Regent’s University London is London’s only independent, not-for-profit university. 3,500 students from 140 different countries form a highly cosmopolitan community. Based in the heart of Regent's Park, the University has a rich and diverse history, and a long tradition of education and achievement. Their sole focus is on ensuring that the standard of teaching, the quality of the environment and the student experience are all outstanding.
The requirement
Over recent years Regent’s University London experienced difficulties managing the way students were invoiced for their fees. Fee rules had become complex and students had little flexibility in the way they paid for their study. Much of the administration was done manually and not linked, meaning mistakes could be made. Mistakes during this process resulted in students not paying fees and not being able to attend class.
A number of legacy systems that didn’t link to one another made tracking, recording and verifying what students pay very time-consuming and labour-intensive leading to long queues at the finance office. The university didn’t have a standard set of business processes to deal with fee processing which added to the pressure on staff. Students could not see their financial account, with the University resulting in a large amount of student queries dealt with by finance staff.
The requirement of any solution was to create a better experience for students; reduce the burden on staff; and be scalable enough to be future proof.
The Solution
Tribal had worked successfully with RUL since 2006 and were delighted to continue this unique partnership. What made this particular project unique was the level of involvement by the University. The expert staff at RULs knew they had a set of issues but they also knew just how they wanted to solve them. This is where Tribal came in…
A staged business change project was born. Trusting Tribal to guide and advise throughout meant the team could concentrate on what was important for their students and colleagues.
With the fee invoicing rules and processes simplified and agreed, Tribal set about implementing them in SITS:Vision. We built on the data structures already in place and used the core software capabilities to undertake the bulk of the processing.
The partnership between RUL and Tribal worked incredibly well and led to the successful delivery of this project by the original go-live date. Our key stakeholders had a clear vision and aligned their policies and processes prior to development work. Tribal were able to offer expert guidance in terms of SITS capabilities and lessons learnt from similar projects at other HEIs. RUL’s SITS development team had a clear specification to work with and were able to use the latest technologies and futureproof the process. This project provided a clear blueprint of how future large-scale projects should be approached, managed and delivered.
Head of MIS, Regent’s University London
Some of the benefits include:
- A student portal that allows students to review their financial statements and take action when they choose to.
- Student invoicing, which is now done quicker and earlier in each term. This has helped the university recognised income sooner and students can focus on their study.
- Staff, that can now spend less time generating invoices and more time advising students.
- Invoicing, which is linked to termly registration.
- Students that can see when their payment is received, reducing student queries.
- Automatic prompts to remind students to make payment.
- Simple and easy to maintain payment plan function.
