Pathify vs Experience

With Luminis® sunset, institutions seek alternatives to Experience.

As product support for Luminis ended June 30, 2024, institutions must decide how to replace self-service front-end capabilities for students.

As a result, scores of Banner® institutions select Pathify to replace Luminis, opting for a single presentation layer connecting both the Ellucian ecosystem and all other technologies students interact with daily.

What is Experience? What is Pathify? So which system is better for my school?

Why Banner schools choose Pathify

Mission

Pathify focuses on connecting an institution’s entire digital universe to create a seamless user experience.

Independence

Pathify creates a single web and mobile experience for all institutional technology, enabling schools greater freedom to replace or upgrade source and point systems without interrupting the day-to-day.

Integrations and Extensibility

Pathify empowers Portal Admins to connect higher ed’s most popular systems out-of-the-box, while providing developers capabilities to further integrate and customize the portal using the proprietary middleware platform, Flow.

Design

Pathify draws inspiration from the world’s leading consumer applications to provide the most modern, engaging and seamless user experience in higher ed.

Customer Experience

Pathify’s customer success team focuses on true partnership — evidenced by a 70+ NPS score over the past two years.

Time to Value

Schools typically have a fully functioning portal stood up in 10-12 weeks (not months…or years).

Spans the Student Lifecycle & Serves All Constituents

Pathify covers the entire student lifecycle from prospect to alumni, while engaging faculty, parents and campus visitors.

Market Leading Feature Set

With over 160 customers and 2,000,000 users, Pathify is higher ed’s fastest growing independent portal product. It’s tried, tested and loved.

Connecting People

In addition to tying together all content, technology and communications, Pathify remains the only student portal adding people into the mix. Pathify Communities supports Groups, Clubs and the broader school community, with the Engagement Hub mirroring what makes your institution unique.

For a side-by-side comparison of Pathify and Experience functionality, see the table below.

“Pathify’s integration [with Canvas] pulls so much information out of the LMS, I don’t even see why people would bother logging in to the platform natively other than turning in an assignment.”
Deborah Lee, Senior Director of Institutional Research and Effectiveness at Concordia University Irvine
“If we had gone with Ellucian Experience, we would be implementing and running three portals for our system. We have enough overlap in services that we’d be doing the same integration three times over.”
David Blezard, Senior Director, Enterprise IT Systems at University System of New Hampshire
“A key, if not THE key, deciding factor in going with Pathify is their desire and ability to truly partner with us. A lot of vendors talk about partnership. I think Pathify really epitomizes that word in working with us.”
Chris Franz, AVP of Communications at Colorado Christian University
“We went live more than two full months earlier than we expected and that was all our choice, so it was great to have Pathify be so flexible.”
Dan Mills, Director of IT at Cornerstone University
“With Pathify, we’ve partnered to connect to other critical systems that students need access to so we can drive them to one place.”
Bret Ingerman, Vice President of IT at Tallahassee Community College
“The implementation was not a daunting thing. We didn’t have to devote resources full time to this effort. We met regularly. Pathify was great in terms of their project management to help shepherd us along in that process. In fact, they were almost too great.”
Paul Nast, CIO at John Brown University
“Working with [Pathify] has just been so fantastic because when there have been things that we wanted to have in the portal that they hadn’t done before, they were willing to work on it and code it up for us. They demonstrated to us that they could really bring our needs to fruition.”
Daniel Connor, Director of Enterprise Applications at Antelope Valley College

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes! Pathify provides several non-API methods for integrating Banner information.

Absolutely. Pathify provides a whole host of methods for integrating on-prem, customized versions of Banner.

Pathify’s deep integration with Banner allows institutions to surface the most critical information students need in their day-to-day lives, including GPA, major, advisor, graduation date, holds and restrictions. Pathify’s Banner integrationd closely mirror the data an Ellucian user finds using Experience.

No. Whether you’re on-prem or on cloud SaaS with Banner, you receive any and all integrations offered in Pathify’s Recipe Library.

No problem. Pathify provides a multitude of ways to integrate Banner with Pathify whether you’re staying with a customized version of Banner or have moved to cloud SaaS.

Functionally: The same way you would if you were sending students to Banner 9 directly. If you prefer the UX Experience provides for Banner 9 over the UX Banner 9 itself provides, Pathify will send students to Experience when needed.
 
Commercially: Banner 9 Pages are included in the free version of Experience (Foundation) — so whether you want to use the Experience UX for Banner 9 or Banner 9 itself, there’s no commercial difference.

It sure does. Pathify’s Recipe Library provides a growing list of 100+ Recipes, connecting higher ed’s most popular tools (not just Ethos-connected systems) through a variety of data transfer methods and formats. System Admins run Recipes to create both Widgets & integrations with Pathify features without the need for a developer.

If you have devs on staff, their time is freed up to leverage Pathify’s proprietary middleware platform (Flow) to create Widgets & Pages with any JS-framework. They use Flow to build custom Widgets, Pages or feature integrations, with Recipes providing launchpads to get started. 

Pathify offers Standard Implementation free of charge. If you have something super custom we’ll scope it out with you, but the vast majority of our customers are implemented without setup fees.

In a post-COVID world lacking in-person connection, Pathify’s Communities module connects constituents with peers, departments, campus offices, support services, student organizations, and more to seamlessly enhance a sense of community, belonging and support.

Yes. Pathify provides native document management through its Resources functionality. In tandem with Pathify’s robust search, students find exactly what they need without navigating through a trove of files.

Pathify focuses on a couple key factors during implementation and launch — time to value and rapid adoption. The Pathify team works with schools to identify their ideal launch timeline, then focuses training, content, integration and marketing efforts around ensuring the vast majority of students actively use the app just days after go-live.

Although not necessary — absolutely. Some schools have chosen to link from Pathify to various self-service Banner functions provided by Experience, while integrating everything else through Pathify. Because there’s a free version of Experience (and because Pathify is more than willing to work toward a commercial arrangement that works for schools), this is a viable option.

Schedule a demo to check out how Pathify remains the best replacement for Luminis, and we’d be happy to send you one!

High-Level Feature Table

Feature/ItemPathifyEllucian Experience
Branding & Design• Evolving design principles
• Highly configurable self-service branding
• Built-in accessibility checker		• Rudimentary branding/color capabilities
Personalization & Roles• Granular, stackable roles
• Role-based Admin permissions across all features
• Personalize content to end-users based on roles, user ID, time		• Primary roles only
• Limited content delegation
• Limited content personalization
Integrations• Vendor agnostic
• 100+ out-of-the-box integrations
• New integrations/widgets released monthly
• Leverage Flow to build custom widgets		• Largely SSO links to other systems
Search• Robust search capabilities
• Include external websites in search
• Prioritize search results		• Limited search capabilities
Chatbot• Native GenAI Chatbot
• Integrate 3rd party chatbot into Hub		• No native chatbot, integrate 3rd party chatbot
Announcements• Native and integrated Announcements
• Multi-channel delivery (activity feed, push notifications, SMS, email)
• Role-based allows for hyper-targeting		• Generic Announcements
Tasks• Targeted reminders for to-do list items
• Native Tasks
• Automated Tasks via integration with 3rd party systems
• Integrate Tasks from any system
• Same delivery channels as Announcements		• Tasks integrated from Ellucian products only
Resources/Files• Native document management
• Integrate files/drives		• Not provided
Content Management• Move public website content behind authenticated view
• Native pages with low-code WYSIWYG text editor
• Embed web content via iFrame		• Native pages
• No embed option
Forms• Native and embedded capabilities• Not provided
Digital ID/Wallet• Integrate multiple online and physical IDs/cards
• Include digital ID with barcodes/QR codes directly in mobile app		• Not provided
Directory• Integrated Directory• Integrated Directory
Calendars• Single calendar view of all events, native from Pathify
or integrated from 3rd party event management systems
(iCal, RSS & JSON feeds)
• Integrate Ellucian calendars or 3rd party event management systems
• No native functionality
Events• Native event functionality for institution-wide
and Group-specific events
• Event check-in and chekcout
• Room reservation function & integration

• Not provided
Communities• Groups support Discussions, Events,
Resources & Content Management		• Not provided
Mobile App• Native, white-labeled mobile app• Mobile app only available for Premium customers
Faculty/Staff Hub• Authenticated Faculty/Staff experience
• Includes all of the above functionality		• Authenticated Faculty/Staff view
Prospect Hub• Authenticated Prospect Portal
• Unauthenticated/visitor eperience
• Includes all of the above functionality		• Not provided
Alumni Hub• Authenticated Alumni Portal via social authentication
or institution-issued IDM credentials
• Includes all of the above functionality		• Not provided
Delegate/Parent Hub• Authenticated Delegate Portal
• FERPA delegation workflow
• Includes all of the above functionality		• Not provided
Analytics• Native feature and user-level analytics
• Broader analytics reflect wider feature set		• Native analytics
Maps/Geolocating• Native map feature coming soon• Integrated maps only
Extensibility• Create custom integrations through Flow• Dependent on tier (Foundation or Premium)

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