Functions on Campus in the Facilities & Services division at the ANU are developing a new eForm for applications for events on campus. The project, which began in December 2016, has reached the development phase.

The eForm will automate and digitise the current Functions on Campus application form, as well as the BBQ booking form and the Forestry Fire Pit application form. The new eForm will streamline the process, reducing processing time and double handling across Facilities & Services divisions.

This initiative is being run in collaboration with the Intelledox Digital Transformation Centre (IDTC). IDTC was established in early 2015. It has released 10 different ANU eForms including; Special Considerations or Deferred Examinations, Manage My Degree –Coursework and HDR, and Extension and Withdrawal of Parking Infringements. These 10 forms were based on 47 different paper-based processes.

Cameron Allan, the 2017 ANUSA social officer and clubs council chair, is ‘confident that moving the form online is a positive step … as long as there is clear feedback mechanisms for continuous improvement on the form.’

He told Woroni: ‘An online process will do much to reduce wasted energy and time. An online process will make the process more straight-forward for first-time event organisers, with a more intuitive, logical layout and more step-by- step guidance. An online process will also allow more automation, which reduces manual labour delay from the various ANU departments involved.’

Allan commented on some of the inefficiencies of the current process, saying ‘that it isn’t the simplest and smoothest process it can be.’ The process requires ‘a lot of additional follow-up communication required to get an event approved’ with ‘consistent bottlenecks,’ he said.

Jeevan Haikerwal, one of the 2017 O-Week Directors, told Woroni that the O-Week team completed ‘32 Functions on Campus forms’, not including Clubs and Societies or Department based events. He said the current Functions on Campus form system was inefficient.

‘Often, I would have written 1000+ words, with schedules, management forms, maps, access routes, food ingredient lists – but still an FoC form was expected, to introduce the event into the system… The form doesn’t seem to be aimed at allowing the transmission of that information.’

User experience testing (UXT) with various ANU and student association stakeholders will be held at the end of October. The release date of the eForm will be ‘as soon as possible’ but the project co-ordinator, Yolandi Vermaak, declined to comment further until the completion of UXT.

The ANU Pop-Up Village events team, Dionysus Events, launched their online event booking form at the beginning of Semester 2.