Table of Contents
Introduction
Attributes of
hostel management software
Effective process
management
Intuitive hostel
admission
Multichannel
communication capabilities
Centralized
hostel administration
Room occupancy
and availability status
Expedited
maintenance requests
Digital mess and
cafeteria
Analytics and
report generation
Boost on-campus
access and security
Unified billing
and payment processes
Conclusion
Introduction
Meet Mr. Venkatesh K V, the dean and program head at Manipal Academy of BFSI, Bangalore. With extensive experience managing numerous hostels on the academic campus, he understands the nooks and crannies of hostel management. He realized that the manual documentation system redundancies posed significant hurdles for students seeking hostel admissions or requesting approvals from respective department heads.
Getting on board with SpaceBasic’s hostel management system helped him revamp operations using AI-powered automation technologies. SpaceBasic’s modifications introduced simpler, paperless workflows that streamlined the processes for students. The system transformed crucial processes like leave management and non-owner participant (NOP) management systems. Furthermore, the system enabled announcement functionality via a mass communication channel that appraises all the stakeholders of relevant developments.
Manipal Academy of BFSI’s success story is a testament to the advances a comprehensive hostel management system like Spacebasic offers universities. It provides noteworthy improvements on multiple management aspects of hostels and campus housing that help students feel at home.
Attributes of hostel management software
A hostel management system helps restore chaos and order to unorganized administrative tasks. Manual workflow, inadequate facility allocation, resource misutilization, and personnel workload are huge roadblocks for institutions on the path to digitalization. When these bottlenecks combine with hostel records maintenance, time-intensive activities, data discrepancies, duplication errors, security breaches, etc., administration becomes an uphill task.
An end-to-end hostel management system possesses automation capabilities and makes handling hostel tasks a breeze. This extensive system focuses on improving every minute aspect within the scope of hostel administration with remarkable efficiency. So, let’s delve into the attributes of modern-day hostel management software that keep student housing challenges at bay.
Effective process management
Various levels of hostel administration handle responsibilities such as fee collection, student registration, room allocation, and attendance. Delegating these tasks to standalone departments leaves room for error and consumes much time. A good hostel management system possesses robust automation competence that helps you manage all your administrative processes.
Intuitive hostel admission
Every year, new students who join an institution face overwhelming tasks, including coordinating with multiple departments for hostel allotment. The paper-based allotment process consists of several steps, approvals, and requisitions, making it ambiguous. On an institutional front, individual offices must gather information concerning students’ registration details, room availability, room number, hostel ID, documentation or certificates, warden details, and fee structure.
Collating this information across several offices for each student can induce a lot of duplication or credential errors. A hostel management system integrates decentralized processes and organizes them with utmost ease, helping students with faster hostel allocation.
Multichannel communication capabilities
The sheer strength of the students residing in a hostel makes it difficult for the hostel staff to communicate updates. When you amplify the scale to multiple hostels on campus, the degree of difficulty increases significantly. A communication channel bridges this gap by intimating necessary updates on dedicated broadcast channels. These channels help students and their parents to stay on top of all the developments regarding the institution. Ensure to inspect if your management system has inbuilt communication capabilities.
Centralized hostel administration
Large institutions have several hostels and hostel wings that operate as individual entities. This scattered structure makes it difficult for upper management to stay appraised of the changes happening in specific hostel wings. Hostel management systems offer a consolidated view of all the hostels, helping the concerned authorities take control of administrative tasks without the hassle of commuting to individual wings.
Room occupancy and availability status
Hostel occupancy and availability status allow officials to work on taking the necessary steps to help students obtain their favorite accommodations. A proficient hostel management system offers a unified overview of the occupancy levels to help students choose a room that fits their preferences.
Furthermore, this system offers options that enable students to select their roommates based on habits, interests, and academic orientation compatibilities. Inherent features like this aid students in growing a sense of belongingness and building new social connections.
Expedited maintenance requests
Issues like a leaky tap or a defective bulb may seem trivial from an individual student’s perspective. However, when they add up on several hostel levels, the staff may find it challenging to resolve them. Under worst-case scenarios, several issues like these may go unattended for long periods.
With a hostel management system at work, students no longer have to log their maintenance requests manually but via the software. The software helps staff get a detailed account of the pending maintenance requests and assign technicians accordingly while students can keep track of their requests. The results are timely resolutions with no requests skipped.
Digital mess and cafeteria
When students arrive at messes at the stroke of lunch, the premises get congested, making it difficult for mess personnel to serve them. To avoid this problem, a digital mess or cafeteria module can help mess managers manage the student traffic effectively. With the option to pre-book meals or menu items a few hours before meal timings, students can now skip the queue and dine conveniently. A digital mess also allows students to provide constructive feedback on the food and mess staff to work on improving the food standards.
Analytics and report generation
Every administrative task in institutions involves vast amounts of unused data due to the lack of the right analytics tools. This data has the potential to help management evaluate their limitations and discover areas for improvement. A hostel management system can help you leverage the power of AI-enabled techniques and analytics to get actionable insights on hostel operations. With comprehensive reports, trends, and data-driven recommendations at the helm, institutions can tap into new streams of improvement.
Boost on-campus access and security
You can’t discount the importance of security on hostel campuses for students who travel from far-off destinations. Take charge of your campus security by empowering students with QR-code-based access. Unlike regular magnetic strip reader-based cards, QR codes can heighten the level of encryption in access cards.
A hostel management system must include this feature as part of access control to help students with hassle-free check-ins and outs across campus establishments. The best part of this feature is that card users don’t have to carry a physical card, which involves the risk of theft or abuse.
Unified billing and payment processes
Mistakes in financial transactions carry grave repercussions for both the payer and the payee. Due to the frequency of transactions, payments involving huge fees, like those of students, have an extra risk of errors. An efficient hostel management system helps your accounting department with an additional layer of accuracy by allowing students to pay their rent via the software. At the same time, the staff can easily track them in the database while syncing the payment with their existing billing software.
Conclusion
The inbuilt efficiency and provisions make hostel management software a likely inclusion in their administrative processes. The streamlined processes help administrators manage their tasks effectively while students can avoid the hassle of approvals and multiple requests.
SpaceBasic’s hostel management system is one of the pioneers in establishing a robust mechanism for managing the monotony of hostel administration. It has revamped the operations of more than 50 campuses across India while enabling time savings of up to 60% for prominent institutions like Manipal Global Academy of BFSI.
Ready to learn how you, too, can replicate similar outcomes in your institution? Schedule a demo.