Designing central sources of data

Background

Bristol Old Vic Theatre School is one of the most successful and well-respected drama schools in the UK, attracting the very best talent in students and staff. Their courses are recognised nationally and internationally as a benchmark of quality in professional acting, technical, production and management training. No wonder then that their alumni includes stars such as Olivia Coleman CBE, Sir Daniel Day-Lewis, Miranda Richardson, Sir Patrick Stewart and Gene Wilder to name just a few.

Situation

Keeping accurate, accessible and usable records of their alumni was recognised as vital for the school to enable them to continue ongoing engagement with previous graduates. But with much of their data held in separate spreadsheets by different departments, it was difficult to maintain, keep up-to-date and use for analysis, communication and fundraising purposes. They needed a system to hold and maintain their data, in a central place, making it more accessible and more valuable.

Data analysis and design

Dot Project led Bristol Old Vic Theatre School through an assessment of their disparate sources of data. We designed a logical data model that would house all current data as well as supporting new data that the school wished to add to their alumni records. A process of data cleaning, standardisation and deduping prepared the data for a data store using Airtable.

Getting full stakeholder buy-in was an integral part of our process so we ran a number of awareness and training sessions throughout the migration project to ensure the new platform was adopted successfully.

Outcome

Almost immediately after going live, the new Airtable alumni database started delivering value, giving the school much easier access to segments of the data, unlocking new engagement and funding opportunities.

• Single, central source of alumni data

• Newly standardised reference data

• Data consistency, maximising data quality

Guidance and mentoring have enabled Bristol Old Vic Theatre School to successfully adopt Airtable as a new platform, and move forward with a single, central source of alumni data - maximising data consistency and quality to unlock new engagement and funding opportunities.

“The new database has already revolutionised our knowledge and understanding of our alumni audience. Light-touch and easy to use, it has been a great introduction to CRM systems for an organisation and team who’ve been used to using spreadsheets. The team were absolutely wonderful to work with, understanding our needs and budget and helping us at every stage with care and a smile.”

Naomi Miller, Head of Development. Bristol Old Vic Theatre School