How UWA Scaled Thesis Exams by 2,450% Without Errors

The University of Western Australia (UWA) is one in all Australia’s main research-intensive universities, serving hundreds of graduate college students pursuing superior levels.

The Thesis Examination staff inside UWA’s graduate analysis faculty coordinates the advanced means of analyzing doctoral and grasp’s theses and manages communications amongst college students, tutorial examiners, and inner stakeholders all through every examination cycle.

The Problem: Coordinating Excessive-Stakes Examinations Throughout A number of Platforms With Rising Danger

Earlier than totally implementing Course of Road, UWA’s Thesis Examination staff confronted an ideal storm of operational challenges. They had been managing high-risk examination processes the place any error might delay a scholar’s commencement, utilizing disconnected Phrase paperwork, Excel spreadsheets that couldn’t be correctly filtered, and guide copy-and-paste workflows throughout a number of platforms that didn’t talk with one another.

The stakes had been extremely excessive. The staff was coordinating oral examinations (vivas) that concerned a number of events: college students, examiners, chairs, and administrative employees. Every examination required exact scheduling, well timed reminders, correct report monitoring, and honorarium cost processing. With info saved in fundamental Phrase paperwork and Excel recordsdata used extra like textual content paperwork than databases, the potential for human error was vital.

Then got here the expansion problem. What began as 10 oral examinations within the first 12 months exploded to 255 examinations by the earlier 12 months; a 2,450% enhance. The staff knew their guide processes wouldn’t scale, and so they wanted a scientific answer to take care of high quality as they dealt with exponential progress.

The staff inherited an elementary implementation of Course of Road that was used solely as a guidelines. Whereas it helped monitor fundamental steps, it didn’t leverage automation, conditional logic, or built-in communications, so employees nonetheless spent hours downloading stories, manually evaluating spreadsheets month-to-month, copying and pasting scholar info, and remembering which e mail templates to make use of for which stakeholders.

The Resolution: Reworking a Fundamental Guidelines Into an Clever Workflow Engine

Reasonably than abandoning Course of Road or persevering with with the established order, Eleta and her staff (notably Examination Officer Mary Phan) launched into a scientific evolution of their workflows, working intently with Course of Road’s Buyer Success staff to unlock the platform’s full potential.

The transformation concerned a number of key implementations:

Conditional Logic for Contextual Communications: The staff changed generic, mixed e mail templates (the place employees needed to manually delete irrelevant sections) with conditional logic that robotically displayed the proper template based mostly on examination kind: on-line versus on-campus vivas, completely different stakeholder teams, and examination levels.

Dynamic Due Dates and Activity Administration: As a substitute of downloading month-to-month stories and manually reviewing every case in Excel, the staff carried out dynamic due dates linked to examination dates. This meant reminders and follow-ups now appeared robotically within the “My Work” view when motion was wanted, eliminating the month-to-month one-hour spreadsheet assessment course of.

Automated Honorarium Monitoring: Beforehand, Mary would export spreadsheets month-to-month from one other platform, filter outcomes, and evaluate towards the earlier month to establish which examiners wanted honorarium cost reminders. The staff constructed an automation that triggers a devoted honorarium workflow instantly when an examiner submits their report, eliminating guide exports and comparisons solely.

Knowledge Integration and Inhabitants: The staff exports scholar and examiner info from the college nomination system as PDFs and uploads them into Course of Road. Utilizing textual content extraction and AI Duties, the platform robotically parses the information and populates the related type fields. This removes guide re-entry, reduces errors, and accelerates every workflow run with out requiring a direct system integration.

Complete Workflow Protection: The staff expanded from fundamental viva scheduling to a whole examination lifecycle workflow, together with: examiner nomination, scheduling coordination, preliminary report submission, scholar notification, pre-examination reminders, post-examination chair report processing, ultimate thesis submission monitoring, and workflow closure.

The implementation wasn’t nearly expertise; it was about partnership. The staff emphasised that common conferences with their Course of Road Buyer Success Supervisor, screen-sharing classes to resolve issues visually, and hands-on workflow constructing made the distinction between fundamental utilization and transformative outcomes.

“Having a devoted Course of Road consultant work by way of all these items with us 100 per cent made a distinction.”

The Outcomes: Measurable Time Financial savings, Zero Errors, and Examiner Reward

The transformation delivered concrete, quantifiable enhancements throughout a number of dimensions:

• 50% discount in process completion time: Particular person viva scheduling duties dropped from 10 minutes to five minutes resulting from automated template inhabitants and conditional logic
• 67% time financial savings on month-to-month follow-ups: Month-to-month examination follow-up duties decreased from 60 minutes to roughly 20 minutes by eliminating guide report downloads and spreadsheet opinions
• Rapid honorarium processing: Switched from month-to-month batch processing (with guide spreadsheet exports and month-to-month comparisons) to immediate automated triggers when examiners submit stories
• 2,450% quantity scale: Efficiently grew from 10 annual oral examinations to 255 with out proportional employees will increase
• Elimination of guide knowledge comparability: Eliminated the necessity to evaluate present month spreadsheets towards earlier months for follow-up monitoring
• Zero missed communications: Automated reminders guarantee college students, examiners, and chairs obtain well timed notifications with out guide calendar monitoring
• Enhanced handover functionality: Managers can immediately filter duties by staff member and take over workflows when colleagues are on depart, with out requiring detailed handovers

Past metrics, the standard enhancements had been equally vital. The staff eradicated the mixed e mail templates that required guide modifying and deletion of irrelevant sections. They stopped manually typing stakeholder info for every communication, as knowledge now populates robotically from earlier workflow inputs. The danger of human error, notably in high-stakes examination contexts, dropped dramatically.

“We run issues very easily like clockwork. These processes actually assist us, so we’re by no means fighting our workload as a lot as everybody else as a result of we attempt to use platforms like this.”

Maybe most tellingly, the enhancements grew to become seen to exterior stakeholders. Examiners (teachers who take part in thesis evaluations throughout a number of universities) started commenting on UWA’s organizational excellence.

The staff additionally found surprising use instances. Mary started creating advert hoc duties in Course of Road for day by day handovers together with her job-share colleague, making certain nothing was missed with out requiring end-of-day recap conferences. “My Work” in Course of Road grew to become the staff’s single supply of reality for day by day priorities.

From Examination Excellence to College-Extensive Transformation

The Thesis Examination staff’s success with Course of Road has positioned the answer for broader organizational impression. Following an indication to different UWA operational groups, at the very least one further staff expressed sturdy curiosity in implementing comparable workflows for his or her processes.

With a university-wide operational restructuring deliberate for January 2026 that merges beforehand siloed groups for admissions, candidature, and examinations right into a single built-in operations staff, the Course of Road workflows are poised to broaden throughout the complete scholar lifecycle. The staff envisions constructing backwards from their present end-of-lifecycle examination workflows to incorporate earlier levels, akin to intention-to-submit monitoring and enrollment processes.

“Now we’re on the tail finish of the coed life cycle, we’re going to slowly broaden all of it the best way to the start,” Eleta defined, noting that whereas full integration between UWA’s methods and Course of Road could also be years away, the incremental growth of automated workflows will proceed delivering effectivity features and error discount throughout graduate analysis operations.

The College of Western Australia’s journey demonstrates that profitable course of automation isn’t nearly implementing expertise; it’s about evolving utilization over time, partnering with answer suppliers who spend money on buyer success, and constructing a tradition that acknowledges systematic course of enchancment as the inspiration for scaling high quality service supply.

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