Twice a year, thousands of students graduate from the University of California, Davis. Behind the pomp and circumstance, are hundreds of volunteers working together to make the experience special for every graduate and their families. It’s a complicated dance of logistics, careful planning, and consideration. Luckily, there’s an app for all that.

The commencement app, accessed through https://ocpweb.ucdavis.edu/commencement, may have an unassuming name, but it’s anything but simple. For instance, in Spring 2024, the app allowed more than 6,600 students to register for five different commencement ceremonies, provided directions and itineraries for hundreds of volunteers, allows Strategic Communications to message graduates, and more. The commencement app has become an intricate and essential application for the success of a highly public and cherished university event, but it didn’t start out that way. Its beginnings are humble and like all great innovations, was born out of necessity. 

The Commencement App is born

In December 2021, Ceremonies and Special Events (CSE), a unit within the UC Davis Office of the Chancellor and Provost (OCP) that plans and hosts events, including commencement, contacted OCP Web in IET Enterprise Infrastructure Services (EIS) with an urgent request. They needed help organizing and streamlining commencement preparations and the ceremonies themselves. Brian Biehle, applications programmer and supervisor for IET EIS OCP Web, was given just ten weeks to come up with a solution. 

“Right out of the gate, this was a big challenge,” said Biehle. “We knew we needed to create an app, but we didn’t have much time. Because commencement is such a big, public event, there was quite a bit of pressure to get it right.”

They quickly created the first version of the commencement app and put it to the ultimate test in Spring 2022. It was the first time commencement was to be held at the UC Davis Stadium and the first one since the pandemic. Students were assigned a graduation ceremony based on their major. The app worked just like it was supposed to, but mother nature had other plans.

“We ended up having to add a functionality that would allow students to register who were unable to walk in commencement due to the heat. After a couple weeks of development, registration opened again for a make-up ceremony tied to Spring Commencement that would be held in August,” Biehle said.

The next year, commencement in 2023 would go down as a banner year for the EIS OCP Web team working on the app. First, they decided to make registration a first come, first served process. Second, they needed to find a way to allow staff to register to become volunteers. And lastly, they took on the responsibility of generating graduation cards—a process that had previously been handled by a third-party vendor.

“The team came up with the idea to use a QR code to allow students to check in when they arrived for graduation,” said Biehle. “From the new way to check in to allowing students to choose their commencement day based on when they logged into the app – it was an unprecedented year. Ultimately, it worked out well.”

Keeping with tradition, year three or the Spring of 2024, also saw new features on the commencement app. The EIS OCP Web team took a page from the Ticketmaster playbook and implemented a placeholder system and time limit functionality for registration. This allowed for 6,200 students to register for commencement within the first day.  

In keeping with what has now become tradition for this project, Biehle’s team is implementing even more improvements for Spring of 2025. Bumping up resources on the server so it can handle the intense demand for registrations, adding ambassador check-ins, and adjusting ceremony change requests are among the planned improvements to the app.

“This is really a living, breathing application,” said Biehle. “We are proud of what we’ve accomplished so far and we are going to continue making changes and improvements to best serve our campus community.”

UC Davis Commencement App gets national attention

UC Davis is proud, too. Whitney Smith, Director of Ceremonies and Special Events, attended the North American Association of Commencement Officers Conference in February 2024, and presented on the commencement app and its features.

“A lot of schools were envious of the unique platform and the ability for Brian’s team to customize the app vs using a ‘pre-existing’ registration system allowed us to add features and make it work for UC Davis. Creating a system that ties to the registrar, allows students to register for their desired ceremony, submit phonetic pronunciation, request visa letters for their guests and select the number of tickets in one system allowed the commencement team to streamline numerous processes,” Smith said.

As the commencement app evolves, Smith says its real time data features continue to be a game changer for her team and an invaluable asset to campus leaders.

“I can access the dashboard and provide registration updates to campus leadership along with reporting features that allow me to provide college deans with lists and data for their departments and faculty.”

That data is then used to inform and improve the next commencement ceremony. Smith plans to submit another proposal for the 2025 conference about adding ambassador features to the app and how it has streamlined the process even more.

UC Davis faculty or staff who want to see the commencement app in action can sign up as ambassadors for the next commencement. Ambassador team responsibilities include welcoming guests and managing aisles at the Golden 1 Center. They also receive gift cards, a special t-shirt, complimentary meal, and more. Click here to learn more and sign up to volunteer at commencement.