Client name . College of Naturopathic Medicine
Sector . Education
Summary comment . Richard Douglas, Web Programme Manager, The College
of Naturopathic Medicine
"A lot of staff are 'technophobes', so ease of adoption with FileMaker has been very impressive. To see people being able to easily use the system – and want to use it – has been a big change for us!"
College of Naturopathic Medicine
FileMaker: The Natural Choice for The College of Naturopathic Medicine
Based in Sussex, with 10 colleges located throughout the UK and Ireland. The College employs some 60 staff – primarily lecturers, teachers and administrators – and serves approximately 1,500 students, with further potential students on its database. Providing thorough training in Biomedical Sciences, Naturopathy, Acupuncture, Herbal Medicine, Homeopathy and Nutrition, it aims to increase the acceptance of these therapies worldwide.
As one of the UK's leading natural medicine training providers, The College of Naturopathic Medicine (CNM) manages 12 sites across the country, each running many courses at any given time, to over 1,500 students. The College required a database solution to streamline the complex information management task it had on its hands, while enabling it to market its courses more effectively to prospective students and graduates.
FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Server combine to deliver the most powerful, flexible and cost effective information management platform.
- FileMaker's flexibility enables bespoke application development – eliminating outsourced development costs and delivering the right solution for the College every time
- FileMaker's straightforward interface and ease of use ensures even the College's 'technophobes' become enthusiastic users
- Security as standard through the delivery of hierarchical access permissions
- New streamlined information management processes extends business benefits outside of information management to encompass improvements in accounting, CRM and marketing
As its business has grown, the College found it required a database solution that would enable it to manage increasing volumes of student data. It also wanted to market its courses, seminars and further study opportunities to prospective students and graduates more effectively. Furthermore, given that it provides training in therapies that are comparatively new to the UK higher education sector, CNM must adapt to constant changes in certification and registration rules, as well as other legal/regulatory aspects – making flexible and cost-effective development of the database a vital concern.
"Because of the flexible nature of our courses and the regular changes we need to make, we needed to find a product that wasn’t going to cost us an arm and a leg," explains Richard Douglas, Web Programme Manager at CNM. Ease of use with minimal investment in training were also key requirements, as was ensuring security, since a number of different types of user need access to the information held on the database.
A streamlined solution
A number of vendors were invited to demonstrate their solutions – including those with platforms based on Goldmine, Lotus and some proprietary platforms – but the decision was taken to install the FileMaker solution provided by third-party reseller, Cruse Control. "FileMaker offered us a quick and simple deployment, as well as ease of use, really lightweight administration and flexibility with regards our future needs," states Douglas.
As a comparatively small organisation,
With FileMaker, the College is able to manage most of its database administration in-house. According to Douglas, over the past year he has spent just ten hours on administration of the database. "For an organisation of our size, FileMaker is the perfect fit. It is a streamlined product, updates are painless, everything is simple to administer and we don't have to go through complex development cycles, as we can do most of it ourselves – i.e. adding fields to the user interface and changing the relation from one set of data to another."
Business benefits across the board
Having implemented FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Server some 12 months ago, CNM has since realised far-reaching benefits. Ongoing costs have been reduced significantly, from both a hardware and management perspective. "The size of the database has grown significantly but with FileMaker there is less maintenance for me to do and I don't have to call in third-party integrators when making changes. In addition, it doesn't use a lot of resource on the server, which was one of the problems with the old database," says Douglas.
The database is now more accessible to the College's staff and students, with security ensured via hierarchical access. "Being able to set differing levels of permissions is key. It is also essential for us to be able to allow users to login from different geographic locations." This has been achieved using FileMaker Server, which is providing remote access for members of the accounts, enrolment and IT departments. It has been deployed on a shared server also running Microsoft's Small Business Server 2003 and Exchange, with all data backed-up to an off-site dedicated facility. There are 2 remote offices that are now able to access the information as if they are in the building.
From a marketing standpoint, the College is now able to obtain a more granular data set, allowing users to segment a target audience accurately and achieve better conversion rates. "And for enrolments, the time it takes to get student information onto the system has been halved. Some of the data is now imported directly from webmail and we can choose the data sets we want.
FileMaker has also ensured that CNM is more efficient in keeping track of its accounts receivable and, with plans for the introduction of an online learning system, the College will be looking to integrate this new development with FileMaker, to create a web-based service infrastructure for its students.
Follow FileMaker on Twitter