Drive)

Unless you access CWIS via the portal (where you have already logged in) you will login with your portal password (which is best kept in synch with your network password).

CWIS Folders and the people they serve

The CWIS Welcome Screen shows one or more “folders” and associated tabs that are available to the user.
The three folders used at Curry are Personal Information, Faculty Services, and Student Services & Financial Aid.

Every CWIS user has at least one folder tab on this screen containing Personal Information.
Faculty members also have a Faculty Services folder available to them.
Anyone who is, or has been, a Curry student has a Student Services & Financial Aid folder.
This introduction is limited to the options available on the Personal Information tab, but the options for the other two folders are shown on the next page so you are aware of what your colleagues and the students may be using in CWIS.

Faculty Services Menu Offerings – NOTE: Some of these faculty options are primarily accessed via myCurry links.

Student Services Menu Offerings – NOTE: Most of these student options are accessed via myCurry links and mobile apps, and they will likely be removed from this menu.

Personal Information Menu Offerings

Personal Information Menu

The following options are available under the Personal Information tab:

The two View options show you what employee information is currently contained in Banner about you. If you notice any incorrect information, please notify Human Resources with the correct information.
Update Emergency Contacts allows you to update contact-people information in Banner.
Parking Permit Application allows new employees or students to request a parking permit.
Change Emergency Preferences updates the phone numbers and email addresses you would like to be contacted by in the event of a Campus-wide emergency.
Printer Software Account Information shows the initial username and password for your access to common area, public printers, such as those in the library.
The Report Menuoption

Also accessible directly via myCurry quick launch icon: o Allows access to the reports that may be necessary for your job o Displays a list of menus, reports, and processes you may access
The menus/reports/process list varies considerably from person to person, department to department depending on an employee’s job requirements
You can select a menu or report from this screen, or enter a report number that you would like to access directly (when it may be nested under one or more menus)
General information about what a report shows or does is available by clicking the Help box on the Menu where it is listed

CWIS Report Example

The Report Menu shown for Mary Example includes an Advising department menu, a Faculty menu (because she is a faculty member), and a General menu, which is available to all employees.

The General Menu contains a few handy reports and processes. The blue items are reports and the green items are processes that either make changes to the database, and/or send emails. The Help buttons on menus give short descriptions of the Report/Process/Menus listed.

Report 0549, Open Semester Courses, is fairly typical of Curry’s custom reports. Click on it and the Input Parameters are shown. Frequently, input parameters are prefilled with likely entries, and parameters used for narrowing the output are available, often filled with wildcard characters (%) such as here with the Subject Code parameter. This report lists open courses for a given term on the web browser or an Excel spreadsheet, depending on the output selected. Additional information about the input parameters is available under the Click for Help button.

Here is the report in Excel, shown after using the Banner macro button. The macro quickly adds filter handles and resizes the output for printing.

Another report from the General Menu prints labels from a Banner population selection. It uses another common CWIS convention, the Address Hierarchy. Most address hierarchies are prefilled with the most likely order someone would need. However, in a generic report such as this one, you would likely need to change for your use. If you only indicate one address type, and a record in your list doesn’t have that type, it will not show up at all.

General CWIS Information and Tips

Treat all sensitive information with care, especially when accessing it from off-campus. Safeguard your passwords and don’t allow other people to use your Banner accounts.
When you are finished with your CWIS session, be sure to logout and close ALL instances of your browser.
If you are unfamiliar with a report, read the Help information before running. If it takes a long time to run, don’t just close your browser, you might still be connected. Contact the Tech Center and ask for a Banner support person to check out the situation.
If you do not have the Banner (CWIS button) Macro installed, go to the Banner folder on the common drive and find the Banner-Icons folder. Refer to the Install Banner Macro and Make Button document.
You should have your settings so that a separate Excel window opens up when you run a CWIS report. If you do not see both windows (the report field entry page and the Excel output) then you should contact the Tech Center to adjust your settings.
Make sure your Downloads option is set to Enable to allow download of Web pages and Excel files [Tools/Internet Options/Security (select Trusted Sites and designate site “https://*.curry.edu” and in the settings under Custom Level, Downloads, Automatic prompting for file downloads, select enable.]
Once you have started running reports, you’ll see some reports in the Frequently Run Reports Menu. This allows another quick way to find a report you want to run.
The Tech Center welcomes additional Help information that your department can provide and will incorporate it into CWIS Help.
Don’t make a habit of saving your CWIS report results. It is a better practice to rerun a report if needed and keeping the old versions in your directory can cause invalid results in future mail merges.