Canterbury Christ Church University brings its timetabling on a modern and secure platform

As many universities in the UK remain under pressure to increase efficiencies amid a challenging economic backdrop, Canterbury Christ Church University is progressing on its digital transformation journey by moving some of its systems to TechnologyOne’s world-leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform.

The university will now migrate its class timetabling, resource booking and exam scheduling functions to TechnologyOne’s modern and flexible SaaS platform, helping it reduce risk while delivering an enhanced, flexible, and tailored student experience. 

The university, which has more than 26,000 students and 1,800 staff at three campuses across Kent and Medway, has been a user of TechnologyOne’s Timetabling and Scheduling (formerly known as Syllabus Plus by Scientia) for over 15 years. The move to SaaS will see the university leverage further TechnologyOne’s decades of expertise as a global market leader in the higher education sector.

Sophie Duncan, Head of Timetabling and Attendance at Canterbury Christ Church University said the university saw a significant opportunity to leverage smart SaaS technology to enhance teaching, research, and administrative functions.

“Academic institutions work hard to deliver a seamless experience not just for students but also for employees. Smart technology like that of TechnologyOne can help us to provide the best experience we can for our university community. Their sophisticated solution will give our employees improved visibility of and therefore greater ability to respond to the complex scheduling and resource management demands placed on an institution our size,” Dr Duncan said.

“The move to SaaS will give us easy access to clear, actionable insights to help us make evidence-based decisions when it comes to all things timetabling and resources. Canterbury Christ Church University is at the beginning of our journey with the new timetabling interfaces and are anticipating a successful and productive ongoing relationship, working closely with the experts at TechnologyOne to build up the tools we need to deliver sector leading support to our staff and students.”

Leo Hanna, UK Executive Vice President at TechnologyOne, said changing expectations, global competition and an increased focus on the staff and student experience were driving tertiary institutions to replace their ageing legacy systems.

“For Canterbury Christ Church University, the move to our Software-as-a-Service solution makes sense. It will ensure the Timetabling and Scheduling solution is accessible anywhere, with anytime access for staff and students. At the same time it helps to reduce risk and allows the university to focus on what’s important,” Mr Hanna said.

“In this climate, every organisation we work with, whether that’s across the higher education or local government, is getting smarter about the decisions they make. Beyond making timetabling optimised, which we know is a key factor in retaining students, the smarts built into our resource management software can also help universities deliver an energy efficient campus by optimising room usage, or future-proofing campuses and estate master plans using powerful scenario planning features.”

TechnologyOne’s student-centric, end-to-end ERP SaaS solution for the Higher Education sector is used by more than 50 per cent of the UK’s universities. TechnologyOne’s growth in the higher education sector follows a significant investment by the Australian founded company into its UK operations, having just hosted its flagship Showcase event in London. The company has also opened its new, state-of-the-art office space in central London for its 120+ strong team focused on delivering world-class ERP SaaS solutions to the higher education and local government sectors.

TechnologyOne is a global Software as a Service (SaaS) company. Founded in Australia, we have offices across six countries. Our enterprise SaaS solution transforms business and makes life simple for our customers by providing powerful, deeply integrated enterprise software that is incredibly easy to use. Over 1,200 leading corporations, government departments and statutory authorities are powered by our software.

Our global SaaS solution provides deep functionality for the markets we serve, including local government and higher education in the UK. For these markets we invest significant funds each year in R&D. We also take complete responsibility to market, sell, implement, support and run our solutions for our customers, which reduce time, cost and risk.