A Flexible, User-Centred Portal for Academic Mentoring & Support

We developed a bespoke portal for Specialist Academic Support, streamlining admin, reducing paperwork, and improving the support experience for staff, mentors, and students.

Project launch: February 2024

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Project Scope

Portal development

UX & UI design

Role-based access

PDF Timesheet generation

Scalable architecture

Technologies

About the Client

Specialist Academic Support provides tailored mentoring and study support for students in higher education with disabilities, mental health conditions, or specific learning differences. Their team of experienced mentors and staff help students build confidence, manage their studies, and succeed at university through personalised, one-to-one support.

Replace manual, paper-based processes
Improve oversight of student time banks and sessions
Reduce admin time and errors
Simplify compliance and reporting

The Challenge

Specialist Academic Support were relying on spreadsheets, emails, and manual paperwork to track support hours, book sessions, and manage timesheets. This process was time-consuming for admin staff and mentors, prone to errors, and made compliance and reporting difficult. Students had limited visibility over their support hours and session history, while admin teams struggled to keep data consistent.

A centralised, automated solution was needed to streamline admin, improve oversight, and reduce repetitive tasks. At the same time, it was important to keep infrastructure overhead light to minimise ongoing costs.

Design & User Experience

Usability was at the heart of every design decision. We created high fidelity designs in Figma for each device type, ensuring the portal would be simple and intuitive on mobiles, tablets, laptops, and desktops.

User testing across a range of devices ensured the experience was seamless for everyone - especially students, who are most likely to access the portal on their smartphones.

While the portal reflects Specialist Academic Support’s brand visually, every element prioritises clarity, legibility, and ease of use. This approach gives students, mentors, and admins confidence that they can complete tasks quickly, wherever they are, with no barriers or confusion.

Technical Approach

The portal uses a decoupled architecture, with Laravel as the backend API and Next.js powering the frontend. This approach delivers a fast, reliable, and scalable system, while also making it easier to maintain and update over time.

Role-based access controls ensure admins, mentors, and students see only the features and data relevant to them.

The platform streamlines key processes, including automated PDF timesheet generation for monthly reporting and email reminders for outstanding session sign-offs, helping to reduce manual admin and keep records up to date.

Security and data integrity are prioritised, with secure data storage and regular backups in place. The platform’s flexible design means we can adapt and enhance the system as needs change, without adding unnecessary complexity or infrastructure costs.

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Setting up new sessions
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Current sessions
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Students
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Appointments
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Past sessions
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Profile

The Outcomes

The portal transformed how Specialist Academic Support operates, enabling the team to focus on delivering exceptional support while the system takes care of the admin. Manual paperwork and time-consuming processes have been virtually eliminated, significantly reducing the administrative burden for staff.

Thanks to the decoupled architecture, the system remains efficient and affordable to run, keeping ongoing infrastructure costs low.

766

Total support hours logged

634

Sessions scheduled

99%

Session approval rate

Reduced admin burden

Manual processes are now automated

Fast system speed

Decoupled system for fast loading

Client testimonial

From the very first conversation, the team at Edge of the web were really approachable, they didn't make me feel dumb for not knowing all the jargon. Instead, they helped me shape my ideas into something clear and workable. I always felt like they were finding a way forward rather than creating roadblocks. The end result is an app that already makes a huge difference in my day to day work.