The Client
Mander Portman Woodward is an exclusive group of British independent schools, with branches in London, Birmingham and Cambridge, offering GCSE and A-Level courses. Known as a 'society' college, educating the children of both European and London high society, aristocracy, and celebrity offspring. It is mentioned in society guides such as Tatler and the Sloane Ranger's Handbook.
Renowned as a sector-leading alternative to the traditional school setting, students at MPW are treated as adults. They do not wear a uniform, are on first-name terms with their teachers and are taught to take responsibility for themselves and their learning, which helps to establish the skills they will need for university. The colleges are cosmopolitan with approximately 70% British and 30% international students leading to a diverse mix of cultures and traditions.
The Challenge
During the IT strategy vision conducted by Carlos Nogueira the Head of Group IT, there was a need to introduce automation on existing systems in place to control the flow of students and staff. This resulted in a combination of workflows between systems such as Active Directory, new student records system and the access control provided by Paxton.
With approximately 1000 students and 400 members of staff across three sites, it become critical to stream data between those systems which was vital to the normal daily operations. Without this, having to depend upon inputting manual data flow would have impeded heavily on the day to day activities and work load of the Registry and IT teams.
“When looking for such software, I approached COSMO and immediately received their focus on our needs, which comparing with other vendors was a fresh approach to the industry. Since early stage implementation until the mature solution was in place, we have received first class support and as a Head of Group IT, I could not be more satisfied to implement and use COSMO to fulfil the requirements of our business.
Their commitment and focus were vital for our choice and I would strongly recommend anyone to look out for their products, which are a fresh approach to the industry.
Thank you COSMO for all your hard work and support in our journey.”
Carlos Nogueira
Header of Group IT
The Solution
AD2 PAXTON software from COSMO was installed which seamlessly synchronised the clients Active Directory with Net2 PAXTON, allowing any changes made within the Active Directory to be replicated in the NET 2 access control system. In the situation where a lost card was reported, the AD2 PAXTON also allowed bi-directional synchronisation, updating the new card details in to the Active Directory. This reduced the amount of time operators would have normally spent manually processing this information. Each attribute could be individually selected to ensure that only the approved details were synchronised in either direction.