The new Axess experience rolled out last week on Aug. 9 after an intense ten-month project. The updates to the portal and its underlying PeopleSoft system pave the way for continuing improvements to meet the needs of our Stanford community.
The Axess Refresh rollout is the successful result of an extraordinary partnership among multiple Stanford units, along with development partner Base22. The groups involved included:
University IT:
- Student & HR Systems
- PeopleSoft Infrastructure team in Technical Services
- Quality Assurance
- Office of Digital Accessibility
- UIT Communications
- UIT Service Desk
Business Offices:
- University HR
- Student & Academic Services
- University Registrar
- Financial Aid
- Payroll
- Faculty Affairs
The Axess Refresh go-live began on Friday, Aug. 5., as the system was taken offline at 5 p.m. PT. The project team then began a sequence of planned tasks that lasted throughout Saturday and Sunday. On Monday, Aug. 8, the business offices ran their validation checks, and by 8 p.m. PT, sign-off was obtained to take the new Axess live.
As users began logging in on Tuesday, Aug. 9, the UIT Service Desk was ready to provide front-line support for any issues. So far, the rollout is proving successful.
What’s new?
Did you know: It’s been nine years since Axess last had a “refresh”!
This time around, you can be on the lookout for:
- Improved navigation options
- A new global search tool
- Updated overall design
- More personalized features, such as the ability for those with multiple roles to toggle among them (for example: Employee, Student, Faculty, or Advisor)
For videos showing what’s new by role, head to axessrefresh.stanford.edu.
Going live concurrently with the new portal is a feature enabling students to optionally enter and share their pronouns for inclusion on class rosters and Canvas.
What’s next?
While the new portal is fully up and running, more work is planned to continue fine-tuning usability and functionality.
Current efforts include:
- Refining accessibility throughout the portal
- Tracking user searches to expand the search catalog
- Re-working the PeopleSoft saved links function
- Enrollment preparation
Learn more and get help
- Log in to Axess.
- Learn more about the Axess Refresh project.
- For help with Axess, submit a Help request.
