“In terms of the system, it is absolutely brilliant. Using Maximizer the way we do allows us to keep information up to date, report accurate data and most importantly store all the information we need in one place so we can focus on supporting students. In terms of the people and customer service at ProAptivity, it is spot on and exactly what customers expect: reliable, efficient and always keen to help us.”
Roberta Verlini, Operations Manager
University of Cambridge Disability Resource Centre
Key Benefits:
⦁ Freedom to record as much information as needed to successfully support their students
⦁ Flexibility to customize new fields without the need to pay for expensive software development services
⦁ Self-served dashboards to allow staff to keep track of priorities
⦁ Import Manager simplifies continual data migration, increases productivity and eliminates redundant data entry
⦁ Seamless integration with Microsoft Outlook, Word and excel allows seamless storage and accessibility of email communication and reporting
⦁ Streamlined communication and processes to allow the freedom for staff to work remotely
University of Cambridge Disability Resource Centre
Proaptivity
Initial Maximizer Implementation
The University of Cambridge Disability Resource Centre (DRC) first implemented Maximizer in 2006. Maximizer is a fully featured CRM out of the box and was both easy to set up and easily adopted by the DRC staff. Over the years, Maximizer has constantly upgraded and iterated, as did the legal and departmental requirements at DRC. The need to iterate Maximizer in line with these requirements was critical to the operational success at DRC.
“It couldn’t have been done without ProAptivity, our Maximizer Solutions partner. We have been trained to make changes to the database structure ourselves. We can apply these changes when required and we know that we have the support of Proaptivity when we need them.”
Roberta Verlini
University of Cambridge DRC Services
In 2017, the University of Cambridge supported 800 disabled students and that number has since grown exponentially to more than 5000 currently studying across every single one of Cambridge’s 31 Colleges. The DRC is a place where any student or applicant requiring support for their university life can make themselves known. The DRC then advises the colleges and departments on needs of individual students to ensure smooth onboarding, transition, and ongoing support.
Roberta Verlini, Operations Manager for DRC explains, “At Cambridge, we have moved away from the term disability and prefer the term impairment. We support students with both physical as well as mental impairment. These impairments may include for example, dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, apraxia, depression, or issues with food to name a few. We consider a wide range of conditions that we classify as a disability; everything is related to what students need. This support covers a wide range of services, from note taking to assistance with taking exams.”
Maximizer in Action
“Maximizer is our bible. It offers the freedom to record as much information as we need to successfully support our students.”
Roberta Verlini
Maximizer is used daily by both advisors and administrative staff as it holds all the students’ information. One of the great benefits is the freedom to record as much information as needed to successfully support their students. This information includes all compliance documentation, email, medical evidence, communications, case work, case notes and much more. A detailed interaction history that can handle little and large amounts of information in one page and is quick to access makes it easy for the DRC to support its students.
Maximizer is also flexible to customize new fields without the need to pay for expensive software development services. This is very useful as the information needed to record is constantly changing and makes it easy for ongoing data management and reporting. Furthermore, Maximizer provides customizable dashboards to help visualize certain indicators. The dashboards offer great insight into some of the services provided by DRC and allows the staff to stay on top of the information they need to follow up with their students. Here are a few dashboard examples that provide indicators for:
⦁ The numbers of students contacted in a specific time frame
⦁ Newly created records that are flagged for review and data cleaning
⦁ Which students need a specific support document
⦁ Any students’ records that are missing information
Maximizer’s Import Manager has simplified continual data migration from the main DRC student database. This increases productivity, eliminates redundant data entry, and ensures accuracy is maintained throughout the database. Without the Import Manager it would not be possible to keep these records accurate.
Maximizer is also fully integrated with Microsoft Outlook, Word, and Excel. The export to Excel function allows the user to download any generated search for reporting purposes at a more granular level. The seamless integration with Outlook enables all email communications to be housed under a student’s record within Maximizer. This 2-way sync simplifies the storage and accessibility of information in relation to a student so the DRC staff can focus on supporting the students. Maximizer has also effectively streamlined student communications with the ability to send group emails. Due to the shift in hybrid work, Maximizer has proved essential to streamlining communications and processes at the DRC as well as the freedom to work remotely.
Use Case: Student Self-Serve
“Just on the SIF process alone, we have easily saved hundreds of hours and the burnout of overly repetitive tasks”
Roberta Verlini
