Reduced the University of Essex’s support ticket backlog by ~75% (from ~300 to ~70 tickets)

What we did

The University of Essex found themselves short staffed and needed experienced support and design consultants to be able to drop into the role and run with the tasks they had outstanding.

There was a backlog of support tickets around the 300 mark, and we worked with them to reduce this down to currently around 70.

The areas of support we have covered here is all financials (AP, AR, Bank, GL etc) including fixed assets, along with logistics and interfaces with other systems (Proactis), along with migrating report documentation to rerx from ARC and excelerator.

As part of the contract, we have also carried out an upgrade on their software from 7.5 to 7.13 with only 12 issues reported at go live which all related to access on the site level rather than any issues with the software itself.

Another aspect of the contract with Essex has been to engage with Flywire (a web payments provider used by the university) to assist Essex in the build of the interface as part of the installation of the Flywire software at the University.

The final part of the contract was to help the University get the back log of configuration fixes required by the finance department under control and find out the best way forward for each of these.

We have now been asked to engage with the University again, and hope to assist them through their Unit4 SaaS Migration.

The Challenge

The biggest challenge we saw with UoE was that of budget, and the requirement to achieve as much as possible on a limited budget.

We have since we exited carried out work for them when they found themselves in crisis which we did not charge for by way of goodwill. We are also completing some rerx reports for them out of the budget and also free of charge.

It is our CEO’s view that there has to be give and take through all our services, as we should not be there just to expect payment. There is a level of service that must be provided in the nature of having any good working relationship.

“I just wanted to put something in writing regarding Equinox’s work with us. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with you over the last few months, always quick to respond with any queries asked with a positive attitude, and has been willing to work long hours, going above and beyond what I would expect.

You are also notably very knowledgeable of Unit 4, being able to address wide ranging areas of the system, including creating RERX files and setting up APIs, being very flexible with the requirements. This has allowed your consultant to switch from one task to another very easily and provide input on various areas of business as usual when asked.

‍‍Furthermore, she has allowed workload to be taken off myself by making decisions on how to progress the work required of her, while keeping me up to date on her progress. To summarise, I would be happy to work with you again in the future.”

Kerry Wood - Director of Strategic Project Delivery