Since 2014, Colibri has provided Eastern Connecticut State University with several apps that replaced legacy solutions used by Campus Police, Housing, and Student Activities.

 

Starting with the Eastern Campus Police department, Colibri replaced an old MS Access database with Colibri Park. Colibri Park is a permit parking and iPad-based ticketing system that allows officers to record violations using FileMaker Go, and then print tickets to a mobile printer using an innovative pairing with the MobiPrint iOS app. Colibri Park also offers round-trip integration with the university’s bursar software for payment management. Eastern handles thousands of parking violations per year and saves countless hours in data entry and reporting using Colibri Park.

 

Since 2015, we have provided eLife which offers the functionality of legacy solutions for Housing and Student Activities in a single system that integrates with the Oracle backend of the Ellucian Banner student information system. eLife provides a secure, modern application with a host of new functionality. Almost 200 users interact with eLife daily in 2024.

 

The core of the eLife application comprises management of student housing, residential assistants (RAs), student activities and the Student Center, a variety of programs and events, and the university’s Center for Community Engagement (CCE). While eLife manages club, RA, and CCE programs, registration is enabled through integration with eWeb, the Campus intranet web site. A shared resource management and scheduling tool improves CCE activity transportation efforts by replacing a series of spreadsheets and Google Docs.

 

In addition to core functionality, Eastern uses eLife for campus security and damage billing, Campus Activity Board ticket sales, and as the time clock for student workers. Starting in 2018, FileMaker WebDirect technology has enabled ad hoc student users to take event attendance using their smartphone browsers and an updated university ID card.

 

The eLife application is an excellent example of how we are able to offer an app based on the FileMaker Workplace Innovation Platform that provides an extremely flexible and cost-effective management environment for the Higher Education sector. eLife replaces the functionality of many applications and saves Eastern users hundreds of labor hours each year managing data and generating reports.