As a leading institution, ELTE sought a solution that could move beyond the limitations of the mobility module of its existing campus management system and manual spreadsheets to provide a truly integrated experience for students and staff.
The Challenge: Moving Beyond "Handy but Limited" Systems
Before implementing Mobility-Online, ELTE faced significant administrative hurdles. While the university used a module in its campus management system for initial applications, that system was not designed for specialized mobility management. This forced staff to export data into multiple, complex Excel files to manage the lifecycle of mobilities: evaluation, allocation, grant management, closing, reporting and also changes, such as adjustments to mobility durations or document updates.
"We needed to open at least five or six Excel files just to have an overview," explains Judit Hermándy-Berencz, Project Coordinator for Erasmus+ digitalisation.
Communication was equally burdensome, with staff spending excessive time downloading documents from emails and manually filing them. Furthermore, reporting to university hierarchy and the national agency was often slow and lacked the desired accuracy.
The Solution: Limitless Flexibility and Seamless Integration
ELTE chose Mobility-Online after a thorough internal analysis involving international relations offices, faculty advisors, and the IT department. The primary deciding factor was the software's limitless flexibility, allowing for customization across different mobility types and specific faculty needs.
A critical requirement was the integration with the university’s existing campus management system via Single Sign-On (SSO). This allows students to use their familiar credentials, while the system automatically fetches accurate study data into application forms, as well as personal details such as address data, thus significantly reducing manual entry errors.
Implementation: Planning for Success
The implementation process involved a deep dive into the university's workflows, mapping out every detail of who performs which action and when. The ELTE team also benefited from visiting partner universities already using Mobility-Online to gather peer advice on daily usage.
The success of the rollout was supported by a dedicated SOP project manager. Judit Hermándy-Berencz praises the collaboration, noting that the project manager did more than just implement processes, and instead recommended the smartest solutions to meet the university's requirements.
Impact: Real-Time Data and One-Click Administration
Since adopting Mobility-Online, ELTE has seen a marked improvement in the efficiency and transparency of processes and reporting capacity. Staff can now provide real-time data to hierarchy and national agencies at any stage of the process.
Communication has been simplified through built-in email templates and bulk actions. One of the most significant efficiency gains is the automatization of grant management, with the use of letter templates for financial documents.
"It is really one click of a button to issue a grant agreement," says Judit Hermándy-Berencz, as the system automatically merges data directly into the document.
The use of the Workflow for students and the Pipeline for staff ensures the entire process is transparent and tailor-made.
Looking Ahead
While ELTE is still in the early stages of its journey with Mobility-Online, they have already implemented those processes that place the greatest burden on administrative staff, such as the outgoing long term study mobility schemes and placements as well as the incoming student nominations. The university plans to expand its use of the software to cover all mobility types, including staff mobility, short-term mobilities and international credit mobility.
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