Banner is two systems wearing one name — decades of Oracle Forms and PL/SQL underneath, a Grails and Ethos ecosystem on top. We're an independent team that reads legacy Banner code, builds the integrations Ethos can't reach on its own, and modernises and unifies the systems around it — without ripping out what still works.
Banner is the ERP and Student Information System backbone for well over a thousand institutions worldwide — powering the full student lifecycle plus finance, HR, and advancement. Almost none of them run it clean out of the box. We work with the institutions living in that gap: mid-upgrade, heavily customised, integration-hungry, and short on people who know the platform end to end.
On-premise, Ellucian-hosted, or mid-flight to Banner SaaS — we meet the estate you actually have, not the one on the roadmap slide.
"Banner developer" means something specific, and vague agencies give themselves away fast. Here's the ground we actually stand on. If these terms are your daily reality, we're speaking the same language.
Oracle database and the Banner table structure that has stayed broadly consistent across versions. PL/SQL packages, triggers, and the baseline schema. banproxy, Value Based Security (VBS), and GSASECR security classes. The data model that every integration ultimately reads from.
Internet Native Banner, Oracle Forms .fmb files, and the WebLogic/Forms runtime that carried institutions for two decades. The browser-Java dependency, the accelerator keys, and the baseline modifications quietly layered on top over the years — the code most institutions can no longer fully account for.
The XE rewrite: Groovy on Grails, Hibernate/JPA domains, Spring Security, running on Tomcat or WebLogic. Administrative Pages vs Self-Service. Application Navigator as the SSO shell. GUAPAGE/GUAOBJS page definitions — and the traps, like why you stay away from Groovy dynamic finders for SQL-injection and performance reasons.
Ellucian Ethos as the REST/JSON API and data-model framework, the Ellucian Ethos Data Model (EEDM), the Banner Business Process (BP) API, and Data Connect's serverless pipelines. Ethos Integration tokens exchanged for JWTs, GraphQL resources and Data Access, and Ellucian Experience cards and extensions built on top.
CAS and SAML 2.0 as the SSO protocols Banner 9 requires, Ethos Identity, Shibboleth in the mix at many institutions, and the reality of authentication during mixed-mode operation when Banner 8 and Banner 9 have to coexist through a migration.
Cognos, Argos, and Ellucian Insights sitting over Banner data, the operational-vs-warehouse reporting split, and getting Banner data structured, mapped, and reconciled so it's actually trustworthy across the systems that consume it.
If two or more of these are live at your institution right now, it's the kind of work we do every week.
Ellucian ended maintenance support for Self-Service Banner 8 on 30 September 2025, with end of life following on 1 January 2026 — no more security patches, bug fixes, or compatibility updates. If you're still on SSB8, or stranded halfway to SSB9, you're carrying real security and integration exposure. We help institutions finish the Self-Service 9 transition and close the gap.
The average Banner institution carries dozens of baseline mods and often hundreds of local custom programs — most written years ago, most undocumented, each one a landmine at upgrade time. We inventory them, work out which still earn their keep, and re-engineer or retire the rest so the next upgrade isn't a cliff edge.
Ethos is a genuine step up from flat-file transfers and cron scripts — but not every API is exposed through it, its performance can strain under heavy load, and the traditional Banner API library is still richer for some operations. We design integrations that use Ethos where it shines and bridge the BP API, GraphQL, or a direct-database path where it doesn't — cleanly, and within Ellucian's security model.
Banner holds the system of record, but the CRM, the LMS, the data warehouse, the identity provider, and a dozen point solutions all need their slice of it — usually kept in sync by hand or by fragile overnight jobs. We build the connective tissue so the record propagates reliably, in as close to real time as each system warrants.
Heavily customised Banner estates can't simply be dropped onto Banner SaaS — the customisations that a self-hosted install tolerates have to be reduced and re-aligned to baseline first. We do the unglamorous groundwork: cataloguing customisations, mapping them to SaaS-safe equivalents (extensions, Experience cards, Data Connect pipelines), and shrinking the surface that has to change.
The Banner skill set is genuinely rare: someone fluent in Oracle PL/SQL and the Banner schema and Grails/Groovy and Ethos/REST and the higher-ed processes underneath. Institutions struggle to recruit it and struggle to retain it. We slot in as that capability on a fractional basis — and leave your team with documentation they can actually maintain.
There are two real pathways into Banner data, and the honest answer is that most institutions need both. Choosing well per-integration is the difference between something that runs quietly for years and something that pages you at 2am during registration week.
Every institution's constellation is different, but the shapes repeat. We've designed and built integrations across all of these patterns:
Before you migrate, modernise, or move to SaaS, you need an honest map of what you're actually running. Most institutions don't have one — the people who wrote the customisations have moved on, and the documentation moved on with them. We rebuild that map.
A complete catalogue of your baseline mods, custom Oracle Forms, local PL/SQL packages, custom Self-Service pages, and bolt-on programs — what each one does, what it touches, and whether it's still used. The document your institution should have had all along.
SQL-injection exposure in dynamic queries and Groovy finders, over-broad banproxy grants, Value Based Security gaps, hard-coded credentials, and the security debt that accumulates on an ageing install. Prioritised by real risk, not scanner noise.
For each customisation: keep as-is, re-engineer, replace with baseline or a supported extension, or retire. The map that turns "we can't move to SaaS" into a sequenced, costed plan of exactly what has to change and in what order.
Everything we find is written down in language your team can maintain after we've gone — architecture notes, data-flow diagrams, and a customisation register that stays useful long after the engagement ends.
You don't have to choose between "leave it frozen" and "rip it out." We wrap, extend, and unify incrementally — every step shippable, every step reversible, the system of record left intact underneath.
Map the estate — modules, customisations, integrations, reporting, and the real data flows between them.
Put a clean, modern API layer over Banner via Ethos and bridged endpoints, so new work never touches the core directly.
Build the portals, dashboards, and Experience extensions that give staff and students one coherent surface over many systems.
Retire fragile overnight jobs and shadow spreadsheets, folding them into reliable, monitored integrations.
Documentation, runbooks, and full ownership — including a clean path toward Banner SaaS when you're ready.
Modernisation isn't only about the plumbing. The visible payoff is the experience: staff who stop swivel-chairing between Banner, the CRM, the LMS, and three spreadsheets, and students who get a single, mobile-friendly front door to registration, aid, and records.
Banner work draws on the same muscles we use everywhere: reading difficult legacy code, connecting systems that were never meant to talk, and modernising without downtime. If you're weighing a wider move, these go hand in hand:
We're an independent consultancy, not a reseller and not tied to a single migration script. That means our advice is shaped by what your institution needs, not by what a partnership tier rewards — and everything we build, you own outright.
.fmb forms and local PL/SQL, work out which customisations are still doing real work, and re-engineer them as Banner 9 pages, supported extensions, or external services as appropriate — retiring the ones that no longer earn their place. It's the same strangler-fig approach we bring to any legacy modernisation: incremental, reversible, no big-bang weekend.Tell us what you're running and what's hurting — the SSB8 deadline, an Ethos integration that won't behave, customisations blocking a SaaS move, or code nobody can explain. We'll map it and give you honest, costed options.
Ellucian®, Banner®, Colleague®, and Ethos® are trademarks or registered trademarks of Ellucian Company L.P. CustomSaaS is an independent software consultancy and is not affiliated with, authorised by, or endorsed by Ellucian. Product names are used here for identification and descriptive purposes only.
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