The 5 Critical Components of Modern Advising Technology

Advising is often the first real point of connection for students in higher education. It's where questions get answered, plans take shape, and students decide whether they feel confident navigating college or completely overwhelmed by it.

But at many universities, the systems supporting that work were designed years ago for a very different reality. Siloed tools, outdated workflows, and limited visibility make it hard for advisors to act quickly and even harder for students to stay on track. As needs shift, institutions are rethinking what good advising technology looks like. This includes assessing current advising systems, reviewing advising resources, understanding user needs, and ensuring any new solution aligns with university goals.

Based on conversations with hundreds of advising teams, here are five components that make the biggest difference when evaluating or designing advising technology for effective student success and advisor satisfaction.

Alignment is key for effective advising. Students and advisors should be looking at the same academic plan and the same student information. They need to be on the same page, literally.

Modern advising platforms should allow both of them to monitor degree progress side by side. Both parties should see alerts, course options, required actions, and other important information that shapes academic success. When students can open a platform and instantly see what their advisor sees, the entire process becomes transparent and collaborative.

Simply put, shared visibility builds trust and cuts down on confusion. It helps students take more ownership over their path because the information guiding their decisions is clear and accessible.

Advising works best when advisors have the full picture. Each student brings a detailed academic record, course history, educational goals, and personal circumstances. Advising technology should pull this context into one place rather than scattering it across systems or burying it in PDFs.

This also includes access to past advising appointments, course catalogs, and other advising resources that help advisors guide students. Advisors should be able to see current standing, past interventions, notes from other departments, and any pending decisions without hopping between three different systems.

When the whole story is visible at a glance, advisors can shift their time from searching for information to acting on it.

Similarly, good advising technology helps teams identify issues early by turning raw data into clear signals that assist students. Signals can take many forms:

• Academic indicators like missing a required course, falling below full-time enrollment, or withdrawing from a class
• Behavioral indicators like failing to register for an upcoming term or not opening key communication from advisors
• Institutional indicators like financial holds, declined housing forms, or noticeable drops in LMS activity

When signals are highlighted automatically and routed to the right people, advisors spend less time reacting to situations and more time having future-looking conversations. A good advising tool should also recognize positive signals, such as approaching degree completion, which prompts advisors to certify graduation readiness and help students move confidently toward completion.

Student success spans far beyond the advising office. Most situations require coordination with the registrar, financial aid, faculty, IT, or student affairs. Strong partnerships between Student Affairs, Tutoring, and Undergraduate Education are especially important for educational planning and broader student support.

Advising technology should make cross-campus collaboration easy by supporting tools like:

• Tagging or @mentioning other teams directly in student notes or plans
• Routing cases or flags to the right department without extra steps
• Tracking who has seen an issue and what has already been done
• Preventing duplicate outreach so students receive clear, coordinated support and resources

For example, if a student cannot register because of a financial hold, an advisor should be able to notify financial aid directly in the system. If a student needs a prerequisite override, the request should flow to the right faculty or registrar contact with no extra emails.

Advising technology should help teams adapt to new collaborative processes, making cross-department work simpler and faster for everyone involved.

Academic planning, progress, and the actions around these components should live in the same place. If students are encouraged to map out their academic plan, they should also be able to act on it by registering for classes, requesting approvals, or submitting exceptions in that same space.

Too often, planning happens in one tool while execution happens in another. That disconnect leads to missed deadlines, dropped steps, and confusion about where the student actually stands. Integrated systems help students move from planning to completing each step without losing momentum.

These five components shared visibility, student context, proactive triage, cross-campus collaboration, and seamless execution represent the new standard for modern advising technology. Universities that are redesigning their student experience often start with advising as a core pillar. The technology that supports it should reflect that same level of importance.

The implementation of new advising technology also comes with practical considerations. Institutions need to think about system integration, user adoption, ongoing training, and long-term support. Getting this right matters, because advising technology plays a direct role in how students experience academic planning and student support.

If your team is exploring how to bring these ideas to life, reach out to us to look at how campuses are using Stellic to enhance advising, simplify collaboration, and improve student progress. We would love to walk you through what this looks like in practice and help you see whether it could be a fit for your students and your team.