Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), Jenzabar Chatbot is a modern, digital engagement channel that works with higher education student information systems (SIS). It was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide institutions with an always-available resource to answer student questions and reduce stress as colleges rapidly transitioned to online learning models. Jenzabar Chatbot allows students to find the information they need from whatever device they are using without waiting in a queue. Jenzabar Chatbot provides real-time answers to frequently asked questions from students, which frees staff to deliver personalized support for students with more complex needs. When relying solely on human interactions, institutions can only serve a finite number of people at one time. Jenzabar Chatbot can help a myriad of people simultaneously during high-activity periods. For example, by integrating with an institution’s SIS, Jenzabar Chatbot can answer targeted questions about course assignments, room locations, and add/drop concerns. Or, when the FAFSA filing deadline approaches, students can receive immediate answers from the chatbot rather than calling the financial aid office, leaving a voicemail, and waiting for a response.

Website: www.jenzabar.com

What Users Love About the App

“Faculty and student advisors, as well as program directors, have all of the information at their fingertips to help the student progress through their program. This also helps the registrar’s office. We no longer have to stop to respond to specific student academic history requests.”

“Jenzabar One is a software package that keeps getting functionality added to it and keeps improving. The company isn’t satisfied with the status quo and wants to keep up with the customer’s changing needs. With Jenzabar One, you get a large-company development mindset affordable for the medium-sized college.”

“Jenzabar One’s user interface makes it a much better, faster experience for faculty, students, and staff. I am most impressed with the housing management functionality that supports transgender accommodations.”

“All sections of the program talk to each other; with ID numbers you can easily search by more than one category which makes it useful if you only have one piece of information to look for.”

“The upsides I see for J1 web are the benefits for students to have a more user friendly environment and access to their information. The J1 web advising is also great for advisers who need access to additional student information.”

What Users Dislike About the App

“Very outdated and clunky look. Jenzabar One would be difficult to learn for someone new. Its interface is far from user friendly. Any reporting has to be done separately through Infomaker, which is something that will require additional training.”

“The user interface is incredibly cumbersome to the point of being useless. It is not obvious how to find the functionality portals that you need because they are buried in a list. And once you’ve found the functionality you need, there are hidden ‘quirks’ of the functionality portals that are not obvious and affect your ability to use the tool. The software is capable of interfacing with a web-based portal, but the communication between programs is unilateral and not the most useful.”

“The features are so limited and take so much time to design with the interface. Integration of other systems requires labor hours and a new script to be written to send over a simple y/n trigger for a function. It takes SO many clicks to get where you need to go. Some pages don’t have many interactive features and it’s like using windows 98 without updating it.”

“J One has worked well. The only downside is finding the time to train all of our faculty and advisors on using it. With teaching schedules as they are, it is a challenge for sure. In the previous advising module, faculty could sort the registered advisees and the un-registered advisees. We are not able to do that in J One. If this is possible, I would love to know how to accomplish this. It would also be helpful to sort or see a snapshot of students that have holds on their accounts, as this prevents registration.”

“Sometimes there is a feature disconnect that impacts our customized areas in a highly negative manner. We usually only find out about those after the updates are released, which can sometimes be problematic for meeting implementation deadlines.”