Teachers Save With Online Database

The NSW Teachers Federation has moved its 65,000 members onto a ground breaking new online membership database which performs in minutes functions that used to take days to complete.

Social Change Online has completed the installation for the NSW Teachers Federation of a new membership management system.

The system was first developed by SCO's British partners APT Solutions (UK).

The system, called 'Stratum', is used to manage over 6 million members in 45 major associations, charities and trade unions in the UK.

NSWTF Membership Manager John Dixon endorsed the database:

"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 of them seemed to not 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 a 'yes, but we would have to recode the system', which meant extra cost."

SCO CEO Sean Kidney said that database management was a major issue for all membership organizations. The crucial need was for secure and accurate records that could be accessed and modified simply - and quickly.

"A secure web-based membership database model will be a tremendous asset for many organizations. The Stratum system is what many organizations have been waiting for." Mr Kidney said.

Key features of the Stratum system are:

• speed: the NSW Teachers Federation currently takes 40 hours to process 40,000 member payroll deductions. Stratum takes just nine minutes.
  

• flexibility - users can configure the system on the spot via the user interface
  

• cost - linked to CPI, avoiding hefty mark-ups that effectively hold organisations to ransom.