FE News: Custom API Portals: Streamlining IT Procurement in HE

We’ve previously explored the importance of providing both students and staff with the right IT at the right times. The unique challenges that this brings are why many universities and higher education institutions are seeking to adopt self-service IT procurement platforms wherever feasible. This frees up in-house IT teams to spend more time on strategic, high-value work. 

Key to this new approach are user-facing IT request portals. These offer staff and researchers role-based access to catalogues of pre-approved IT equipment that they can order at their convenience. In addition, these portals offer selected users or teams the ability to configure the IT equipment they need, or request bespoke solutions, designed by solution architects. 

Universities embracing this approach typically find that it addresses many of the challenges their IT teams face, especially with the increase in research projects that require something that’s not so easily ‘off the shelf’. Those projects, whilst only making up 5% of purchases can sometime create 95% of the headaches IT teams face as it can be a burden on resource of sourcing bespoke solutions . However, not all IT procurement portals are created equal. So, if you are considering adopting this approach, what should you be looking for? 

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