Timetable Scheduling and Resource Booking Software Solution for Swiss Education Group

Founded in 1982, Swiss Education Group are a Swiss Alliance of Hospitality Management Schools, with five schools consisting of the Swiss Hotel Management School, the Hotel Institute Montreux, Cesar Ritz Colleges, Culinary Arts Academy Switzerland, and International Hotel and Tourism Training Institute, operating across six campuses in Switzerland, each offering a unique hospitality educational experience. The group’s student body currently has over 6,000 students from 111 countries.

The Challenge

The group were interested in obtaining a multi-user timetabling and resource booking solution that could easily be used by their academic staff to create and publish course timetable, allowing staff and students to view timetables online. The group’s requirements for the solution included:

• Facilitation of an import and export of institutional data via Microsoft Excel
• Publication of timetables online for academic staff and students to view in a web browser and on mobile devices, complete with iCal invitations
• Ability to model several constraints relating to holidays and general staff availability
• Ability to manually make changes to timetables after automatic scheduling

The group had been using various pieces of software across the different schools and wanted to use a single software solution across all schools which was user friendly and efficient.

The Solution

Through analysis of Swiss Education Group’s requirements, EventMAP identified that a combination of two software packages would fulfil their needs; EVENT for curriculum timetabling and planning, and PORTAL for publication of timetables online. Initially a demonstration version of both products was provided and following a trial period EventMAP staff visited Switzerland to assist in the technical setup of the solution and provide training for IT administrators and academic staff.