Easy to use administrative processes and rich management information

Effective and efficient core administrative systems are essential for our key operational and administrative processes at UCL. Many of our existing systems are old and poorly integrated which imposes a major strain on the organisation, undermining the student experience and soaking up too much of the organisation’s capacity with broken and labour intensive processes. We need to move to modern and well integrated core systems that protect the integrity of our data since this is vital for the automation of processes and the digitisation of services.

Alongside improving our core systems estate, we will build on the successful initial release of UCL’s new management information platform that will enable a more evidence led approach to decision making.

Transform administrative systems, processes and experience

Historically, our core administrative systems have had little investment in comparison to the scale of the organisation, and have become a major drain on effort and harmed our user’s experience. For instance, Portico, out student administrative platform, needs to be transformed to provide UCL with the efficient and effective student administrative processes that will underpin an excellent student experience and increase efficiency. Increased automation and optimisation of processes will enable us to squeeze even more utilisation out of our constrained teaching spaces and, importantly, we will be able to respond to changing circumstances in an agile manner. As with other systems, our administrative applications need to be accessible to all our users and support our equality and diversity objectives.

Digitally enable the PS Hub including the creation of a unified IT Services for professional services

Under the Digital Masterplan, we will seek to support the development of the PS Hub through the effective use of digital technologies. As part of this a unified Professional Services IT Services is being created to provide a single point of contact for staff and students. The existing RemedyForce service management tool will be further developed to support the Hub and innovative technologies such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are being introduced to increase automation and efficiency. Other technologies such as the new Digital Services Enablement platform will be used to provide fully automated digital services. These will increase the quality of services, reduce cost and make them available anytime on any device.

Arming decision-makers with information and insight

Effective management Information will be key to effective management of the institution going forward and essential 
for the evidence led and data informed decision making that we aspire to. Timely access to information will provide early warning of issues and enable early corrective action to be taken rather than it becoming a surprise later.

For the user, a range of advanced analytics and business intelligence capabilities will provide on-line access to standard reports as well as easy access to ad-hoc reporting and drill down. Batch reports will be run overnight to provide standard reports of record though a portal and via email.

Integrated management information will also help with the provision of an ‘information asset register for personal data‘ for GDPR compliance.