Durham College

Overview

How?

We integrated services ideal clients and customers want, like:

• Self-check-in at kiosks
• Digital receptionist functions
• Calendar booking with tier-two resources
• Dynamic queues for seasonal events
• Online scheduling system with booking and web check-in
• Digital information displays

These new features helped Durham College manage reception and online issues effectively, significantly improving its quality of service. Wait times fell, students were happier and service desk workers freed up time to focus on important core tasks.

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The Challenge

Durham College wanted to provide enhanced and robust services to their 8,400 full time and 3,600+ part time/apprenticed students.

Durham had tried to build their own Student Flow solution, but the project was met with many challenges. Building an application in-house requires substantial development time and the skilled resources to design, build, test and deploy the application. Durham found that the initiative consumed too many valuable in-house resources that could not be fully dedicated to the effort as required to make it successful.

Durham therefore approached Q-nomy to better understand how the Q-Flow solution could meet their growing needs.

The Solution

Q-nomy provided a complete solution to meet the college educational requirements, deployed in a series of three phases.

In Phase One, Q-nomy provided Self Check-In at the Kiosks (with Magnetic Card Readers), Receptionist functions, Calendar booking with tier two resources, dynamic queues for seasonal events, digital signage and audio announcements. Part of this deployment was a full integration into the students database.

Phase Two involved implementing SMS features, on-line booking and web-check-in as well as a full deployment in the IT Services and Lab area. The space in the IT Services area was challenging as the vaulted ceilings and angled positions for the signage were not easy to access, or cable to.

Phase Three was the Whitby Campus deployment. Whitby is about 30 minutes southwest of Oshawa. This location focuses on Skilled Trades, IT, Hospitality, Travel and Leisure Industry studies and services approximately 2,000 students. The unique layout of this building allowed for a large Common Area in the centre point of it that was repurposed as a lounge/lunch/study area.

At this location, Q-nomy deployed 4 Agent workstations, 4 self-serve kiosks and 7 digital information displays in the Common area, as well as another Kiosk in the Computer Lab with a digital information display.

Angie Paisley, Associate Registrar, Student Service Operations Durham College: “After working with Q-nomy for over a year now, I can say that we were all very pleased with both their product and the team. We have been extremely pleased with QFlow and are always impressed with its functionality and ease of use. Adding new Agents / Workstations and departments has been a very smooth process. Based on how fast our institution is growing, it is definitely an asset being able to scale up and leverage all of Q-Flow's features”

The Results

Q-nomy's solution helped Durham College achieve their goals, streamlining student flow at service desks, eliminating unnecessary wait time, and providing an overall better experience for students.