The Challenge:

In 2020, Solent University launched its new Strategy 2025: Ready for the future.  Their mission is to enable their learners to be work-ready, world-ready, and future-ready. Replacing their outdated and unreliable Students Record System (SRS) was a critical step in realising their vision.

Replacing an SRS is a massive undertaking for any university. Every function within the university is dependent upon the SRS functioning as required. For Solent University, changing the SRS would be the most significant digital change they had ever embarked upon.

To make things even more challenging, in February 2021, incumbent supplier Ellucian advised Solent that its Quercus on-premise SRS would go end-of-life in August 2023.

Solent had already begun exploring alternative systems, but now their timeline had gone from 4.5 years to just 2.5 years. A new SRS had to be up and running before enrolment for the 23/24 academic year began in August 2023

This also meant that applications for 23/24 had to be functional on the new SRS by October 2022.

The Project:

In March 2021, Solent kicked off a new Transformation Programme and procured Tribal’s Cloud SITS SRS.

Towards the end of 2021 it became clear to senior management that timelines were slipping and key milestones were not being met. In March 2022, our Director Aaron Tyler was engaged to take full accountability for delivery. He was soon followed by our Technical Director, Pete Colley.

Aaron completely restructured the project, established specific and measurable deliveries, with a named individual made accountable for each, and instilled an iterative agile approach to delivery. Rigorous governance provided control and quality assurance whilst gaps in experience and skills were filled. Relationships with suppliers were reinvigorated, seconded Solent team members were given direction and purpose whilst senior management were communicated with frequently and clearly, working alongside Aaron to remove blockers. Aaron was also accountable for Business Change and Training.

Pete became fully accountable for Technical delivery coordinating solution architects, developers, systems analysts and external testing partners. He has over 13 years deep Tribal SITS experience which he used to significantly reduce risks, plug gaps in quality assurance processes, skills and technical capabilities.

Pete also implemented and managed the technical strategy which included user management, environment management, configuration and release management.

In addition to leading the delivery of the SRS solution, Pete oversaw the management of the new SRS system for its first cycle, implementing service management processes and tools to enable incident, request and change management. This saw the Student Systems team experience many “firsts” with the new system including a system upgrade, clearing and embargo period and A-level results.

After delivering Phase 1 of the SRS in Oct 2022, Aaron and Pete were given overall responsibility for all areas of the programme including integrations, MI and reporting, short courses and target operating model and by February 2023, a day-by-day go-live plan was defined.  The programme was managed so successfully that those dates were maintained to the day some six months later.

Scale Of Impact:

In addition to providing an improved student experience to over 8000 students, the SRS Programme impacted over 500 staff, 53 teams and 145 operational processes. Hundreds of thousands of historic student records were migrated from the outgoing SRS and over 50 digital systems were integrated through a new ESB based architecture. It was the single biggest change of any kind at Solent University for over 15 years.

The Outcome:

Under the leadership of Aaron and Pete, the programme was on time and within budget. 23/24 applications went live in October 2022 and enrolments started on 21st August 2023. Potential compliance and data issues were avoided, and the financial and reputation integrity of Solent University were maintained.

The new SRS is a key foundation in Solent’s digital and overall strategy.