Key Insights
1 Day
to resolve a typical support case, down from 7.6 days
67%
cases resolved within a week, up from 47% before the move to KxHosting
87%
cases resolved within a month, up from 62% before the move to KxHosting
14
software versions caught up since moving, now kept current automatically with every release
An Institution Built to Deliver
The University of Buckingham campus, home to the UK’s oldest private university.
For university accommodation teams, the busiest times of the year leave little room for technical complications. When students are arriving, accommodation requests are coming in, and staff are managing countless moving parts, the last thing anyone needs is additional complexity behind the software they rely on.
For the University of Buckingham, the decision to move its student housing software to KxHosting in December 2024 wasn’t driven by a crisis or dissatisfaction with its existing teams. It was a proactive decision to simplify how its systems were managed, improve access to support, and give its accommodation team more time to focus on students.
The results speak for themselves. Since moving to hosting, Buckingham has reduced its typical support case resolution time from 7.6 days to approximately one day, while making software maintenance and upgrades a more streamlined process.
Simplifying the Technology Behind Student Accommodation
Managing student accommodation comes with enough complexity. The technology supporting it shouldn’t add to that workload.
With an on-premise setup, identifying whether an issue originates in the software or its underlying infrastructure can require additional investigation and coordination. For accommodation teams, particularly during busy periods, that added complexity can make resolving an issue more time-consuming than it needs to be.
There’s a simple reason for that: to investigate an issue or apply an upgrade on an on-premise system, Kinetic’s support team first needs to be granted access to the university’s server. That access is rightly controlled by the university’s IT team, so it isn’t something an accommodation team can arrange on its own. Every request has to be routed through IT first, which adds steps, and waiting time, before anyone can start looking at the problem.
Buckingham saw an opportunity to simplify this process by bringing its KxWelcome software and the infrastructure supporting it under one provider.
With Kinetic taking responsibility for managing the hosting environment, maintaining the software, and coordinating technical support, Buckingham’s accommodation team could work directly with the specialists who build and support its student housing platform.
It was a practical decision with a straightforward goal: spend less time managing technology and more time supporting students.
Making the Move to Managed Hosting
Inside one of Buckingham’s residence halls, the kind of space KxWelcome manages day in and day out.
Moving an essential university system to a new hosting environment requires careful planning, particularly when student accommodation operations depend on that system every day.
Buckingham approached the transition as a collaborative project, establishing an internal project team and working closely with Kinetic to prepare for the move.
Together, the teams reviewed data protection and GDPR requirements, completed testing, and planned the migration to minimize disruption to day-to-day operations.
The transition was completed in December 2024, with only minor issues identified after going live.
As soon as I raised something it was ‘yes, we know what that is’, and it was sorted really, really quickly.”
Lisa Cross,
Accommodation Manager, University of Buckingham
For Buckingham, the transition demonstrated that moving to a managed hosting environment didn’t have to mean a complicated or disruptive process. With the right planning and support, the university was able to make the change smoothly and move forward with greater confidence in how its software was managed.
From a Week to a Day: The Results Speak for Themselves
One of the most noticeable improvements since the move has been the speed and simplicity of technical support.
Asked what’s different since moving to hosting, Lisa’s answer was a simple one: “Response times.”
With the software and hosting environment managed together, Buckingham’s accommodation team can raise issues directly with Kinetic’s support desk, allowing specialists to investigate and resolve problems without additional infrastructure coordination.
That streamlined approach has been reflected in the university’s support records.
Support Measure
Before KxHosting
Since KxHosting
Typical time to resolve a support case
7.6 Days
Approximately 1 day
Cases resolved within one week
47%
67%
Cases resolved within one month
62%
87%
Source: Kinetic support records for the University of Buckingham, comparing the 18 months before moving to hosting with December 2024 through September 2026.
The figures show a substantial improvement.
The typical support case that previously took more than a week to resolve is now resolved in approximately one day. The proportion of cases resolved within a week has increased by 20 percentage points, while cases resolved within a month have increased by 25 percentage points.
For an accommodation team working through busy arrivals periods, student requests, and everyday operational demands, faster support means less time spent dealing with technical issues.
Lisa has experienced that difference firsthand.
“If I’ve got a problem, I come straight to the support desk now. They’re really helpful and quick, the easy fixes come back fast, and even the more complex ones are resolved sooner.”
Lisa Cross,
Accommodation Manager, University of Buckingham
One of the biggest advantages of hosting is how directly support teams can investigate and resolve issues.
Support specialists also have direct access to the hosted environment, removing additional coordination steps and helping Buckingham resolve issues faster.
In practice, that means there’s no access request to raise and nothing to wait for. Kinetic’s team can start investigating the moment a problem is reported, which is a big part of why a typical case now closes in about a day, not a week.
This isn’t about replacing the expertise of a university’s internal teams. It’s about giving those teams and the accommodation department a simpler support process, with clearly defined responsibilities and fewer steps between identifying an issue and resolving it.
Reliable Software When It Matters Most
Student accommodation at the University of Buckingham, where demand peaks hardest during clearing, arrivals, and enrollment.
For universities, demand on student accommodation systems isn’t consistent throughout the year.
There are periods when activity increases significantly, particularly during clearing, arrivals, and enrollment. These are the moments when accommodation teams need confidence that their software can keep pace.
KxWelcome is designed to perform dependably whether running on-premise or in a hosted environment. For Buckingham, moving to managed hosting means the same specialists who develop and support the software also look after the infrastructure behind it.
Running on Microsoft Azure, KxHosting provides managed infrastructure, with capacity planning and scaling informed by the seasonal demands of higher education.
This helps Buckingham maintain a reliable software environment without having to oversee the underlying infrastructure itself.
For Lisa, one of the most valuable changes has been the flexibility that comes with accessing a hosted system.
“The only time I lose access now is if the internet goes down in our building, and even then I just pick up my laptop and move somewhere else on site. It’s a much more reliable way of using the software.”
Lisa Cross,
Accommodation Manager, University of Buckingham
That flexibility is particularly valuable in a university environment, where accommodation staff may need to work from different locations across campus while remaining connected to the systems they depend on.
Staying Up to Date Without the Extra Work
Beyond faster support, the move has helped Buckingham simplify another important responsibility: keeping its student housing software up to date.
Software upgrades are essential for maintaining security, performance, and access to new functionality. However, coordinating updates to an on-premise environment can require additional planning, resources, and scheduling.
The same access issue applies here. Before an upgrade can start on an on-premise server, Kinetic has to be granted access to it, and arranging that often adds around a day to an upgrade that might only take two. With KxHosting, that step is gone, so upgrades take only as long as the work itself and can be scheduled as soon as there’s capacity.
Much of that responsibility is now handled directly by Kinetic.
Since moving, Buckingham’s KxWelcome environment has been brought fully up to date, progressing through approximately 14 software versions.
“I said, ‘I want the upgrades. Can you do them?’ … We had to do fourteen upgrades in one go, just to get us to where we are now.”
Lisa Cross,
Accommodation Manager, University of Buckingham
Rather than organizing and managing each upgrade independently, Buckingham now benefits from a managed process in which Kinetic schedules and applies software updates as part of its hosting service.
This helps ensure the university can take advantage of the latest software improvements while reducing the administrative and technical work involved in maintaining its environment.
For Buckingham’s accommodation team, it’s another responsibility that no longer needs to compete with the day-to-day demands of supporting students.
One Provider. A More Connected Support Experience.
A bird’s-eye view of Buckingham’s campus, now running on one connected system from the software down to the infrastructure beneath it.
The value of KxHosting extends beyond where the software is physically hosted.
It brings the application, infrastructure management, security patching, scaling, and software upgrades together under one provider.
For universities already using Kinetic’s student housing software, that means the people responsible for maintaining the hosting environment are also the people who understand how the platform works and how accommodation teams use it.
Bringing software support and infrastructure management together creates a more streamlined experience for Buckingham’s accommodation team, with a single point of contact and less time spent coordinating technical support.
Kinetic has been developing purpose-built software for higher education since 1998 and now supports more than 350 institutions across 20 countries.
That experience helps inform how Kinetic manages its hosted environments, particularly around the seasonal demands and operational priorities of universities.
For Buckingham, the benefit is straightforward: fewer technical responsibilities to coordinate, faster access to support, and more time available for the work that matters to its students.
Focusing on What Matters Most
For the University of Buckingham, the decision to move to managed hosting wasn’t about fixing a failing system or replacing the work of its internal teams.
It was about recognizing an opportunity to make an important part of its accommodation operations simpler, more efficient, and easier to manage.
Since December 2024, Buckingham has seen substantial improvements in support resolution times, brought its software fully up to date, and moved the ongoing management of its hosting environment to Kinetic.
The result is an accommodation team that can spend less time coordinating technical support and software maintenance, and more time delivering a positive student experience.
And ultimately, that’s what good technology should make possible.
Less time managing servers. More time focusing on students.
Customer Snapshot
University of Buckingham
Location:
Buckingham, Buckinghamshire, England
Notable Distinctions:
Founded in 1973 and granted university status in 1983, Buckingham is the oldest of the UK’s private universities, operating independently of direct state funding. It’s known for compressing undergraduate degrees into two years instead of three, for opening the UK’s first new medical school in nearly a century, and for a 2017 Teaching Excellence Framework Gold award, recognition reserved for institutions delivering consistently outstanding teaching.
Acknowledgment:
We extend our sincere thanks to Lisa Cross, Accommodation Manager at the University of Buckingham, for her time and generosity in sharing this story.