During the summer, the University introduced new systems for booking rooms and desks, and accessing teaching timetables.
The EventMAP software which powers Booker and Timetabler replaced old systems that were no longer supported and provided an opportunity to make improvements for both staff and students.
Both systems deal with a staggering number of transactions – in the first six months of use Booker had 140,000 room and desk bookings, and Timetabler processed 34,000 core teaching events. 5.5m calendar entries were pushed to Outlook.
With so much information being processed, there were some teething problems with data integration at the start of semester one. The project team fine-tuned those integrations ahead of semester two and overall, feedback from users has been largely positive.
Improvements
One of the key changes is how quickly personal timetables are now sent to a user’s Outlook calendar.
For many students, this is their preferred way of accessing their timetables rather than logging into the system itself, so the improved syncing has had a big impact.
Third-year Business Management student Amber De Sousa said:
“A big thing I’ve noticed is my exams this year have automatically appeared in my Outlook calendar – it’s been a lot smoother than previous years.”
Amber was involved in the project during her summer internship with ISG, and seeing the systems in development encouraged her to start using Booker.
Other students have also noticed their timetables are available much sooner.
Anna Hallet, a second-year History student, said: “I’ve noticed that my timetable for next term is already available in Outlook, which I didn’t have last year.
“In lectures, you see everyone opening it up, so I can tell you that it’s widely used.”
And it’s not just students. For staff, Timetabler has improved functionality which makes dealing with queries much easier.
Vicky Swann, Head of Teaching Planning for the School of History, Classics and Architecture, said: “I’ve found it really helpful to be able to check the timetabled activities for a course once it’s all been entered into the system. The activities are laid out in a different way than they used to be, which I find useful for checking the details. You can also bring up two different courses and easily compare activities, and view a staff member’s teaching timetable to see their availability.”
For professional services staff, the desk booking functionality on Booker is much easier to use than previous versions.
It shows users a layout of the room so they can select the right desk, something Nikki Kay, Head of Marketing at CAHSS, finds particularly useful: “I love the visuals of the desks and being able to see where everyone is located before selecting your seat. That way you can ensure you sit with your team.”
User involvement
Users were involved from the start of the process to make sure any changes suited their needs.
Vicky was one of those users, representing staff from the procurement stage.
She explained: “We looked at proposals from three different companies and provided feedback on which one would suit the University’s needs.
“I was very impressed by EventMap. I could see how the system would allow central timetabling services to complete tasks more quickly which would help when processing change requests.
Vicky’s input continued during the user acceptance testing (UAT) stage.
She said: “I flagged some potential issues and changes were made to make the system easier to use. Eventmap have been pretty quick to make improvements to the system.
“You can never prevent any issues happening but it’s about dealing with them when they do.”
Student users were also involved, with Amber being asked to test the systems during her internship.
She said: “I think overall it’s been a really great project. It was such a big task and obviously there is going to be bumps along the road, but the fact that students are able to use it and go about their day-to-day lives with it and use it how it’s intended to be, it’s really nice to have been involved in that.”
Next steps
Work doesn’t stop here; the project team continue to make improvements to the new timetabling system. Amongst others, they’re starting to look at whether or not students can self-select changes to tutorial groups instead of applying for that to be done for them.