Halo

The Vision

Halo is one single platform for the collegiate University that enriches, simplifies and personalises people’s interactions with Oxford.

The unified customer relationship management platform (CRM) - now live - supports the entire student/alumni lifecycle. It will help strengthen connections and personalise relationships across the University, enabling collaboration, simplifying ways of working, eliminating silos and removing digital barriers.

This platform will be used not only by central functions but also within departments and colleges, creating a true Single Version of the Truth and a 360-degree view of our communities - students, visitors, alumni, research collaborations and elements of the professional staff lifecycle.

Core Benefits

Strategic Alignment

Aligning with the University Strategic Plan

The Halo Programme will enhance the student journey and nurture lifelong relationships with alumni. It also supports the University’s IT Strategy by promoting common solutions and simplification.

Aligning with Digital Transformation 

Halo supports the University’s broader digital ambitions by aligning with several key areas of the digital transformation programme:

• The Data Programme - Accurate, consistent and complete student and staff data is required to support the CRM Platform.

• Agile Continuous Improvement Delivery model - The CRM programme and platform will be using an Agile (CI) Delivery model to enable the programme to meet the evolving needs of the University and global digital landscape.

• The Identity Improvement Programme - Making it possible for colleagues involved in giving people access to Oxford’s buildings, software, and services to have accurate and trustworthy identity data at their fingertips

Change Programme

 Halo is first and foremost about change and how this change is facilitated by technology. The primary focus is on how the platform begins with strategic objectives as well as business needs and processes and then designs capabilities around that. It is co-created with stakeholders across the collegiate University so that together we can transform the staff, student and alumni experience.

Fulfilling strategic objectives

Halo begins with your strategic objectives .

(then designs capabilities around this).

Halo identifies the services you are trying to deliver.

(then provides the technology to support that).

Halo clarifies the goals of where you want to get to.

(then creates a rich, relevant and simple digital journey to take you there).

Celebrating authorship

Halo provides an opportunity to re-imagine your own business processes at a local level to deliver a better experience for staff, students and alumni. 
(The platform then automates these processes for you).

The Halo platform is designed by you (not something done to you). 
You have a crucial voice in developing exactly what is delivered.

The shaping of Halo happens in rich collaboration right across the collegiate University. It is a change programme positioned around creative, agile, co-creation: colleges, departments and divisions.

Providing a complete view

Halo highlights the need for well-informed decisions when reaching out to your constituents and how a full end-to-end data view enables this.

Understanding the 360° and the needs of alumni, as well as the potential value they can bring, enables more bespoke, long-term and valuable engagement.

The Halo platform can provide the most accurate and detailed 360° picture to develop and maintain this relationship.

Making meaningful experiences

Best-in-class technology is not for its own sake. It is there to free us up to make our colleagues’ and our end users’ experiences more meaningful, with more value add.

Get the basics right -  then there is time and space for real innovation.

The Halo programme is about transforming the student /alumni experience from disparate information about the University to a meaningful and genuine relationship with the University.

Halo products and continuous improvement

Our first products

HR Case Management, the first Halo product to go-live on the Halo platform launched in July 2025. The Halo platform now enables HR cases to be managed more consistently and securely, with full visibility from initial contact to resolution. By integrating PeopleXD data into CRM, we can streamline our processes, reduce duplication, and ensure a more responsive and joined-up service.

Our second product, Oxford Events is scheduled to go-live on 16 March and replaces a legacy system, OxTalks. The new product provides a solution for creating and curating event listings for promotion on websites and intranets across the University.

Continuous improvement

WORKING WITH A CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT TEAM (Author: Jamie Taylor)

What is a CI team?

A CI team or Continuous Improvement team (also known as a squad) is a group of individuals who have the necessary skills to:

• Collect feedback
• Prioritise ideas and add detail to them
• Build, test, and refine features
• Release changes incrementally
• Communicate progress and outcomes to stakeholders

They are charged with improving a product (software or a physical) by working closely with stakeholders and users to understand their needs and continuously enhance the product over time.

Definition of Stakeholders and Users

Before continuing, it is important to outline the differences between stakeholders and users:

• Stakeholders – individuals or groups who have an interest in, are affected by, or influence the product and its direction
• Users – a subset of stakeholders who directly use the product as part of their day‑to‑day work

We work with stakeholders to understand the overall direction and outcomes the product needs to support, while working more closely with users to design and build solutions that meet their day‑to‑day needs.

Using Stakeholder Groups

Stakeholder groups are valuable because they allow us to focus conversations and feedback on specific areas of the product, we are most interested in. Stakeholder groups should be identified following user research or other existing knowledge of the product. Creating and maintaining a group can be difficult, so nominating someone to take ownership of the group is often critical to building engagement and buy‑in

It is important that stakeholder groups clearly understand their role, what is expected of them, and which areas of the product they are focused on.

How feedback flows from idea to delivery

1. An idea is presented to us via various means: meeting with stakeholders, through user research sessions, UAT, stand-ups, system testing, etc.
2. The idea is fleshed out with the help of the person who came up with it
3. The idea is scored against basic criteria. We use population (how many people will benefit from this new idea), need (how much is this idea needed by those that will benefit from it), strategy (how much this idea aligns with our strategy), and effort (how complex this idea will be to implement).
4. We decide to build the idea and it is refined and broken down into smaller chunks of work
5. The work is planned into a future sprint

What we expect from users who work with our CI team

Participation in meetings, UAT, and other ceremonies is key. We work with stakeholders to ensure the product is aligned with what is needed, while building for users so they can
effectively complete the tasks the product is designed to support.

How often should CI teams meet with stakeholders?

How often CI teams meet with stakeholders depends on the type of stakeholder group.

For senior management, engagement is typically at most once a month. For the most engaged users (for example, a user group), meetings may take place fortnightly or at the
end of each sprint. Other stakeholder groups are engaged as needed, depending on the area of the product and the type of input required.

Maintaining regular relationships with stakeholders is important; without ongoing engagement, there is a risk that the team loses alignment and no longer builds the right
things for the people the product is intended to serve.