STRATUM
Intelligent Software for Unions
CASE STUDY - New South Wales Teachers Federation
The Brief
John Dixon, Assistant General Secretary for the NSWTF,
contacted APT after seeing APT’s Stratum software in
operation on a trip to the National Union of Teachers in the
UK. He was particularly impressed by the way in which the
software reflected the NUT’s structure and terminology.
The system the NSWTF were then running was the main Trade
Union membership system in Australia. They had experienced
a lot of problems with implementation and it was proving very
expensive to maintain and run. One of the key issues was its
inefficient processing capabilities, bi-weekly subscription
payments from the NSW Department of Education were
routinely taking eight or nine working days to process. When
the software went wrong, they found that they were receiving
APT Solutions Limited
UK: 01952 214000
the next payment before they had finished processing the
previous one, meaning they were generating an ever
increasing backlog.
“
Aus: 02 9191 6333
Established in 1919, the New South
Wales Teachers Federation (NSWTF)
started out with a membership of
5,500 representing 78% of the
Department of Education. Today they
have over 67,000 members.
E: [email protected]
”
www.aptsolutions.net
“
Stratum delivers everything we want in managing our
membership. It provides us with more functionality and greater
efficiency at a lower price than our previous supplier.
Barry Johnson - Former General Secretary
THE SOLUTION
On
demonstrating
Stratum's
capabilities on their initial visit to
Australia, APT established that it would
be a perfect fit with the NSWTF's
requirements. APT then returned home
to prepare a pilot implementation. This
involved taking a copy of the NSWTF’s
data and implementing key software
changes
to
ensure
specific
configuration to their requirements.
APT returned a month later to
demonstrate Stratum in action with the
NSWTF data. The NSWTF were so
impressed APT were engaged to
proceed to full implementation with a
key objective of ensuring a guaranteed
time to process the Department of
Education payment of just 10 hours.
The Results
When APT returned to Australia for a
third time it was to implement Stratum
for the NSWTF for real, and after a
week of on-site training, the software
was switched live. APT remained on-site
for a further three weeks to carry out
further training and ensure on-site
support during the initial stages. When
the first Department of Education
payment was processed on the new
system, rather than the 10 hours target
that had been set, the process was
completed in just 10 minutes!
Since then APT have made a number of
visits
to
Australia
and
have
implemented further modules including
training, welfare and travel booking.
The NSWTF have also led the
development, with APT of the new case
work module which monitors and
assists in responding to calls for help
from the membership.
Key benefits for the NSWTF have
been:
Speed: The NSWTF was taking around
70 hours to process 40,000 member
payroll deductions. Stratum takes just
ten minutes.
Flexibility: Users can configure the
system on the spot via the powerful
user interface.
Cost-Effectiveness: The regular annual
licence fee covers all upgrades, making
it cheaper to run and maintain.
Future-Proof: There is only one copy
of the software that all customers use
meaning only one copy for APT to
upgrade and support, so all customers
can move forward with new releases as
”
they become available.
Communication with members is
accurate and efficient enabling them to
focus on key services and benefits
rather than routine administration.
Efficiency: The new system has
virtually no downtime, and items
reported at the end of the NSWTF’s
business day are generally solved by the
start of the next.
John Dixon said “We had a good look
around the Australian market for a
membership database system that met
our Union’s needs, but all of them
tended to come up short in the area of
flexibility.
Many suppliers seemed not to
understand the way Unions are
structured and operate and each time
we asked if their system could be
configured to suit our needs the answer
was ‘yes, but we would have to recode
the system’, which meant extra cost.
Stratum was configured to exactly fit
our Union rather than us having to
change to suit Stratum. It made
managing our membership easier and
has given us a greater ability to operate
more smartly as a Union.”
To contact us for further information please call: 01952 214000
ABOUT NSWTF
The New South Wales Teachers Federation is the registered trade union which covers NSW public school teachers. With over
67,000 members, the union represents all teachers in New South Wales public pre-schools, infants, primary and secondary
schools and TAFE Institutes. Teachers in Schools for Specific Purposes and Corrective Services are also members.
The NSW Teachers Federation looks after a multiplicity of issues on behalf of teachers. It also regards public education as a
strong foundation for a sure future. Thus, it campaigns for betterments for all students who attend public schools so that they
will receive a quality education.
APT Solutions Limited
UK: 01952 214000
Aus: 02 9191 6333
E: [email protected]
www.aptsolutions.net