My colleagues are robots!

Welcome to the first instalment of Collabco’s face behind the logo series. We’d like to tell you more about our amazing team, the people behind the product. Being as proud of our team as we are the myday product this series aims to give you some insight into each of their areas and why they are unique.  We are proud of what we do and how we work as a team, nobody here is just a number, everybody is valued.

Developing myday is a testing but very rewarding job. We work to the highest standards by default, by design and believe that every new release is going to better your institution’s performance and give students the best academic experience possible. Our first interviewee is Toby, a Full Stack Developer who has been working with robots for the past few months, and he has become pretty friendly with them! Should we be worried? Take a look…

Q – How long have you worked here and what attracted you to apply for a job at Collabco?

A – I have worked here for around 9 months. It was the technology stack and the people here really. I had an interview with Dave Bown who is our Technical Director, and really liked him and what he had to say.

I did get offered a different job elsewhere, but I chose to come here instead because the technology stack is what I wanted to learn. With me, I came from a background of non-web development but wanted to move into web development and the kind of technology that Collabco are using here put me in good stead to do so.

Q – What do you most enjoy about working at Collabco?

A – It’s the people, I get on with everyone really well. It is a relaxed atmosphere, so you feel like you can say your piece and have a real impact by putting in your ideas.

I really enjoy the technology stack, because it is a lot of the latest technology and I am constantly learning new things. And the fact that we are moving into really interesting areas such as AI and Chat Bots, which are really new technologies that are driving the future. It is great to work here for that.

Q – So, moving onto the bots, what is the bot you are currently working on and what is it aimed to do and why?

A – The bot that we have created so far is basically called a Helper Bot or a Q&A Bot. What it allows us to do is put questions, answers or guides inside myday and allow users – whether that be admins, students or staff – to open a chat window and talk to the bot in a very language natural way as if they are having a conversation.

They can ask things such as “How do I see my emails?” the bot will then know what that means in context and reply with instructions of how they can get to that point inside myday.

Q – How do you think this will benefit education as a whole?

A – It allows the institution to upload their own FAQ’s and own questions to provide a service that isn’t currently available. Whilst there may be certain roles that cover that, the bot will take away these questions and allow staff to prioritise the more important tasks at hand.

It is an easy way for students to find answers without having to search the web or go and pester a HR worker in the University or College who has other more important issues to deal with rather than just basic questions.

In the future, specifically with bots, there is a lot we can do with them. This is a very basic example of a bot. It is quite a simple thing that will sit there and answer questions. The real power of bots is when you have it interacting with your data at the back of myday, so, for instance, a student being able to access information from myday via Facebook messenger.

So, they can send a message to Facebook to ask for example “what lectures do I have today?” and the bot will go off, search the back end and bring back the correct information to the student. Therefore, they do not need to interact with myday or their institution’s services, they just have a tool to use which is going to better their experience and have a positive effect on results and efficiency.

Would you like to learn more about myday and our development?