AFD Software helps over 90 Universities to validate and cleanse student contact data.
We have partnered with Tribal for 10 years to deliver our solutions integrated within Tribals student records systems.
AFD’s full range of solutions that are integrated into SITS and e:Vision include:
We need good data. We use AFD online for the student application and enrolment processes. We need to capture contact details correctly, if we are unable to contact students (prospective and current), this doesn’t provide them with confidence.
AFD helps ensure we capture the address, email, and phone data accurately. One student can provide £50,000 in funding, its essential we don’t let them slip through the application stage due to an incorrect phone number or email address.
Accurate contact data is also essential for student support and pastoral care. If a student misses a class and that’s out of character, we can reach out to them via their phone number or email address and provide the required levels of support to them during their studies.
Head of Student Information Systems, Arden University.
The University of Dundee has been running independently since 1967 and are ranked in the top 10 in the UK for student satisfaction. We spoke to Andy Ross, Service Delivery Manager to find out how AFD Software’s address management software is helping the University maintain data quality and the benefits of upgrading to AFD.
The University of Dundee uncovered a range of benefits that came with upgrading to AFD Software.
“AFD offer a hosted solution which means that we are not required to use valuable IT resources manually updating our datasets.
User interface with AFD is significantly quicker, having the ability to search by address fragment is especially useful for students that partially know their address.
We reduced cost by moving to AFD who offer a flexible, simplified payment model which means we pay for what we will use and it’s very clear.
With our previous solution, there was a general unawareness of what was being licensed. Every time staff moved roles there would be a period of reaffirming our address validation solution. Since upgrading to AFD and moving to a hosted solution, we now have no license worries at all.”
“Upgrading to AFD Software within our SITS/eVision system took the best part of a couple of hours. It just worked straight away. We needed to do some work within our online forms as we were now offering an online postcode lookup. The solution works straight out the box, but we needed to spend some time reorganising the structure of the forms so the postcode question was asked first rather than last. The actual postcode popup screen just worked with some small configuration changes made once globally.“
“Our impact assessments were done within our Business Services team. We analysed which departments used postcode lookup and what systems used it. As only one system used the postcode validation, we met with users to explain the reasoning and what would change. This process only took 2-3 weeks from start to finish.“
“We would strongly encourage any other University to move to AFD Software. Technical support is good, and they have strong knowledge of Tribal products across the board.“
Ongoing Upgrades
“The only issue encountered was searching for addresses in the UK (Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland) as there is only one official ISO code that covers the whole UK which meant that users could, for example, select Wales as the country but then search for an address in Scotland. AFD offered to develop a solution and this was implemented in January 2024. This will enable data quality to be further enhanced so we would like to thank AFD for this work which has come at no additional cost to our AFD licence.” Alan Winton, University of Dundee.
AFD software products which may interest you
Address validation saves time and money. It is the backbone of excellent service, customer retention, data analysis, prevention of duplicates, enhanced reputation and more profitable business performance.
Maintaining a clean, duplicate-free customer, supporter, student, member or prospect address database underpins the foundations of effective marketing, high-quality customer service and punctual delivery.
Email validation saves time and money. A simple mistake in typing an email address makes it impossible for an email to reach the right recipient. For a business or service-based organisation, this can be costly to both revenue and reputation.
Accurate phone and mobile data allows your institute to
maintain contact and relationships with students. From initial interest, to enrolment and duty of care. AFD’s solution helps ensure accurate communication.
We serve thousands of organisations and a network of hundreds of partners across multiple industry sectors, enabling them to have full confidence in their contact data.