BY STUDENTS’ UNIONS
FOR STUDENTS’ UNIONS

SUMS is a single system which can be easily embedded into the heart of your organisation. Created by students' unions, for students' unions, SUMS uses pioneering, data-driven technology to organise and understand your student membership, meaning that you can focus on what truly matters: the student experience.

Take your union to the next level.

SUMS interface on mobile phone

Introduction to SUMS

The Students’ Union Management System (SUMS) uses innovative technology to understand, organise, and utilise your student membership data

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Innovative

An ever-growing, ever-evolving platform designed to stay on the cutting edge of the needs of your membership.

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Simple

Easy to use. Simple to learn. Quick to implement. Managing your membership has never been easier.

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Collaborative

SUMS works with its users to ensure that its platform is optimised and perfectly crafted to deliver its services.

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Data-driven

Using data to make informed, effective decisions. Never have you felt closer to your members.

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Digital Solution

Helping to take your Students’ Union services online.

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Supported

Supported by documentation, page tours and support desk. Getting you the answers you need, in the time you need it.

What SUMS can do for you

SUMS has a plethora of features which bring you closer to the heart of your membership. Each module is intelligently linked to allow your organisation to be as effective as possible.

Get to know your members...

Members

Manage and view all of your student memberships in one place, including their touchpoints with all areas across your Students’ Union, demographics and associate memberships.

Associate Members

Easily log and manage who has purchased an Associate Membership to your Students’ Union, and use the Reporting Module to track their engagement specifically.

Reports

Understand your members with bespoke reports to provide insight to any department. Use real-time data to analyse how members are utilising your services and build a personalised service.

Timeline

View students’ whole journey with your Students’ Union chronologically, logging every touchpoint a student has with their Union from voting in elections and joining activities, to making purchases in your venues.

Talk to your members...

Send & Track Mail

Create email campaigns to keep your members informed, utilising Subscription Groups and Reports to personalise the content. Keep track of recipient numbers, unique clicks and unique opens for in-depth insight.

Digital Signage

A bespoke digital signage system to manage the media, scheduling, carousels and zones of your content. Take control of your media and advertising.

Website

Easily edit and manage all of your website content in one place, including banners, news articles and pages. Make adjustments to your website quickly and easily with no prior knowledge of code.

Surveys

Create and analyse bespoke surveys to capture feedback from your members. Utilise various tools to gather exactly the information you need. Test your survey before it goes live, export the results and view demographics.

Subscription Groups

Create bespoke mailing lists for your members to subscribe to, and tailor the content they receive from you based on their interests. Build a personalised experience for your members.

Use digital tools to represent and advise your members...

Coursemate

Allow students to submit feedback or issues they are having on their course, for the attention of their Academic Representatives to initiate discussions for change with the University. Give them the platform to take ownership of issues on their course.

Advice

Open cases for students who use your Advice Service to log their case notes and referrals, use data and gain insight by categorising the cases for comprehensive statistics reporting and log footfall for the types of student using your service.

Suggestions

A comprehensive online ideas platform for your members to submit ideas to improve their student experience. The streamlined system allows members to see the progress on their ideas. Give your members the opportunity to influence and drive change.

Elections

Pioneering, fast and simple set up to help you elect students into a wide variety of roles. From opening nominations to overseeing the voting period and calculating the results, this system allows full management of every step of the process.

Reps

Create Academic Representative roles that are bespoke to your Students’ Union, to allow a comprehensive overview of which students are in each role and manage your Academic Reps.

Academic Opportunities

Create roles that students are taking part in on campus, and track engagement by logging which students are taking part in each opportunity.

Petitions

Centrally host petitions on your website to gather feedback on issues that your members care about, as well as allow signatures from members outside of your Union and utilise the Reporting Module to track who has signed a petition.

Get your members involved...

Student Dashboard

A full dashboard for Sports, Societies and other Student Groups to allow them to manage their own finances, submit applications for funding, events, trips and products, training resources and more.

Activity Management

Manage the Student Dashboard on the staff-side; monitor and approve applications for student events and products, manage the finances of Sports and Societies, training and handover for committees and more.

Volunteering

Centrally manage internal and external volunteering placements, as well as the ability to log students hours and link skills to each role.

Skills Log

Help your members become more employable through different opportunities within their Students' Union. Members can view a log of everything they have done as well as export this for use in interviews and explore other opportunities to boost the skills they are less developed in.

Run your union...

EPOS

Take full control of your transactions, stock, product customisation and purchase history, as well as the ability to extract detailed reports on your EPOS system.

Room Bookings

Take full control of how the rooms across your Students’ Union are used by managing room bookings created by staff and students, and the ability to add specific features to each room to tailor it to your buildings.

Human Resources

Effortlessly log and manage your staff members, as well as details of their Next of Kin and IMT details. Utilise the system to set up communications in the event of an emergency – keep your staff team informed.

Incident Management

Centrally manage all Incident reports, as well as view all previously archived reports and see which stage the reports are in. Allow your Student Groups to report incidents as well by submitting reports externally to SUMS.

Events Management

Centrally view all events taking place across your venues in a streamlined calendar, with the ability to set up and manage tickets, create detailed customer profiles, and validate entry to events.

Finance

Easily and reliably manage your Students’ Union finances including weekly banking, transactions and product views as well as the ability to manage goods received forms and donations from student groups.

...and much more

Key Statistics

The Students’ Union Management System (SUMS) is dedicated to supporting student engagement

1,300,000+

Students

Engaged with the platform over 20 different students' unions

2,500,000+

Election Votes

Unique student votes in various democratic elections

1,390,000

Activity Memberships

Members participating in different sports and societies

£117 Million

Revenue

Sales processed within EPOS

Our Testimonials

"

Towards the end of 2019, we (UWSU) decided we needed to refresh our website … lucky for us, the team at SUMS was more than helpful to ensure the onboarding process was as smooth as possible. 

Yes, we had challenges, it wouldn't be a project otherwise, but the excellent communication with us and the university, constant updates, and the calm and collective nature of the SUMS team reassured us that the project was in good hands.

That was only phase 1 of our website development and are looking forward to further improving the functionality of the website and streamlining our processes to make life easier for all, and I'm confident in SUMS's ability to support us through that process.

- University of Westminster Students' Union

"

The SUMS team made the process of onboarding really simple and easy to keep track of progress. They helped us navigate the technical aspects, including working with the University's teams to get up and running.
We successfully launched our new site in August, and had a sucessful Freshers with thousands of students signing up to join societies. The team at SUMS have continued supporting us with queries and understanding the new platform as we progress through the year. We're really excited to see where we go next with SUMS!

- Oxford Brookes Students' Union

"

Earlier this year we embarked on a move across to SUMS which included an integration with 4 external platforms: the University student database, our marketing segmentation profile algorithm, the sports centre membership platform and our e-comms software.

Despite this feeling like quite a challenge when we started, each were achieved smoothly and with surprising ease. We set and achieved a go live date of the first week in August, and ensured we were up and running ...

Throughout the onboarding process we found the SUMS team to be receptive and patient to our many queries and occasional development requests. We have enjoyed working with them and feel that together we built a friendly and honest team spirit, certainly not a given with an external supplier, and hope that this continues throughout this year and beyond.

- University of Newcastle Students' Union

"

This is the first time in my 5 years at Northampton that I’ve seen such a well organised and information full Welcome page. Thank you to SUMS for all their work!

- University of Northampton Students' Union

Who we work with

Lincoln Students' Union Logo
University of Nottingham Students' Union Logo
Kent Students' Union Logo
Hull Students' Union Logo
Sussex SU Logo
University of Sheffield Students' Union Logo
University of York Students' Union Logo
York St John Students' Union Logo
University of Lincoln Logo
Northampton Students' Union Logo
Brookes Students' Union Logo
Loughborough Students' Union Logo
Bishop Grosseteste Students' Union Logo
Newcastle Students' Union Logo
Westminster Students' Union Logo
Manchester Students' Union Logo
Edinburgh University Students' Association Logo
Northumbria University Students' Association Logo
Bath Spa Students' Union Logo
Reading Students' Union Logo

Who we are

We are a dynamic team, working hard to deliver an exciting, sector leading product, to help deliver a first class student experience.

James Brooks' picture

James Brooks

Group Chief Executive Officer

Hannah Jordan's picture

Hannah Jordan

Group Deputy Chief Executive Officer

Hannah Setchfield's picture

Hannah Setchfield

Group Chief Finance Officer

Emily Traves' picture

Emily Traves

Director of People

Senior Management
Clare Harris's picture

Clare Harris

Head of Finance

Central Services
Jo Gregory-Gallagher's picture

Jo Gregory-Gallagher

Chief Operating Officer

Alan Bage's picture

Alan Bage

Director of Technical Development

Management
Jack Old's picture

Jack Old

Senior Software Developer

Jack Pettigrew's picture

Jack Pettigrew

Software Developer

Greg Smith's picture

Greg Smith

Software Developer

Greg Smith's picture

Seth Johnson

Software Developer

Technical Development
John Shaw's picture

John Shaw

Product Designer

Ayesha Gore's picture

Ayesha Gore

Product Testing and Documentation Manager

Product Development
James Camber's picture

James Camber

Customer Experience Coordinator

Customer Experience

if you are interested in working with us, please let us know, by emailing [email protected]

Interested in SUMS?

SUMS is a social enterprise developed by a leading, professional team. Not only are we nationally recognised for our student engagement practices, we also value customer service at the heart of what we provide and are careful to ensure that we always have enough staff to support this. We encourage peer-to-peer collaboration with users, and have a team of developers at the ready for any additional help required along the way.

We are looking to bring more partners onto the platform. If you are interested in finding out more, or have any general queries, let us know.

Information

Students’ Union Management System,
The Engine Shed,
Lincoln Students' Union,
Brayford Pool,
Lincoln,
LN6 7TS

Email: [email protected]
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