Welcome to the last instalment in our four-part webinar series; Be Your University’s Hidden Hero: Budget-Busting Timetabling and Space Management Ideas (That Could Save Millions Over Time).
In this last episode we dive into data, and how it can help you make decisions that enhance the student experience and are cost-efficient, too.
For more budget-busting ideas, watch the other webinars in the series:
Part 1: Make Your Teaching Spaces Work Harder
Part 2: What To Do With Idle Office Space
Part 3: How To Boost Your Team (without making new hires)
For more budget-busting ideas, watch the other webinars in the series:
Part 1: Make Your Teaching Spaces Work Harder
Part 2: What To Do With Idle Office Space
Part 3: How To Boost Your Team (without making new hires)
Data, data, everywhere
As timetablers and space planners, you can never have too much of it. And we’re not just saying that because we’re data geeks ourselves!
The more data you have at your disposal, the easier it is to make good decisions about the future of your estate. Decisions that deliver a great student experience and are budget-friendly too, because space isn’t wasted.
Data can, for example, help you work out the best way to organise your current space around a rise or fall in student numbers. Or see the impact on timetables if you decide to open or close a building.
Here are some other scenarios data can decisively help you to unpick. Those who attended the webinar told us lots of these are currently on their radar, too:
The more data you have at your disposal, the easier it is to make good decisions about the future of your estate. Decisions that deliver a great student experience and are budget-friendly too, because space isn’t wasted.
Data can, for example, help you work out the best way to organise your current space around a rise or fall in student numbers. Or see the impact on timetables if you decide to open or close a building.
Here are some other scenarios data can decisively help you to unpick. Those who attended the webinar told us lots of these are currently on their radar, too:
- A department or school relocation
- New courses or programmes being introduced
- The expansion of research activities
- Buildings being decommissioned or mothballed
- An unexpected increase in enrolment
- A mandate to reduce the estate footprint (by, for example, 10,000m2)
- New sustainability initiatives being introduced
- A partnership or integration with another organisation.

The data don’t lie
So, we know data can help you to make big decisions, but do you have the right data – and tools to decipher it – at your disposal? If you’re hesitant on the answer to this, you’re not alone. Most universities are teeming with the stuff, but joining up all the dots and making your data make sense can feel like an uphill climb.
There are four key elements that make data useful. These are:
This snapshot, again from the webinar, shows that not many timetablers and space planners are confident they have all four nailed down!
There are four key elements that make data useful. These are:
- The data needed for planning
- The skills to analyse and interpret data sets
- The right resources (people, time and technology) to carry out data analysis
- Senior-level support to back-up any data-led findings.
This snapshot, again from the webinar, shows that not many timetablers and space planners are confident they have all four nailed down!

These struggles aren’t uncommon, but the good news is they’re fixable. And getting to the root of the first two issues often unblocks the others. When you have the right data and the right skills to analyse and interpret it all, your data digging process takes up less time (which again saves money because there’s less of a drain on resource). And because it’s accurate, senior-level buy-in around your big decisions becomes much less of a slog, too. As we like to say, the data don’t lie!
We’ve been helping universities join their data dots for more than a decade, so if you’d like some help making sense of yours, take a look at our data management and analysis services. We’ll help you unpick your challenges and use data to make the right decisions – ones that super-charge space use and don’t pull on the purse strings.
We’ve been helping universities join their data dots for more than a decade, so if you’d like some help making sense of yours, take a look at our data management and analysis services. We’ll help you unpick your challenges and use data to make the right decisions – ones that super-charge space use and don’t pull on the purse strings.
See how data can predict the future
We can’t talk about data without mentioning one more thing we get really excited about. Data modelling – the thing that, once all your data is in order, can quite literally predict the future for you.
Data modelling software lets you test different timetabling and space planning scenarios, so that you can make the best decisions from a cost, space efficiency and student experience point of view.
During the webinar, we take you through two demos – based on actual space planning projects we’ve carried out for universities.
Demo one shows the potential impact on timetables when you move students into a new building.
Demo two shows the potential impact on space supply when you open and close different campuses.
Data modelling software lets you test different timetabling and space planning scenarios, so that you can make the best decisions from a cost, space efficiency and student experience point of view.
During the webinar, we take you through two demos – based on actual space planning projects we’ve carried out for universities.
Demo one shows the potential impact on timetables when you move students into a new building.
Demo two shows the potential impact on space supply when you open and close different campuses.
Want to dive even deeper into data?
Because we’re data’s biggest fans, we’ve created a few extra resources to help you make sense of yours.
Because we’re data’s biggest fans, we’ve created a few extra resources to help you make sense of yours.
- This blog shows you how to turn timetabling data into dishy dashboards using Power BI - so that it’s easier to analyse and present.
- Find out more about our data management and analysis services here.
- Click the button below for your free downloadable data checklist. We use it when helping universities prepare for a data modelling exercise, and you might find it a useful start-point to assess the quality of (and any gaps in) your own data management techniques.
Your data dilemmas solved! Chat to us
Are you considering opening or closing university buildings, or parts of your campus? Maybe you’re expecting changes to course or student numbers and want to understand how your current estate could handle them.
Maybe you’d just like to know more about how data modelling can help you to make better, and more cost-effective use of space all round (we promise you, it can).
It all starts with a chat, and you can book yours here. Don’t worry if you’re not the boss or budget-holder – we love an informal natter and if you think we can help, we’ll work out together how to bring your decision-making colleagues into the conversation, too.