Oxford Summer Courses: Accommodation Management

Industry

Education

Products

Sales Cloud

Service

Customization

Customer

Oxford Summer Courses offers award-winning educational programmes for students aged 9 to 24. Participants can choose from over 40 subjects, including Arts and Humanities, Business and Economics, Law, Medicine, and Technology. Courses are hosted at university colleges in Oxford, Cambridge, and London, as well as renowned boarding schools like Eton College.

Challenge

Since all of the Customer’s courses are residential, managing accommodations is a key part of course operations. However, while Salesforce was used mainly for the sales process, data on available rooms, beds, and accommodation facilities was stored in Excel spreadsheets.

To streamline operations, Oxford Summer Courses decided to unify its data and integrate bed management into its existing Salesforce system. As a trusted Salesforce partner, the ENWAY team was excited to take on this challenge.

Solution

The project lasted just over a month. Here’s how the ENWAY team successfully delivered the solution:

Created custom objects to store details about accommodations, room types, and bed counts while maintaining the business logic. For example, each accommodation building is linked to a specific course.
Using Salesforce Flow, developed a tool to bulk-create accommodations, rooms, and beds efficiently.
Developed an automated system using Salesforce Flow to assign buildings, rooms, and beds to students based on their course and package tier (shared or private bathroom).
Built real-time reports to track accommodation capacity and availability during the course dates.

Results

The integration of accommodation management into Salesforce was an important step in automating the Customer’s processes. With all data about available and booked rooms now in Salesforce, Oxford Summer Courses managers reduced manual entry and improved data accuracy.

The automation of room assignments based on course and package tier reduced the risk of mistakes and ensured accurate room allocations. And with real-time custom reports, it became easier to manage and forecast room availability

As a result, the solution improved overall operational efficiency and enhanced the experience for both staff and students.