In addition to Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, HvA and UvA University of Applied Sciences, the ROC of Amsterdam is also deploying software robots to reduce the workload of employees. One way they do this is by having Robbie the Robot deduplicate the digital student registrations in Eduarte. In this case study you can read more about how RPA was applied in this process and what results were achieved.
Department
Student Affairs
Applications
Eduarte, Excel, Outlook
Result
1,500+ hours of time saved p/year, shorter response times and no duplication in system
Reason
Every year there are more than 36,000 digital student registrations at the ROC van Amsterdam. Despite not having to do this all manually anymore due to the digitization of education, it still creates a peak period around the application deadline. Because of all the issues involved, this previously created a high workload in the student affairs department. This caused work to remain idle, and longer response times to students.
With so many applications, this is part of the process to check with care. In fact, it is common for students to apply multiple times. For example, at different courses within an educational institution or just at multiple locations. To avoid duplicate enrollment, a student is checked to see if they already exist in the Student Information System Eduarte. These additional checks ensure higher data quality, and prevent duplication in the system which saves time and improves execution quality in other processes.
Approach
As early as 2019, the ROC of Amsterdam, together with Tacstone Technology, has taken the initiative to automate this process. Together with Student Affairs staff, the process was mapped out. With automation in mind, some optimizations were made. The process steps, exceptions and controls to be performed are written down in detail in a process design. There was also a screen capture of the manual execution of this process. The process was then developed, tested and brought to production in close collaboration between the ROC of Amsterdam staff, and Tacstone Technology’s RPA Developer.
The process: processing applications
Demo (screen capture robot)
Watch the video to the right!
The result: 1,500+ hours saved per year
Annually, this process generates a lot of savings. First, this automation results in hour savings of 1,500+ hours per year, which is roughly equivalent to 1 FTE. In addition, response times have been reduced from an average of five days to often the same day. Finally, the deployment of RPA provides more controls and thus higher data quality. This prevents additional work in other processes.
A digital contributor (colleague) within your Student Affairs department?
Does your student affairs team also suffer from a (too) high workload during peak periods? Then contact Ebert Knol to learn how to put a software robot to work in your department.
