StarRez Overview

Environment

Student Life, Housing, Billing, Facilities, DPSS
 

Issue

Overview of the StarRez software suite and how to troubleshoot it.
 

Resolution

Context

StarRez is a cloud-based multi-tenant software suite used to perform business-critical processes.

Within Student Life, StarRez is primarily used and supported by Michigan Housing, with the main workflows being Room Applications & Bookings (also known as “assignments” and “contracts”, respectively) as well as Billing.  Students complete Housing and residential Michigan Learning Community (MLC) applications, enter roommate and room preferences, select meal plans for their room and board contracts, sign and submit contracts, and through other requests and communications manage their stay with Housing.

Besides Michigan Housing, Facilities teams affiliated with Student Life also use StarRez.  In their case, it is used to track Room Inspections and Turnover.  All product support for these Facilities teams are done through Michigan Housing, who serve as their initial escalation point when needed.

Some important things to note before continuing:

  • Michigan Housing is the primary support team for the StarRez Web and StarRez PortalX applications.  Users with questions should contact this department directly when reporting any issues with the system.  Michigan Housing can be reached through the methods outlined at https://housing.umich.edu/help/contact.

  • User manager teams for different workgroups provide access to staff as-needed.

  • Student Life Technology Solutions (SLTS) is responsible for maintaining and troubleshooting data integrations through the Data Interface group (Business Intelligence and Web & Apps staff).


There are two (2) primary user interfaces for this application:

  1. A staff-audience website for managing applications, contacts and billing.
    • This is called StarRez Web and can be found here.
       
  2. A public-audience website for applicants and those with Housing contracts (prospective residents and current residents).
    • This is called StarRez PortalX and can be found here.


Both of the above-mentioned resources use the U-M SSO, and staff use their campus credentials to authenticate through Shibboleth to access the respective systems.


Troubleshooting
 

  1. New residents cannot access StarRez housing portal (PortalX)
    • Students new to U-M will have to create a uniqname as part of their onboarding process.  However, newly created uniqnames will not populate in StarRez immediately.  StarRez will automatically import these by 10am the following day, after which the student should be able to log into StarRez without issue.
       
    • In rare cases, regular U-M staff may have a need to apply for a room in the Housing system.  Unlike new students, there is no equivalent process for regular U-M staff.  In these cases, the employees should contact the Housing department directly.
       
  2. Problem reported by an individual student applicant or resident of Housing
    • The student should be directed to contact Michigan Housing for reporting and follow-up. The Michigan Housing department can be reached through methods outlined at https://housing.umich.edu/help/contact.
       
  3. Staff Users who need access
    • Staff in the Residence Education (ResEd) including Residence Staff (ResStaff, RAs, etc) have their own ResEd user manager team to contact.  ResEd staff should know who this is or can ask a peer or supervisor to direct them.
       
    • Other Michigan Housing Staff (Housing Admin, HIO) should contact the HIO User Manager team.
       
    • Non-Michigan Housing staff (e.g. Student Life admins, Michigan Learning Community admins) should contact the HIO User Manager team.
       
    • For Housing Security Officers (HSO), the process of request access has been made available via the StarRez Access Request form.  In the case of a new officer replacing an officer that has recently left, Supervisors should note that on the form prior to submission.
       
  4. Questions about data and data transfer errors in StarRez and its associated data interfaces
    • Initial requests and reports should be made to Michigan Housing, who will follow up with relevant business partners as-needed.
       
    • If a staff member of Michigan Housing or a related department (e.g. HIO) submits a ticket to 4-HELP for this type of workflow, it should be moved to the SL-Hub with instructions to route to the Business Intelligence team.
       
  5. Staff desiring consultations on how to use StarRez
    • Staff should be directed to contact the Housing BSA/Application Admin or a member of the Housing StarRez Working Group.
       

Additional Information

StarRez maintains a proprietary knowledge base portal called StarCare.  It is not available to the general public.  If staff desire access to this resource, they should contact their unit’s user manager team.

While there is a StarRez mobile application available for staff, it is not actively used as of May 2024.  SLTS does not provide any level of support for this application.

StarRez is the replacement product for HMS Odyssey, the latter of which was fully deprecated effective September 2023.

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