Access to sport and recreation boosted by smart software at ANU
It’s not often recreation and IT are mentioned in the same sentence, but at The Australian National University (ANU) some clever Australian-made software is playing a leading hand in improving access to on-site recreation facilities and boosting membership in student clubs.
ANU Sport and Recreation General Manager Kitty McCaskie says the UniOne and Envibe software platforms used by her team have saved time, improved access to ANU’s facilities and made it easier for her team to manage them, allowing more people to enjoy recreation for physical and mental health.
She said the previous software and spreadsheets they used to manage access to ANU’s sports facilities and record membership details for its sports clubs were cumbersome and created potential data-privacy risks. The two new software platforms, provided by Australian software company Jonas Leisure, made life a lot easier.
“We’d be lost without Envibe and UniOne, the operational efficiencies that have come out of transitioning to the software have just been game-changing for our organisation.”
Kitty and the ANU Sport and Recreation team have used Envibe since July 2023 to manage use of the university’s four ovals, two sports halls, six tennis courts, two squash courts, climbing walls, a martial arts dojo, wellness studio and three gym spaces – one of which is hired out to the general public or local sports teams.
Envibe handles leisure centre membership as well as court bookings for facilities and the group fitness timetable. Kitty says being able to book out court spaces for individual badminton, basketball or table tennis classes saves time for her team and clarifies exactly which court spaces remain available for other users.
“The way Envibe is structured has really improved our efficiency of court hire and the fact everything is handled online reduces work for our teams and gives a better user experience.”
Kitty says Envibe’s online customer portal has saved time for her team and improved student and community access.
“The online portal gives us more flexibility than a lot of other systems. It’s easy for members to check online if there are spare courts if they want to book a one-off session.”
Being able to sell memberships online is a significant benefit and Paperless Sign-up is very popular, making it easier for students to sign up, she says.
“We have a lot of students that are very technically savvy, they want to do everything online, have one interaction with a staff member, set themselves up and then just go about their business.”
UniOne was introduced by ANU Sport and Recreation to establish a central platform for management of the university’s 30 sports clubs.
Kitty says since introducing UniOne the clubs have used the versatile software to handle the student sign-in process, data management, uniform sales, merchandising, web pages, event organisation and trips away, as well as managing their membership databases.
“One of the things we wanted with UniOne was an agile system that has the capability to do what we need across lots of areas of our business.”
Between 3,000 and 4,000 students attend ANU Orientation Week every year and UniOne has improved the efficiency of the sign-up process, Kitty says.
“At O Week we run all of our club registrations through UniOne so it’s simple for students to sign up and consistent across all sports clubs.”
In addition to regular meet-ups and club outings, the facility and club management features of both Envibe and UniOne are well suited to support major events. Kitty says that will come in particularly handy in September when ANU co-hosts the 2024 UniSport Nationals, with more than 6,000 participants from 42 member universities descending on Canberra to compete across 31 different sports.
Envibe booking screen for tennis facilities on ANU’s website.