USF Came for the Ticketing. They Stayed for Everything Else.

When Will Vitagliano, Associate University Registrar and Director of the Degree Audit and Graduation Center, started at the University of San Francisco eleven years ago, commencement looked very different. Eight different paper ticket templates. Color‑coded by school. Paper‑clipped in groups of four for each student. Handed out at regalia pickup with a single warning: don't lose them. There were no replacements.

Today, USF runs eleven ceremonies a year (three in December, eight in May) for a student body that has earned the designation of the most diverse university in the United States. Getting from there to here required more than a software upgrade. It meant rethinking what a commencement platform could actually do.

The Problem with "Good Enough"

USF's previous vendor had started as a reasonable solution, but the customization USF needed began to disappear. Will describes the breaking point clearly:

"Some of the specific business needs that we had, things like phonetic spelling and customizations could not be accommodated. As their company pivoted and focused more on non‑commencement related events, it no longer met our business needs."

Will led the search for a new solution himself, consulting peer institutions and Tassel came back as a clear recommendation. The criteria were non‑negotiable: electronic ticketing, deep customization, and phonetic name support for a community where getting a student's name right isn't a courtesy, it's a commitment.

Phonetic & Ticket Success

USF's ceremonies are held in a capacity‑constrained campus church. Ticket logistics, including allocation, distribution, and transfer, had to be seamless and digital. Under the old paper system, lost tickets were simply gone. With Tassel, students can resend, reprint, share, or transfer tickets without ever contacting the registrar's office.

"Students having the ability to quickly share tickets has pretty much eliminated the ‘How do I get them?’ questions that filled our inboxes.”

Another important feature Will’s team needed was phonetic name pronunciation. Faculty and deans at USF read every graduate's name aloud themselves as students cross the stage.

“Phonetic name was very important to us. USF was ranked by the U.S. News & World Report as number one for diversity, so from an inclusivity lens, it was very important."

Weeks before each ceremony, Will sends the associate deans and faculty access to every phonetic spelling and student‑recorded name pronunciation in Tassel’s system, giving them time to prepare.

"An Associate Dean in our School of Management, just this past December, called my name from across the room and said, 'Gotta love Tassel.' He really loves the recorded name pronunciation feature."

Those two features, ticketing and phonetics, were what brought USF to Tassel. What happened next exceeded expectations.

Registration: The Unexpected Benefit That Changed How USF Plans Graduation

Will didn't go looking for a registration solution, but once it was in place, it transformed how his entire team prepares for commencement and how many students show up. Will’s team had no way of knowing which students were actually planning to attend.

"Before, we were just sending emails blind to students. And without having the registration component, we didn't know who was attending. We were just sending out tickets there saying, ‘here are your tickets and information about commencement’ and hoping for the best."

Registration data gave the team something concrete to plan around. USF's ceremonies require volunteer marshals stationed throughout the church, and how many they needed depended directly on how many guests would actually walk through the doors. That had always been an estimate. Now it's a projection grounded in real numbers.

"Having the sense of how many students have registered allows us to plan the volunteer side of the operation, how many guests are we anticipating in the church, and making sure we're properly staffed in those areas. So that was a nice added benefit."

The communications module became meaningfully more targeted too. Rather than broadcasting to everyone, USF could now reach specifically the students who hadn't yet registered, nudging them to confirm before the deadline.

Attendance reporting gave leadership a new lens on commencement planning altogether. What used to feel like an unmanageable unknown has become a reliable baseline.

"We'll take the reports and share them with the Registrar, our VP, and the Provost office — what the attendance was, both percent attendance from the student side as well as the guest side. This way, we have a good indication, year after year, that we should expect 90% of students to show up."

And perhaps most tellingly: since switching to Tassel, USF has seen participation itself go up.

"We have seen a higher percentage of students participating since adopting Tassel. This could be because it's easier to register and it's easier to get tickets. We are seeing that number go up, which is great in regards to the overall student experience."

Added Student Benefit: Gifting Pages

USF piloted Tassel's graduation gifting pages this past fall and the results were promising. With zero advance promotion and the feature simply appearing in the registration flow for their 741 December graduates, 49 students created announcement pages (6.6%).

Those pages generated 13 gifts averaging approximately $104 each, with no marketing spend and no additional staff time.

"It was very fast to get set up. I appreciate that it was a set it and forget it — we didn't have to do anything. Being able to provide added features that don’t require upkeep is really nice, because we're already stretched in a million directions when it comes to getting ready for the end of a semester."

The value here isn’t just in the numbers. It’s a feature that has the potential to add tremendous benefits to students, putting money in their pockets at a time of transition. “If we can provide more to our students without having to be hands‑on with it, it’s a feature worth exploring.”

That philosophy cuts to something coordinators at institutions of any size will recognize. When a platform can deliver real benefits to graduates during one of the most meaningful moments of their lives, without creating new work for an already stretched team, that is the kind of feature worth having. And with USF planning to actively promote the gifting pages ahead of their spring ceremonies, the results from a zero‑effort pilot may only be the beginning.

A Partner, Not A Platform

Ask Will what he'd tell a peer institution considering a switch, and the conversation turns quickly to customer service, not just features.

"The customer service kind of blows my mind, it’s amazing how fast Liz and Angela have always responded to my questions and suggestions. Compared to our previous vendor, it is night and day. I know that they're there to support us when we need it."

This matters most in the final weeks before commencement, when Will's team is simultaneously managing final grades, degree audits, and ceremony logistics. A slow response from a vendor creates downstream risk. With Tassel, that concern is gone.

The relationship goes beyond responsiveness. When USF asked for the ability to disable the "add to wallet" option on stage passes, so students wouldn't be fumbling with their phones mid‑stage while a faculty member tried to read their name, the Tassel development team took note.

"We put in that recommendation to their team and now you can turn that off. It was nice that the development team was open to feedback and understood the specific business needs for each institution."

Will also points to pricing as part of what makes the relationship work. In a climate where higher education budgets are constrained and vendor increases are common, Tassel has engaged with USF as a genuine partner.

"From a pricing side of things, it's very competitive but siding on being school friendly. There's always been that ability to find a happy medium for both of us, which is very important in the budget climate that most institutions are facing right now."

Would He Recommend Tassel?

"Tassel has really gone above and beyond what our business needs were and it's almost set the standard on what we would expect in a vendor, and I don't think that can be met by others out there right now."

For institutions weighing the decision, he points to something beyond any single feature: the confidence that whatever comes next, there will be a solution for it.

"Whatever we can throw Tassel's way, there's no reason to think that they wouldn't be able to help us get to where we need to be."

"If I didn't love the product and the vendor, I would have said it's too busy this time of year,” Will shared while agreeing to speak with our team in March ahead of commencement season, “but it's nice to share our really good experience with others, especially if they're thinking about moving over to Tassel."

Partners like Will who share their experience openly make Tassel better for every school we serve. That feedback shapes the product and raises the bar for the graduate experience across the board. We look forward to many more commencements together with the team at USF!