Case Study: Swinburne University of Technology achieves rapid approvals and automated finance and travel workflows with Alfresco Activiti

Innovative university selects Hyland's Alfresco platform to automate key business management processes

Swinburne University of Technology, a Melbourne-based, world-ranked institution with over 52,000 students, faced inefficient, manual processes across finance, HR and student administration—particularly accounts receivable, staff reimbursements and complex travel requests for some 2,500 teaching and support staff. The university needed a single portal and standardized, visible request-management approach so staff could self-serve and track requests instead of relying on paper forms, group email or individual inboxes.

Working with partner Sixtree, Swinburne implemented Alfresco Activiti BPM for its open architecture, scalability and mobile access, automating travel approvals, invoicing, reimbursements and credit-card requests. The rollout (used by more than 750 people) cut travel approval times from up to a week to typically under a day, supports about 350 active travel users and roughly 4,000 travel requests plus nearly 6,000 other transactions per year, and has generated strong user feedback and plans to expand processes, reporting and external collaboration.

Swinburne University of Technology

Jacinta Savage

Senior Manager, Business Process Solutions