Course, Exam and Event Scheduling Software Solution

The Vendor is required to provide academic course, exam and event scheduling platform that supports centralized oversight, distributed departmental participation, and data-informed decision-making across the institution.
- Desirable services
1. Advanced course scheduling capabilities
• Interactive course scheduling tools that allow users to evaluate time and room selections in real time.
• Visual schedule displays.
• Scenario modeling or “what-if” analysis to evaluate alternative scheduling approaches.
• Real-time validation of instructor, room, and course conflicts during schedule development
2. Course demand and enrollment analytics
• Tools to analyze course demand relative to seat availability.
• Visibility into student enrollment patterns across programs or cohorts.
• Ability to identify under-utilized or over-subscribed courses.
• Analytics that support proactive section planning and capacity decisions.
3. Space and resource optimization
• Intelligent room assignment based on capacity, location, and room attributes.
• Support for shared spaces and prioritized room preferences.
• Reporting on room utilization and scheduling efficiency.
• Tools to identify opportunities to improve space usage across the academic schedule.
4. Departmental collaboration and governance
• Role-based access that supports distributed departmental scheduling with central oversight.
• Configurable approval workflows for schedule changes.
• Delegation of scheduling permissions within departments.
• Audit history or change tracking for schedule modifications.
5. Final exam scheduling capabilities
• Support for scheduling multi-section and cross-listed courses.
• Provide tools to analyze and balance exam distribution for student major/cohort groups.
• Support for multiple exams in large rooms when appropriate.
• Ability to schedule double seats for exams.
• Consideration of student and instructor transition times.
• Validation tools to assess compliance with institutional scheduling rules.
• Comparative reporting across departments, colleges, or academic terms.
6. Reporting and data analytics
• Standard and configurable reports related to course distribution, exam distribution, and space utilization
• Ability to create custom reports and scheduled data exports
• Dashboards for institutional and departmental stakeholders
• Tracking of system usage and scheduling activity
7. System administration and configuration
• Configurable system settings to support institutional scheduling policies.
• User and role management tools for administrators.
• Responsive and accessible user interface across devices.
• Granular access levels based on user type, organizational affiliation, and functional role.
• Solution must offer a non-disruptive, easy-to-manage patching/upgrade cadence (e.g., automatic for SaaS).
• API documentation and developer resources.
• Required inclusion of release notes and impact analyses prior to updates.
• The application must support the addition of external authentication for example: dining services, dedicated self-service account, etc.
• Calendar integrations with major platforms (google calendar, outlook, apple calendar).
• Ability to provision roles via an external API integration without reliance on LDAP.
• Application should be able to support multiple roles per user.
• Ability to automatically provision and map user security roles within the scheduling platform based on existing user permissions and roles defined in the student information system (Ellucian banner).
• Custom branding of website/mobile app/software with institutional identity.