Student Insurance Portal
International NGO
Timeline: 6 months
Tools: Organization’s website, coding
The goal: Develop a system for collecting, monitoring, and reporting insurance data for 18,000+ international scholarship recipients.
The Problem
As a visa sponsor for international students, this NGO was required to ensure that students maintained health insurance that met their visa requirements. For most students, this insurance was provided through their universities, and the details were provided directly to the students. So, the NGO asked the students to complete printed paper copies of insurance information, submit them in the mail or email, and then the NGO would hire a team of 15 data entry temps each semester to update the insurance information.
The Solution
A student portal built into the NGO’s website, where students could sign in and complete their information, notifications of expiring coverage were automatically sent to students and NGO staff, and students were able to update their information any time it changed. It resulted in no additional need for temp data entry staff, and a decade later, that portal is used for every program the NGO runs in 11 offices across 6 countries.
The Process
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I met with immigration and insurance staff to gain a deeper understanding of their respective processes. They showed me the database where they kept insurance information, the pdf document that students were supposed to print and fill out, and the email requests they sent to students with instructions.
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At the time, there were few tools that could collect that volume of information, keep it secure, and use it to activate processes.
I approached the IT team at the organization to understand what the options were for using the existing website. They agreed - a portal with a single sign on was a great idea.
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Because this was a brand new tool, every detail had to be decided, including where and how the data was stored on the backend of the website, how it should be retained, deleted, or archived, and how front-end and back-end access should impact each other.
I worked with the in-house web developer team to build the portal over 6 months. This included monthly meetings to review progress, test for bugs, and provide feedback.
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We asked a small number (50) students to test the service before rolling it out. Though we didn’t find any major issues, they let us know that some of the language was unclear for ESL students and could use more specific guidance. We were able to build in an FAQ section on the portal page.
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I provided workflow documentation to the team, while the website team provided build data to facilitate continuity of the portal over time.
The documentation and our experience was expanded to multiple US locations, then translated and used internationally.
Interested in a document/data submission portal?