Program Link grew out of a necessity facing Wake Forest, largely centered around several concerns:

• Obsolete hardware & software: Both the hardware and the software that the University uses for many major University activities will become obsolete over the course of the next two to three years. This forced the University to identify a replacement of these technology resources.

• Inadequate existing resources: In a number of cases, the University's existing administrative software - some of which predates the World Wide Web - is barely capable or completely incapable of delivering real-time, online services and information that students, faculty, and staff want and need.

• Costs to maintain existing infrastructure: The use of multiple independent software applications by various offices increased the complexity and cost of support in comparison to a common, integrated solution.

Faced with this situation, the University's senior leadership chartered the Integrated Campus Software Solution analysis project in late 2002. This project team was charged with evaluating the Banner software suite from SCT, Inc. as a possible integrated solution for the University. This project team, which included representatives from departments across the campus, interviewed 77 departments to identify their administrative software needs, which were then evaluated against Banner's capabilities.

Banner proved an exceptional fit - well beyond rates deemed acceptable by technology experts such as the Gartner Group - and was selected as the core for the University's integrated administrative computing systems.

Where Banner lacks functionality critical to Wake Forest operations, the University will acquire third-party applications that will be integrated with Banner applications, linking the activities and processes of University offices to enhance access to timely, accurate, and consistent information for students, faculty, and staff.