Department of Health and Social Care

Challenge

The Department of Health and Social Care has grown organically, and with many buildings, departments and teams, one of their key challenges was consolidating down from over 40 different in-house room booking solutions. Equally, with the continual business aim to reduce budgets and travel costs, video conferencing is an essential capability being rolled out into conference rooms across the Department of Health, and so any solution would need to integrate with this.

Flexible tool that allowed a very controlled and phased rollout 

Matrix Booking was delivered fully prepared with all required resources including security groupings to restrict visibility – so initially, staff would not see anything. On a continuous but gradual basis, the Department of Health project team released rooms to staff following a strictly controlled process meaning communications to staff could be easily managed and reused – it also meant that when the team was ready, they could easily release more rooms in more buildings once agreed.

Due to the powerful and flexible nature of the self-administration tools, the project could be delivered entirely by the Department of Health team – and the only involvement from Matrix was to help import forward bookings as and when needed.

A simple easy to use interface for staff

The Department of Health was migrating from numerous other systems, and it was essential that the new centralised solution was easy to use, required no training and delivered what people needed with as few clicks as possible. To meet these demands, Matrix Booking offers a simple but effective interface, layered with a predetermined range of supporting details or can be kept clean and clear depending on your requirements.

Searching for a resource could not be easier and is the result of multiple hours of user research, driven by having a ‘mobile first’ approach. Once we have it right for mobile, we can expand it to other channels (including the web) while keeping all the key elements available where and when needed.

Accessibility is critical to the Department of Health and Social Care  

The team at Matrix Booking believe passionately in good design and the core elements that can so quickly be forgotten when creating new tools. Accessibility is a top priority for us, and as such we are one of the few resource management tools that has achieved WCAG 2.0 AA compliance, which is reviewed every year.

There is always constant pressure to evolve and improve the design, and so balancing this with technical requirements for accessibility is a regular challenge for our design and technology teams. We know how important this area is and so we deliver a fully accessible product to the Department of Health and all our clients.

Outcome

Matrix Booking delivered a solution that enabled the Department of Health to take full control of the rollout and expansion of the system to a very granular level. It put them back in the driving seat with Facilities Management and provided a tool that could grow or shrink with them as needed – and is powerful enough to meet all day to day needs.

Organisations change and requirements alter so the tools required to manage this business evolution must keep pace. Matrix continues to work in close collaboration with the Department of Health looking at the challenges that lie ahead for Facilities Management – considering options that include digital signage, Outlook integration and auto scheduling and calendaring of video conferences to make the whole journey simpler.