From Spreadsheets to Summer Scale: How Boston College Streamlined High-Volume Summer Housing Operations with StarRez

Summer Housing Had Outgrown Spreadsheets

Boston College has been a StarRez customer since approximately 2009, but in recent years, the Residential Life team has expanded how it uses the platform to manage some of its most complex operational processes.

Summer operations quickly became one of the clearest opportunities for improvement. Each year, Boston College hires approximately 100 student staff members for summer roles, including welcome center staff, community assistants, facilities crew members, and graduate student positions. These student employees support residence hall operations, check guests in and out, prepare beds for camps and conferences, complete rounds, identify facilities issues, manage furniture, and support inventories.

Before moving the hiring process into StarRez, the workflow relied heavily on Google Forms, spreadsheets, and separate interview scheduling tools.

“When I started in ResLife, we did it in a Google form and every year we would try a new one and wouldn't be happy with it, then would try another one.”

-Nicholas Arata, Assistant Director of Residential Life Systems and Technology, Boston College

That fragmented approach created extra work for staff. Interview notes had to be copied, scoring had to be compiled, email responses had to be tracked, and information had to be gathered from multiple places before the team could make hiring decisions.

“Our interview process would involve everybody having to make their own copy of a Google Doc, saving it, and then compiling it together to then review who we’re going to give offers to.”

-Greg Storella, Associate Director for Housing Operations, Boston College

The Solution: Moving Summer Staff Hiring into StarRez

Boston College moved the summer staff hiring process into PortalX, allowing students to complete the application directly through StarRez. Students now submit their applications, resumes, interest responses, and related materials in one place. Staff can then review and process those applications in StarRez Web.

“It’s been really helpful to have that information stored in StarRez, because we’ve been able to pull reports on it and see who started an application but has not yet submitted one.”

-Nicholas Arata, Assistant Director of Residential Life Systems and Technology, Boston College

The team also uses dashboards, reports, application statuses, and more to streamline these processes. Updates to the application status now trigger automated emails to inform students of their place in the application process. For example, applicants receive a message directing them back into the portal to select an interview time. Subsequently, students who are offered a position can log in and accept or decline through the application itself. When they take action, their application status updates automatically.

“We’ve also saved a lot of time with offers and folks accepting offers,” said Arata. “My old role used to be countless hours following up with people to accept, or trying to organize email responses as an acceptance.”

For staff, the difference has been significant. Storella estimated that the process from application review through interview and offer review has been cut in half.

Better Decisions Without the Spreadsheet Chase

One of the biggest improvements came from moving scoring fields into the StarRez application. Previously, Arata spent time compiling interview scoring and building spreadsheets for committee review. Now, the team can import scores, build reports, and export the information in a usable format. This has made the final decision-making process easier for the team.

“Everything is like a one-stop shop for what we need when we get together to actually make a decision.”

-Greg Storella, Associate Director for Housing Operations, Boston College

Using StarRez to Manage Orientation Housing at Scale

Boston College has also found creative ways to use StarRez for summer guest and orientation housing. Before Storella joined Boston College, orientation housing placements were handled manually in a Google Sheet. Staff were making approximately 350 placements in real time while students were waiting to check in.

“We would do hand placements in a Google Sheet as students were showing up for orientation housing,” said Storella. “Three hundred fifty placements in the moment, while 350 people are waiting to check in.”

The team began using the StarRez Conference & Events solution to place those guests in rooms ahead of check-in. While Boston College is not using every feature of the Conference module, which can support event management by arrival, duration, and location, the team configured it in a practical way that solved an immediate operational challenge.  

Now, when guests arrive, the check-in team can see their placement in StarRez, provide the right key, and complete check-in through a more familiar workflow. Storella estimated that this change reduced the time involved by up to 90%, depending on arrival patterns.

“That saves an incredible amount of time in a drastic way, about 90% of time.”

-Greg Storella, Associate Director for Housing Operations, Boston College

Automating Early Arrivals for 1,500 to 2,000 Students

Early arrivals are another major process Boston College has improved through StarRez. Each year, the University manages approximately 1,500 to 2,000 early arrivals, including student-athletes, approved groups, and individual students. Athletes alone account for about 400 early arrivals.

Students complete early arrival or extension requests through PortalX. From there, transition staff can update the request status in StarRez. If a request is approved, the student receives an automated email. A data subscription also updates the student’s check-in or checkout date based on the approved request.

“We use it a lot with folks that apply to move in early or stay late. They’ll basically fill out a form in PortalX, and then it’s really easy for our transition staff to change the status on that request.”

-Nicholas Arata, Assistant Director of Residential Life Systems and Technology, Boston College

The team also uses a “waiting on information” status for incomplete requests. Instead of manually writing follow-up emails, staff can trigger a message asking students to provide the details needed to review the request.

For groups, staff can bulk edit booking custom fields so students still receive automated, personalized communications.

“If we get a roster of 100 football players from athletics, we’ll go in and bulk edit those booking custom fields that the early arrival data subscriptions work off,” said Arata. “They’re still getting the automated email that says you’ve been approved.”

Fewer Errors with Text Templating and Dynamic Dates

Boston College has also improved communication accuracy through text templating and dynamic dates. Previously, staff maintained separate emails for different arrival dates. If dates changed from one year to the next, those dates had to be updated manually across PortalX pages and email templates. Missing one update could cause confusion for students.

“We used to have separate emails per day,” said Arata. “If you’re coming on Tuesday, you get this email. If you’re coming on Wednesday, you get this email. Now it’s just one email.”

Dynamic dates have also helped reduce the risk of outdated information appearing in student-facing pages.

“I used to spend a lot of time searching through emails and PortalX pages to push every date forward a day or back a day,” said Arata. “Now, I just update them in StarRez Web, and wherever it’s text-templated correctly, it updates.”

Looking Ahead: Housekeeping Plus and the Mobile App

Boston College is continuing to expand its use of StarRez for summer operations. The team is preparing to use Housekeeping Plus and the StarRez mobile app to manage summer bed preparation, linens, toiletries, comments, photos, and task completion. The goal is to make it easier for student staff to complete tasks in the field while allowing graduate students and professional staff to monitor progress in StarRez Web.

“We prep a lot of beds in the summer with our staff, lots of linens packages and toiletries for folks that stay with us,” said Arata. “We used to manage all of it on a very big Google Sheet that a lot of students had trouble navigating.”

The mobile app may also improve move-out and checkout workflows. Instead of resident directors sitting in lounges with laptops while RAs run between rooms and report status updates, hall staff could check students out in the moment, add notes, and flag concerns immediately.

From Manual Work to Operational Confidence

For Boston College, the value of StarRez is not tied to one single feature. It comes from the ability to bring complex, high-volume processes into one unified and configurable system. The University has reduced reliance on spreadsheets, shortened summer staff hiring timelines, improved visibility into applications and offers, automated communications for early arrivals, and transformed orientation housing placements that once happened manually while students waited.

By moving critical workflows into StarRez, Boston College has created a more scalable approach to housing operations. What once required manual tracking, inbox searches, copied documents, and large spreadsheets is now managed through applications, dashboards, reports, PortalX actions, and automated communications.

As the university continues to build on its move to the cloud, Boston College is well positioned to keep refining the student housing journey, especially during the busiest moments of the year.

Interested in streamlining your busiest times of the year? Connect with our team.