Equantiis

The Challenge

ARU are looking to leverage new technology to support their processes and deliver excellent student experience, alongside their existing technology infrastructure.

They were interested in the possibilities which Intelligent Automation could bring and wanted to create a Business Case for a Proof-of-Concept implementation.

Currently, the Admissions department process both UCAS and non-UCAS applications, with intakes in January, May and September. Alongside this, the department manage Policing Degree Apprenticeships, and CPD.

ARUs Admissions department is a busy and varied one, with many enquiries from home and international applicants.  One key aim of the automation POC is to enable ARU to improve and streamline processes so that the team can spend more time on student-facing, value-added activities, and to ultimately increase take-up and lower attrition at application stage

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What we did

To kick the process off, we investigated which areas would benefit most from intelligent automation and selected the best suitable candidate processes.

Green Dot

Because not all processes are suitable for automation, it was essential to select those that were:
rules-based;
had structured data;
had a high process maturity;
and were of high frequency and volume.

Once selected, we worked with SMEs to map the processes out, so that we could identify areas of challenge and risk and identify activities which a bot could replicate.

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The Results

This data enabled us to create a Business Case for intelligent automation, detailing the current time/FTE, and the estimated time and/or cost saving with intelligent automation.

These project outcomes now enable ARU to build on this Business Case for investment in intelligent automation, with clear, demonstrative benefits.

“Although we’ve had lots of slick development for what the applicant sees, the back office is still old and clunky and there’s lots of human intervention behind the scenes. The opportunities which RPA could bring have been extremely interesting!” Susie King, Head of UK and EU Admission
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