"Coursedog has outperformed... they are very responsive and it is money in the bank for our business needs."
We sat down with Laura Patrick, Registrar and Director of Institutional Research at Laguna College of Art & Design (LCAD), to understand how Coursedog's Class Scheduler and Curriculum Management platforms have helped them optimize space and eliminate inefficiencies in their scheduling process.
Over the years I've been encouraged by our CFO and our Controller to look for this type of software. I was pretty resistant in the sense that we’d used a previous software... it was very clunky and cumbersome and I was adamant there was nothing out there. Until Coursedog showed up, and we decided to investigate at that point simply because it was on our radar screen for many years.
I think the best answer to that is it was definitely more intuitive. It's a fairly easy system to use and the number one reason that we went with the system is to know how much space do we have and how much space do we need. And so now with the software product we're able to actually quantify our space numbers presented to the Board and easily make a case for additional space.
That was the number one reason, secondarily... it is easing up the process of creating our schedule. As any other registrar knows, it's a cumbersome process connecting all the faculty to the students and to the staff... And so this was our effort to streamline the process to get everything and everybody on the same page be transparent. I think it also helps in that regard.
It has outperformed what I expected. I think even in my heart of hearts as we went into it I was still a little bit thinking this might be a little clunky like some of the older school software used to be. So with that in mind I think that my expectations were definitely beat by your product. I think that [Coursedog] is very responsive and any time I speak about your product it has a lot to do with the two individuals behind it and what you guys have been doing in terms of responsiveness to the needs of the client.
And I think that sometimes in other other areas that I've worked in that sometimes companies you know create a wonderful software but there's no customer service or even ability to customize. There's just not the responsiveness factor. You guys have been doing an exceptional job in that area. That's your strong suit.
So I think a young company is a way to go. I also think the minds of a younger generation speak to kind of the new technology that's available now using A.I. functions which wasn't something done 15 years ago in our industry and now bringing that to our table is something that probably an older company is not going to be interested in doing. And I think Coursedog has the cornerstone of the market so I'm excited to work with a young company.
I think the best things that we've seen so far is not having to do individual calls to faculty, “Hey what is your availability,” and [following up] when they change or tweak it. Getting that automated that's a huge thing. And quite honestly Nick (the CTO) leading customer success is huge. [Coursedog's automated reports] save invaluable time cutting down on errors. Once we are fully integrated with our SIS the error tree will also just be gone and we don't have to worry about that anymore.
It's easy in our line of work to double book a room or double book a faculty and all of a sudden you've got 36 kids enrolled in something and you say I'm just kidding. You can't take that class at that time. And so to eliminate that it shows...it's just a more streamlined, efficient, clear process. And I think that is money in the bank for our business needs.
