Universidad Marista de Mérida Streamlines Operations and Automates Scheduling with Maestro SIS

Topics: Student Information Systems, Scheduling Automation, Billing & Payments, SSO Integration

Written by Maestro SIS and UMM

Quick Results

• Reduced scheduling work from months to hours
• Replaced a 16-person scheduling process with a single scheduler
• Streamlined billing, payments, scholarships, and SSO workflows

Universidad Marista de Mérida is a University in Yucatan, Mexico, offering 36 programs of study ranging from professional licensure programs to doctoral programs, with over 35,000 enrollments per year. UMM accepts students from all parts of Mexico, as well as welcoming many international students.

Universidad Marista de Mérida implemented Maestro SIS to modernize several mission-critical administrative processes, including scheduling, billing, authentication, payment processing, and scholarship management. Through a combination of customization, automation, and integration capabilities, the university significantly reduced administrative overhead while improving operational efficiency and scalability across departments.

“Maestro SIS transformed one of our most resource-intensive administrative processes. What once required 16 employees working for months can now be completed by a single scheduler in only a few hours.”

— Alfredo Martínez Solís, Director of Technology an Innovation

Modernizing Institutional Operations Through Automation

As Universidad Marista de Mérida continued to expand its operational and technological needs, leadership identified several administrative workflows that required significant manual effort or lacked integration flexibility. The institution needed solutions that could align with internal standards, support regional payment requirements, and reduce the time spent managing complex scheduling and billing processes.

Rather than relying on disconnected systems and manual processes, the university partnered with Maestro SIS to centralize and automate several core institutional functions.

Custom Username Generation & Role-Based Authentication

The Challenge

Universidad Marista de Mérida required usernames to follow the university’s internal email formatting standards to support the creation of a centralized Single Sign-On (SSO) environment. Different user roles across the institution also required different username generation rules and conventions.

The Solution

Maestro SIS implemented an automated username generation framework capable of supporting multiple formatting structures and role-based customization rules. The system dynamically generates usernames according to institutional standards for students, faculty, and staff.

Why This Mattered

By standardizing account creation and authentication formats, the university was able to build a stronger foundation for centralized identity management while reducing manual administrative effort.

Results

• Standardized username creation across the institution
• Reduced manual account management processes
• Improved consistency between systems and user identities
• Supported future centralized SSO initiatives

Payment Import Customization

The Challenge

Due to Mexican state payment regulations, Universidad Marista de Mérida could not rely on a single online payment gateway. Students needed the flexibility to make tuition and fee payments through local banks and external payment processing locations.

The Solution

Maestro SIS developed a customized invoice reporting and payment import framework. A specialized invoice report was created to extract all outstanding invoices through the Maestro API, while additional functionality enabled payment information to be imported directly into the Maestro SIS ledger from local banks and third-party payment processors.

Why This Mattered

The university needed a scalable and compliant way to reconcile payments from multiple external sources without requiring extensive manual accounting work.

Results

• Streamlined reconciliation across multiple payment sources
• Reduced manual ledger entry processes
• Improved payment tracking and financial accuracy
• Supported compliance with regional banking requirements

Ledger & Scholarship Customization

The Challenge

Universidad Marista de Mérida bills students by semester while dividing balances into as many as six scheduled payments throughout the term. The university also manages varying fee structures by academic program, additional institutional charges, and a high percentage of students receiving scholarship assistance.

Managing these variables manually creates significant administrative complexity.

The Solution

Maestro SIS developed a flexible billing and scholarship management system that allowed the university to:

• Configure program-specific fees directly within academic programs
• Separate fees into individual invoices
• Assign fee structures by semester and school year
• Store scholarship and financial adjustment data directly on student records

The system automatically generates invoices for eligible students based on their program, term, and academic year while dynamically adjusting balances according to individual scholarship awards.

Why This Mattered

The university needed a scalable system capable of handling complex billing structures without increasing administrative workload.

Results

• Automated tuition and scholarship calculations
• Increased billing accuracy and consistency
• Simplified management of program-based fee structures
• Reduced manual financial administration
• Improved scalability for enrollment growth

Open SSO Integration

The Challenge

Universidad Marista de Mérida needed an open SSO framework that would allow the university to build and manage its own centralized authentication hub while maintaining compatibility with existing systems and integrations.

The Solution

Maestro SIS implemented its Open SSO solution built on SAML standards, allowing Maestro SIS to function as a Service Provider (SP). This established a secure trust relationship between Maestro SIS and the university’s internally managed Identity Provider (IdP).

The implementation preserved:

• Existing direct login access to Maestro SIS
• Existing LMS single sign-on integrations
• Flexibility for future internal system connections

Why This Mattered

The university required centralized identity management while maintaining institutional control over authentication infrastructure and future integrations.

Results

• Centralized identity and authentication management
• Increased institutional control over access management
• Improved interoperability across systems
• Maintained compatibility with existing authentication workflows

Master Scheduling Transformation

The Challenge

Creating academic schedules at Universidad Marista de Mérida previously required approximately 16 employees working for several months to complete scheduling for each academic cycle.

The Solution

The university implemented Maestro SIS Master Scheduler to centralize and automate class scheduling workflows. The system dramatically simplified schedule creation and reduced the administrative effort required to manage complex scheduling needs.

Why This Mattered

Scheduling had become one of the university’s most labor-intensive operational processes, requiring extensive coordination and manual adjustments across departments.

Results

• Reduced scheduling workload from months to hours
• Reduced staffing requirements from 16 employees to a single scheduler
• Improved scheduling efficiency and accuracy
• Enabled faster academic planning and adjustments

Building a More Scalable Institutional Foundation

Through a combination of customization, automation, and integration capabilities, Maestro SIS enabled Universidad Marista de Mérida to modernize critical institutional operations across authentication, billing, payments, scholarships, and academic scheduling.

By reducing manual administrative work and centralizing complex workflows, the university now operates with greater efficiency, flexibility, and scalability while supporting the long-term needs of students, faculty, and administrators.