In partnership with TechnologyOne, La Trobe University rolled out ‘Program Phoenix’: a program to remove outdated systems, add new modules, consolidate all operations on TechnologyOne’s Student Management solution, and move from onpremise to SaaS.

The university went live with TechnologyOne’s Student Management solution on the cloud in December 2016, providing users with a secure, integrated experience and data that is accessible anywhere, any time and on any device.

The solution has enabled La Trobe University to save on hardware and utility costs, freed up staff time by reducing manual processes, and provided students with an improved learning experience.

“TechnologyOne’s solution has simplified operations and introduced an enhanced digital experience, one that takes a product that’s been developed with universities in mind and fine-tuned to enhance the student experience,” said Mr Nikoletatos.

“We’ve bought into a robust, mobile solution that has made things very convenient for students and reduced paper-based processes for administrative staff, enabling them to focus on value-adding activities."

La Trobe University hadn’t invested in its core systems for 10 years, and was looking to radically transform its business to be not only current, but ‘top of the class’ in the higher education sector.

“We embarked on an overarching journey right across the board to move to a different operating model, one where the supplier provided SaaS, where you don’t have to worry about software updates,” said Mr Nikoletatos.

“The reality was we would actually have a product within 18 months that would normally have taken us years to deploy in the way that we were previously maintaining the product.

“We wanted to eliminate paper-based processes and replace them with a digital experience via our enterprise solutions. We wanted the application process to be very easy, so students could enter information really simply into our system. For example, if a student had previously done a course, we wanted to easily pull that and attach it to their application, making that application very streamlined.

“Students now have access to a one stop learning spot for all things student administrative, from any mobile device. For staff, we were seeking to simplify our administrative procedures. The administration process is now much more intuitive.”