Student Housing Software Company To Offer Mobile Apps

An American company that sells software to manage university student housing will be broadening its product line by teaming up with a British firm that sells campus mobile applications. Residential Management Systems, which has applications for managing housing and conferences, performing recruitment, and allowing students to self-select roommates, will be selling and implementing oMbiel's CampusM in North America.

CampusM, first introduced in September 2009, is a set of programs that provides campus users with mobile access to location-based information, enabling them to use their phones to locate car parking; find their way to buildings, lecture halls, residence halls and other university facilities; and locate friends using the Friend Locator in real time. The app, which runs on iPhones and other mobile devices, also feeds information about university events, pulls up library records, provides a contact directory, feeds news, and sends alerts.

The two companies will offer versions of Residential Management's applications for mobile use. According to Andrew Tanner, vice president of sales, a mobile app for conferences will allow an organization to set up a delegate list, define the agenda, create announcements, do alerts, add to social networking sites, and allow delegates to communicate with each other, read alerts, and do on-site voting, among other functions. A mobile app for recruitment is intended for recruiters out in the field to manage leads. The mobile app for housing will allow students to interact with their school's residence life office, see their room assignment, apply for housing, monitor laundry, and view their school banking account. He said that developers are currently working on new functionality for that app that would allow students to report maintenance issues and view floor plans for available rooms.

According to oMbiel, an application takes about four weeks to customize and deploy for a given higher ed customer, which Residential Management will be doing. Tanner added that customers for the mobile apps won't have to run the full-fledged applications to be able to use them.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • futuristic brain made of glowing circuits with a human hand reaching toward it

    Cloud Security Alliance Calls for Rethinking AI Development in the Face of DeepSeek Debut

    The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) has weighed in on DeepSeek AI’s disruptive debut, warning that the revolutionary AI model is “rewriting the rules” of AI development. The remarks come as cloud security firm Wiz disclosed a major data leak in DeepSeek’s platform, raising concerns about security vulnerabilities in the cutting-edge system.

  • AI robot with cybersecurity symbol on its chest

    Microsoft Adds New Agentic AI Tools to Security Copilot

    Microsoft has announced a major expansion of its AI-powered cybersecurity platform, introducing a suite of autonomous agents to help organizations counter rising threats and manage the growing complexity of cloud and AI security.

  • glowing digital brain made of blue circuitry hovers above multiple stylized clouds of interconnected network nodes against a dark, futuristic background

    Report: 85% of Organizations Are Using Some Form of AI

    Eighty-five percent of organizations today are leveraging some form of AI, according to the latest State of AI in the Cloud 2025 report from Wiz. While AI's role in innovation and disruption continues to expand, security vulnerabilities and governance challenges remain pressing concerns.

  • robot typing on a computer

    Microsoft Announces 'Computer Use' Automation in Copilot Studio

    Microsoft has introduced a new AI-powered feature called "computer use" for its Copilot Studio platform that allows agents to directly interact with Web sites and desktop applications using simulated mouse clicks, menu selections and text inputs.