English Language Partners New Zealand (ELPNZ) are a well-regarded and successful English Language institution with 22 centres across New Zealand. They are a provider of English language programmes (ESOL) to adult refugees and migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds to assist successful settlement in New Zealand. Their vision is that former refugees and migrants have the English skills to participate in all aspects of life in New Zealand. Over 6,500 learners are involved in the language programmes and settlement services delivered by approximately 300 paid staff and 1,000 trained volunteers.
The challenge
Tribal recently interviewed ELPNZ’s Business Analyst, Jordi Cordwell, who explained that off the back of an external evaluation and review came a recommendation to enhance the visibility and use of key metrics across the organisation. ELPNZ recognised that to help make better business decisions they required a deeper understanding of data coming through their current student management system, Tribal ebs. Much of ELPNZs internal reporting was in the form of exported raw data summarised in spreadsheets which were being used by senior management only. In particular they produced monthly reports, which were manual, difficult to interpret and time-consuming to produce, typically taking up to two days of work.
The requirements
ELPNZ required a more efficient, less complex solution that would provide real time information that all levels of the organisation could use. In addition, ELPNZ wished to expose a wider audience of Centre Managers and administrative staff to the activities across the business as a whole, rather than the Centre specific reporting that had been produced to date. The solution needed to be straightforward to access and consume, while providing enough detail to allow the business to react and plan according to the output.
ELPNZ approached the Tribal team with a broad collection of business reporting needs. Tribal demonstrated a solution which worked seamlessly with their ebs implementation and provided dynamic real time visualisation of their data. All in a fraction of the time and effort they were used to.
Jordi Cordwell says,
“when we have these projects that come along and I have these discussions with Tribal, they can take any non-technical speak and translate it into exactly what we need so as a customer, that’s hugely valuable for us.
…having that visual (provided in the demonstration), we could really see the benefit of ebs Intel that had been proposed to us, and it was a no-brainer to proceed with it.”
The solution
Tribal deployed ebs Intel and a collection of baseline dashboards. Working with ELPNZ, Tribal accelerated the design and publishing of additional custom dashboards. Each reporting dashboard presents a series of top-level data visualisation charts for key areas of the business, from learners and volunteers, engagement and attendance, to study outcomes. Most of the data is accessed in real-time from the ebs database ensuring users have the most up-to-date information available.
*Example of an ebs Intel dashboard 01
Comparative data is also available, where appropriate, to allow ELPNZ to check delivery against prior periods, planned delivery and encourage sharing between its centres. Many of the charts provide drill-down functionality to access data in granular detail where required and allow users to further filter the data to identify issues. The dashboard’s clear, colourful visualisations provide feedback at-a-glance on business performance and assist in making informed business decisions.
*Example of an ebs Intel dashboard 02
Both Tribal products, ebs and ebs Intel, work seamlessly together and provide a smooth user experience that is effortless. Jordi said, “the link between ebs Intel and ebs is just awesome because they talk to each other so most changes we make in ebs flows through to the ebs Intel dashboard.”
As a result, all levels of the organization need not solely rely on manually produced reports but can instead take a real-time view of the business and drill into the information dynamically to answer any questions.
The results
ebs Intel has provided ELPNZ with a platform to easily access and interpret key data that assists all levels within the organisation. Jordi reported that they immediately saw the benefits because it had so much of what they needed from the get-go. ebs Intel has also expanded beyond senior managers to include centre managers and ELPNZ are keen to see all levels of the organisation take advantage of the tool. All levels of staff have uncovered deeper insights into areas such as learner attendance, enrolments, and demographics.
ELPNZ ebs Intel deployment provided;
- Easy access to information – quick visual view of data, rather than dry lists. This helps make data more easily accessible, easier to interpret, easier to spot trends etc.
- Real-time data– ebs Intel dashboards/charts displayed contain data in real-time – user can see and share real-time data dashboards on demand
- Transparency - Data is available and accessible nationwide to all staff at all levels of the organisation. This has helped them towards one of their CE’s focus areas of being ‘one ELP’
- Works for multiple audiences – dashboard filters allow them to view data from a nationwide perspective, or a specific centre only
- High-level summary and detail in one – Users can drill down on high-level charts, to see the detail that makes up the data
- Time-saving – they have transitioned to using dashboards instead of running a specific monthly report, which saved the National Office time to prepare from two days down to zero days since it can now be viewed in real-time.
- Deeper access - More information is readily available for our users, including information that was not previously accessible via existing reports.
- Adaptable/flexible – they can create and deploy dashboards as their needs change
Tribal celebrates this positive outcome experienced by English Language Partners New Zealand and we look forward to helping to bring more efficiency to their business processes in the future.
In partnership
