Bristol, UK, March 21, 2011, UNIT4 Business Software Ltd, the UK division of UNIT4, the world’s leading provider of business software for fast changing organisations, today announced that Mid Cheshire College has gone live with Student Self-Service, including online enrolment, from the Agresso Campus Platform for Further Education to reduce costs, improve visibility and support growth by making this top performing college even more attractive to students.
Prospective students can now go online to search the college’s electronic prospectus and submit enquiries, applications and enrolments for courses and enrichment activities such as day trips. The college is one of only a handful of general Further Education colleges in the country to achieve Grade 1s across the board at inspection. As part of its continued drive for excellence it is looking to provide prospective students with a modern, intuitive and convenient enrolment process that contributes positively towards the brand of the college.
“People want to transact online for everything - the younger generation expect it. We need to compete for students and the income that each enrolment generates and this is a valuable tool in helping us become even more competitive,” said Simon Hannett, MIS and Examinations Manager at Mid Cheshire. “We looked at other solutions but UNIT4 is the market leader and we have always found their solutions robust and flexible. This was particularly important given that we collect confidential student information.”
Mid Cheshire College mobilised its project team and worked under significant pressure with UNIT4 consultants to successfully implement the new system in under one month before a crucial enrolment deadline.
Now it’s live not only is it more convenient for potential learners to access information like start/end date, location, day, time, duration and cost of a course, the solution considerably reduces the time and cost to the college of managing enquiries and organising events like day trips for students.
Because Mid Cheshire uses the Agresso Campus Platform for Further Education the enrolment solution can be plugged into the existing Agresso applications already used on site. The College integrates the Student Self-Service Module with the existing Agresso QL Students application which reduces re-keying of information, duplication of existing student records and provides complete visibility of student history and their planned learning programme. The college also plans to integrate enrolment with Agresso QL Financials so that online payment can be set up and immediately reconciled in the college’s accounts.
“We pride ourselves on being one of the best colleges in the country. Everything we do is about meeting students’ needs and delivering an excellent educational experience. UNIT4’s online enrolment solution is very much aligned to this,” concluded Mr Hannett.
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About UNIT4
UNIT4 is a global business software and services company aimed at helping dynamic public sector, and commercial services organizations to embrace change simply, quickly and cost effectively in a market sector it calls 'Businesses Living IN Change' (BLINC)™. The Group incorporates a number of the world’s leading change embracing software brands including Agresso Business World, our flagship ERP suite for mid-sized services intensive organizations and Coda, our best-of-class financial management software.
In the UK we focus strongly on the public sector, where we are the leading provider of ERP systems to local government and post 16 education organisations, as well as having a considerable presence in the emergency services and health sectors. We also focus strongly on professional services organisations and a range of commercial sectors including Financial Services, Retail and Media and Publishing. Overall we aim to be the UK’s foremost business software company, providing solutions that transform the delivery of public services and comprehensively support commercial organisations in their ability to adapt and prosper in rapidly changing environments.
With operations in 17 European countries, as well as 7 countries across North America, Asia Pacific and Africa and sales activities in several other countries, its revenue was €421.7 million in 2010. UNIT4 is headquartered in Sliedrecht, the Netherlands and has over 4,000 employees. It is listed on Euronext Amsterdam and is included in the Amsterdam Midcap Index (AMX). For more information on UNIT4 or any of its operating companies, please visit the website at www.unit4.com
