University of the West of England

UWE’s student accommodation department manages around 4000 rooms across eight sites. Today’s operation is dramatically different to that operating four years ago, when KxStudent software was implemented to help manage the department.

The previous system was written in-house, and was no longer up to the job. “We’d always muddled through the application process, with spread sheets coming out of our ears,” says Viv Jowett, Accommodation Services Manager.

A Kinetic project manager went on-site and worked with a dedicated UWE project manager to ensure a successful implementation of KxStudent and complete the integration and interface development with Admissions, Student Records and Finance systems. On day one of the system going live, more than 1000 applications from all over the world were received. Viv says: “We were excited and relieved. The fact that it could cope with this massive influx meant it was unlikely to fall over.”

The benefits became immediately apparent.

“A conservative estimate of our measureable, quantifiable savings is £90,000 year on year. That’s less than a two year ROI.”

The department used to send out paper copies of everything – this was often more than once. This was an unreliable and lengthy process, UWE was also employing between 6 and 10 temporary staff during the summer to deal with data processing and paperwork.

Viv says: “It was mind blowingly different. We now manage everything with a team of six and don’t use any temporary staff. This alone has saved us £50,000 a year.”

Ancillary costs have also dramatically reduced – for instance, £3,000 in stationery, £6,000 in photocopying, not to mention the cost of stamps, pre-paid envelopes, and so on. In all, UWE has saved at least £90K.

There are additional benefits: staff are happier because they’re not doing tedious data entry work and archiving and filing costs are non-existent as all data is held on the system. “Reports are one of the best features,” says Viv.”The speed and ease with which I can access information is invaluable. It now takes around 30 seconds to generate a report.”

“All this means that we are able to offer a much better student experience,” says Viv.

Value added Features
Kinetic gives users the ability to buy development days up front, which operates like a credit system – time spent is offset against the money paid. Richard Yates, Accommodation Services Systems Manager, says: “This is a really useful feature offered by Kinetic. It means we can budget in advance, it speeds up our processes, means we can plan a lot better and it gives us value for money. We can even carry the days forward if we don’t use them.”

In addition, Kinetic offers yearly change requests. These can be generic and
applicable to all other users – adding columns to reports for instance – or they can be specific to one user’s needs. UWE’s specific need is to review its web pages once a year. And this can be problematic. Richard explains: “If you get a web page right, it’s fine. Get it wrong and you’ll be inundated with phone calls and emails.”

Each year, UWE evaluates all web screens to see where improvements can be made. Until recently, this process was taking around a month to achieve (generating around 100 screens, evaluating, sending out for comments, and then going backwards and forwards to get changes done).

After consultation with UWE and other KxStudent clients, Kinetic has produced a workbook detailing every page on the website, which are numbered for ease of identification. Using a projector, Richard and his staff make changes and return the document to Kinetic without any need to visit their actual website. When amendments have been made, all Richard has to do is sit next to a test screen and check that everything has been done correctly. He says, “The process this time took me two days rather than four weeks. It’s made an enormous difference.”

In fact, Richard is really impressed with Kinetic’s general response to development requests, saying: “Over the years, UWE has come in with some pretty left field requests on the website, and, to give Kinetic credit, it’s rare for them to say no.”

“We now manage everything with a team of six, and don’t use any temporary staff. This alone has saved us £50,000 a year.”

The Challenge
To migrate from an inefficient mainly manual data entry system to one that would not only integrate with the University’s Admissions, Student Records, and Finance software, but would also produce efficiencies and cost savings. Web-based applications were also a requirement, along with the ability to adapt, develop and update the system in line with future needs.

The Solution
KxStudent from Kinetic Solutions was chosen because it could deliver the required efficiencies, be configured to work with the University’s other software, and the product offered web-based features that exceeded UWE’s expectations. In addition, Kinetic’s continuous improvement of features offered and its willingness to develop the software was a deciding factor.

The Outcome
UWE has realised at least £90,000+ quantifiable year on year savings from using the software. Costs were reduced by not employing temporary staff, and dispensing with copying, postage, and stationery. Regular system developments are carried out, and the time taken to perform website additions and improvements has been dramatically reduced.

Products and Technology
Our integrated suite of products at The University of the West of England includes:

• KxStudent
• KxResidential/Conferencing
• KxWebB&B
• KxCatering
• Kx and SITS 8.4 student records interface
• Kx and Agresso 5.5.2 financial interface. Kx software sits on a Windows 2003 server using SQL server 2005.