Banner Page Names

What is a Banner system?

Banner is a Student Information System (SIS), sometimes called an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software, created by Ellucian (formerly Sungard and SCT).  Several systems work in conjunction with Banner software.  Information in Banner is stored in a group of tables, called a database.  Most of the pages use a programming language to access the data, called SQL (Structured Query Language) which processes the data through a job server that either runs a process to store the data so that it can be accessed through a page or a report.  Some processes run in the background to do certain things, like calculations and data entries to tables. 

One thing to note about processes, reports and databases:  A process adds data to the tables, so if it accidently runs twice, you could get duplicate data.  On the other hand, a report just pulls data from the tables and can be run several times.  Therefore, understanding the naming conventions can help you understand your processes and reports.

What do Banner page names mean?

A Banner page or form is where an authorized user can enter data, pull reports, run processes and look up information.  Pages have a description and an abbreviated name with seven letters which allows you to remember page or form names more readily.  The seven letters in the name indicates the type of page you are viewing. The first three positions use consistent letter codes and the last four positions are an abbreviation of the full-page name.  Each position has a meaning, such as:

Position 1 is the System Identifier
Position 2 is the Module Identifier
Position 3 is the Object Type
Positions 4-7 is the abbreviation for the full-page name

The following are common letter codes for positions 1-3:

POSITION 1 – System Identifier 

POSITION 2 – Module (application) Identifier

POSITION 3 – Object Type Code

POSITION 4 – 7 – Specific Page Functions (a small sample)