Success Story
Scheduling and Studio Booking Solution for dBs Music
dBs Music, founded in 1998, is the only dedicated Music Production and Technology Institution in the UK, with their superb state of the art premises providing extensive bookable space and time for students. They offer a mix of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, as well as pre-degree diplomas, covering all aspects of music production, music technology, electronic music, live sound, music composition or sound for film and TV. Courses are delivered from their two UK campuses based in Bristol and Plymouth, supporting approximately 1,000 students.
dBs Music needed a digital and cloud-based timetabling and room booking solution that could be used by their timetable administrators, academic staff and students to easily create schedules, view timetables online and enhance the quality of their class delivery. It was important that any system implemented was in keeping with the dynamic and fast paced nature of the music business in which graduates would one day work. The requirements included a system able to manage the constraints inherent with the use of a wide range of different types of space being used on campus, from studios with specific equipment to classrooms and meeting spaces. The timetables needed to be published on-line with GSuite integration for a one stop, single sign-on and calendar synchronisation to support students in making studio and other bookings. Finally, a integration was needed between attendance monitoring and their current student information system. Currently they were using spreadsheets to create schedules and wanted to make their operations digital to identify and prevent any resource clashes and utilise an auto-scheduling system to achieve this. This would maximise the optimisation of use of their facilities as courses were very resource dependent and teaching spaces extremely varied.
EventMAP analysis identified that a combination Timetabler for curriculum scheduling and Booker for self-service room/studio booking would fulfil their needs. A trial of both products was implemented to evaluate the software, and to identify any needs missing from the original software requirements. Additional support was delivered to provide documentation for staff training, and assistance with API integration for their student information system.
After a successful trial period and subsequent full implementation, dBs Music have benefited from the introduction of the combined software package and migrated their previous manual approach of scheduling on spreadsheets, to a solution that supports their academic timetabling and ad-hoc room booking requirements.
dBs Music and their timetabling team are now confident create course schedules and publish these for staff and students to view their timetables online and receive notifications for event reminders and for any updates or cancellations. They are also delighted with the calendar integration, allowing users to synchronise timetable events with Google calendar so their staff and students have quick access to view their current and future schedules. The use of our auto-scheduler has proven benefits by reducing the time required to generate a schedule, whilst also preventing any resource clashes and improving room utilisation rates. In addition, the software implementation has improved their staff and student’s user experience with booking studio space and other spaces in a dynamic way more aligned to the fast paced and digital nature of the music business.
After contacting EventMAP we were issued with trial accounts for both Timetabler and Booker products, the development team were very responsive and assisted Jen in our student support team to run some trial schedules. They listened to feedback and incorporated suggestions into updates. Our experience with EventMAP was excellent – there was no pressure from sales teams, which allowed us to guarantee the system could satisfy our criteria.
