Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), a leading global university, was seeking to improve its campus experience for staff and students.
In just three months, NTU Singapore delivered the NTU Omnibus application. The solution, which offers real-time information about on-campus bus locations, arrival times, and occupancy percentages, reached 22,000 downloads in just 60 days.
NTU Omnibus is part of an expanding campus life platform that the university is developing to transform its overall campus experience.
“We were looking to streamline internal processes and provide quality on-demand mobile applications that meet the ever-evolving needs of our staff and students. Adopting OutSystems as our standard application development platform has been pivotal to achieving this goal, and we look forward to expanding our collaboration to more applications and integrations in the future.”
Since its inauguration in 1991, NTU Singapore has evolved into a research-intensive global university. Today, NTU Singapore nurtures leaders and creates societal impact through interdisciplinary education and research, offering undergraduate and postgraduate courses in engineering, business, science, humanities, arts, social sciences, education, and medicine.
NTU Singapore needed to improve its digital infrastructure to serve a growing population of over 40,000 students, staff, and faculty. However, the university encountered challenges with end-of-life software and server hardware obsolescence.
Additionally, it required additional development resources to meet its digitalization needs, as each change request took an extended period and resulted in considerable maintenance costs.
“NTU's decision to embark on a low-code journey with OutSystems was driven by the need for a modern, efficient, and enterprise-governed approach to custom software development. With OutSystems, we were able to develop NTU Omnibus, a campus life application that is not only feature-rich but also lightweight, user-friendly, and compliant with strict governance standards.”
The university explored various software-as-a-service solutions. However, they always lacked flexibility in integrating with other systems, and those that offered better integration came with the trade-off of a longer development cycle.
Speed-up development and improve agility
Deliver mobile applications
Decrease application maintenance cost
NTU Singapore needed a solution that offered a favorable balance between robustness and flexibility. It had to empower its lean development team to deliver software solutions swiftly while easily integrating with existing systems and data sources to ensure a seamless transition from legacy platforms.
Therefore, the university selected OutSystems for its modern, flexible, and efficient approach to custom software development, robust application governance and security, and outstanding track record in the enterprise software industry.
To support NTU Singapore in its low-code journey, OutSystems conducted bootcamps for the university’s Enterprise IT & Infrastructure team focusing on the platform setup and knowledge transfer.
NTU Singapore developed and launched the NTU Omnibus application on OutSystems in three months, collaborating with delivery partners. Integrated with the university’s existing campus bus fleet management system (FMS), the application provides commuters with real-time visibility of bus locations, expected arrival time, and occupancies.
Positioned as the university’s campus life application for future iterations, NTU Omnibus also integrates with an indoor campus map to help users find classrooms and meeting rooms, a chatbot for freshmen to ask questions, and an incident form for reporting security matters.
Now, the NTU Singapore team plans to integrate the app with cutting-edge technology, like the Internet of Things (IoT).
“We look forward to the future growth that OutSystems can bring by allowing us to launch new and improved features to market quickly and efficiently. By leveraging multiple system integration and a rapid application development cycle with OutSystems, we can further streamline NTU’s processes, improve internal collaboration, and create world-class campus experiences for our staff and students.”
OutSystems high-performance low-code platform helped NTU Singapore create a highly successful application that enhances the navigation and route planning experience for commuters on campus.
The NTU Omnibus application achieved over 22,000 downloads in the first two months after its launch and continues to be widely used by an average of 6,000 commuters daily.
With a single, cross-platform application that runs seamlessly on Android and iOS, users across different mobile devices can access the same functionality and experience while experiencing high consistency and user satisfaction.
“Since its launch, the NTU Omnibus App has elevated the campus experience for our staff and students through the ease of staying on schedule and getting to where they need to be at their fingertips.”
The OutSystems platform’s pre-built templates and visual development approach provided the necessary resources and a wide range of features for building a tailored application that offers an engaging and user-friendly experience.
Some of the app’s features include push notifications, offline support, and geolocation services.
Additionally, OutSystems AI Mentor System accelerated the development time of NTU Omnibus. Providing analysis of patterns during the development process that helped to detect and address potential technical issues saved valuable time that would have been spent on troubleshooting these problems after they surfaced at a later stage.
OutSystems AI capabilities also improved productivity by allowing the implementation of new features in a single iteration, helping NTU’s team to implement best practices for delivering successful applications.
By providing the necessary capabilities that reduced the time and resources required for complex integrations and application development and deployment on the back end, OutSystems allowed NTU to efficiently deliver customized solutions that meet the evolving needs of the business and users in the university’s ecosystem.
“The application development process with OutSystems was highly efficient and collaborative, and we are proud to have delivered a sophisticated product for our end users”, Elaine explained. “Low-code application development has opened up new possibilities for NTU Singapore, and we are thrilled to further our journey in expanding and refining the campus life platform for our community.”
