Mission: A paperless university. Status: Almost there
Running a school is tough. Running one of the world's largest universities is even more so. Sri Ramaswamy` Memorial University (SRM) is home not only to local students but also to thousands of students from Europe, China, and the rest of Asia.
With over 50,000 students spread across 7 campuses throughout India, it’s an understatement to say that SRM has to run a tight ship.
Apart from herding a magnitude of students and keeping things running in countless offices, the management also had a mountain of paperwork to deal with.
"We had a lot of paper movement from one office to another. And students had to go to different offices to hand over their requests. Every process got delayed."
But delayed approvals and misplaced documents were just droplets in a larger pool. Though the management had to deal with time-consuming processes, at the end of a day, SRM is all about scheduling timetables.
That's when the director of the engineering department heard that Zoho Creator could automate all their work. Needless to say, they were excited to try it out.
"Now we’re using six critical modules to run our business processes."
Each of the six modules has a specific functionality tying into a bigger application. The heads of each department (HODs) would add courses into the app and then select the faculty each courses fall into.
The students find and register for courses online through the mobile app. Once they register for a particular course, they'll receive a second form, from which they can pick optional subjects for each semester.
And once a student hits submit, they receive a complete timetable in their email, listing their chosen subjects, the names of the faculty and buildings, and location maps to their classrooms.
The first time the SRM university management rolled out the app, they were unsure about how students would react. But they needn’t have worried.
"Within 30 minutes, I saw about 2,000 registrations done."
Students went beyond just registering.They attended the classes and got great grades, too.
"We love it because it’s hassle-free and we can check our marks or attendance from anywhere."
With such glowing results, our Zoho Creator team walked out of SRM University, the words of one its professors ringing in our ears.
"In two years, we want to make SRM University a completely paperless office."
Our cloud's got you covered, professor.
Thanks:C.Muthamizchelvan and Prof.Anand, SRM University.