Onboarding

We’re so excited to have you on board. My name is Paul Brown and I’ll be serving as your “Roompact Advisor” going forward. Your Roompact Advisor is our version of an RA, and we’re here to support you, check in on you, answer questions, and connect you to resources.

On this page, I’ll introduce you to the first step in our relationship together: Onboarding. The onboarding process with Roompact includes your technical implementation and the practical orientation and set-up of our software. We wanted to provide you with this overview, but don’t worry, I’ll be here with you every step of the way. As a former residence life professional myself, I understand your work and your needs and am happy to advise you on how best to use Roompact to achieve your outcomes.

Kick Off Meeting

The Kick Off call is the first step in your Onboarding process. In it, we review all of the major steps to get you set up and ready to start using Roompact. We’ll also get your tech team and our team connected and make plans for additional consult and training meetings to set you up to hit the ground running.

Technical
Implementation

Your technical implementation includes all of the logistical and technical tasks that need to be completed in order for you to start using Roompact’s software. This will likely require collaboration with your IT department and any staff that are responsible for maintaining your resident records and housing management system.

---

Single Sign On

Single sign on (SSO) allows you to use your campus credentials (such as when you log into your college or university’s portal) to log into Roompact. Although you can use a temporary Roompact-provided log-in to get connected, we’ll need to work with your IT department to get this set up.

Roompact supports two SSO technologies: CAS and SAML (Shibboleth/ADFS).

---

Resident Roster Connection (including photos)

In order to populate Roompact’s software with your residents and their information, we need to make a connection between Roompact and your housing management system (HMS). There are a number of ways to make this connection and your options will depend on what software you use to keep track of resident assignments. You can also import resident photos.

---

Structure Import

Once we receive your resident data, we will build out your structure in Roompact’s software. This includes the names and configurations of your buildings, floors, suites, and rooms. Getting a configuration set up well is important as it can impact how certain features will work

---

Virtual Buildings

You may want to give a certain subset of users staff account permissions to utilize features such as Schedule and Forms, but do not want to allow these staff members to access any resident information. This is commonly needed for desk attendants, peer mentors who work in the residence halls, or for Residence Hall Association members. We can create “virtual buildings” to allow these users to access Roompact’s software as staff members.

---

Bulk Staff Import

Just before launch, you’ll want to upload your staff account permissions into the system. You can always individually add, modify and remove staff through Account Management, but you’ll want to add them in bulk prior to launch.

---

Software
Orientation

Your orientation includes all of the practical and set up tasks you’ll need to complete in order for staff to begin using Roompact’s software in their work. For initial tasks, we will work with your departmental leadership or a steering committee to build out and transition processes over to Roompact. In the final stage, we’ll do a comprehensive training for all professional staff users.

---

Feature Buildouts

In order to get your Roompact environment ready to use by staff and residents, there are a few features you need to set-up and build out. The following are five areas you can begin working on. These will be discussed in your Feature Build Out Meetings with your Roompact Advisor.

Meeting 1

• Forms is an incredibly flexible tool that can be used for a number of staff or student facing forms. You will need to create Form Templates for the process you want to use Roompact’s software for. Roompact designs and provides a number of example templates to help get you started. Found at the bottom of the Manage Templates tab within Forms, you can click on Options to the right of their names and select Duplicate to create a new form based on these templates. You can then modify the form template to suit your needs.

Meeting 2

• Resources allows you to store or link to any documents or webpages. Staff can use this for reference information or for links to other systems. Some of the documents/links you may consider including for staff are:
  • Staff manuals (You may even consider breaking it into subsections for easier access)
  • College policies
  • Student Conduct Software/Incident Report Forms
  • Residential Curriculum Facilitation Guides
  • Departmental Calendars

• Agreements allows you to set up Roommate Agreements and optional Suitemate Agreements (if your Roompact environment was designed to recognize suites) for your residents to complete. To utilize this feature, you will need to create an Agreement Template. After your campus structure is imported and set, Templates can then be assigned to all students universally, or you can create multiple templates and assign different templates to different students by building.
• Events allows you to set Categories. When a staff member submits an event, they have the option to identify it as belonging to a category. These categories could be broad areas from your program model (social, multicultural, educational, etc.) or they could be your learning goals/outcomes. To get prepared to use Events, you will need to define these categories.
• Schedule keeps track of staff member duty or work shifts, you will first need to set up Calendars. Calendars are the different calendars you have and each defines what staff members are eligible to participate in them. After your campus structure is imported and set, you can assign what buildings make up your shift regions.

Meeting 3

This meeting will focus on providing you with a “quick start” guide or template on how you can begin your year getting the most out of Roompact’s features. It will include strategies, staff expectations, and opportunities for assessment.

---

On Campus Training

All campuses new to Roompact receive in person training for all of your professional staff. As you get closer to a launch date, we’ll set up a time for this training. It will last approximately 2 and a half hours and we’ll also highlight additional resource and training opportunities for the future.

---

Launch!

Once we complete the above tasks, you’ll be ready to launch with your staff members and residents. We’ll work with you to troubleshoot any issues that arise as you learn more about the software and users begin to learn the system.

On Going Support

Your relationship with us isn’t done when you complete your onboarding. You’ll have access to numerous support resources to help you along the way. We’ll also proactively reach out to you for:

• 60-Day Check In: Approximately two months into our relationship after you launch, we’ll reach out to more formally check in on how things are going.
• Annual Meetings: We’ll reach out once a year to meet with you, review your usage, celebrate successes, and make suggestions on how you can get more out of the software.
• Roompact Recaps: You’ll receive updates from us on a quarterly basis through our newsletter.

And we’re always available to you via email and through our support portal which provides tutorials, walkthroughs, and practice guides.