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Kinetic Solutions Ltd

Room Service

Room Service is used by universities to manage student accommodation and halls of residence from application to halls through to departure, including room allocation, offers, contracts, guarantors, induction, arrival planning, inventory, invoices, payments, incidents, wellbeing, residence life and student events, summer and casual stays.

Features

  • Isolated cloud subscription for cyber resilience
  • UK data centres with geo-redundant backup and recovery
  • Data anonymisation and archiving for data protection compliance
  • Managed service for upgrades and patches
  • Integration with other university systems
  • Advanced data security by user across properties, teams and role

Benefits

  • Staff access student data and report issues on any device
  • Student self-service reduces back office admin
  • Maintain your student portal using our content management system
  • Connect with your students using mass email and SMS
  • Manage room rates and availabilty to maximise occupancy
  • Improve student satisfaction with slick web processes
  • Provide management with oversight and control

Pricing

£30,000 an instance a year

Service documents

Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at stacey.wright@kineticsoftware.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 13

Service ID

6 1 4 7 7 1 3 8 6 4 3 3 0 6 3

Contact

Kinetic Solutions Ltd Stacey Wright
Telephone: 01908067000
Email: stacey.wright@kineticsoftware.com

Service scope

Software add-on or extension
No
Cloud deployment model
Public cloud
Service constraints
Planned maintenance and upgrages are agreed with each customer on an as needed basis via the help desk. Customer must agree to the Microsoft Customer Agreement for terms and conditions that relate to the Microsoft Azure infrastructure.
System requirements
VPN will be required for integration with on premise software

User support

Email or online ticketing support
Email or online ticketing
Support response times
Monday to Friday 9 am to 5.30 pm excluding bank holidays with a 4 hour initial response.
User can manage status and priority of support tickets
Yes
Online ticketing support accessibility
None or don’t know
Phone support
Yes
Phone support availability
9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
Web chat support
No
Onsite support
Yes, at extra cost
Support levels
The support service covers
(1) support in the use of Room Service via the help desk and our application specialists
(2) upgrades and patches to Room Service including the work to update the software
(3) technical support of the environment including backups, recovery plans, architecture, sizing and ongoing maintenance
Our service includes access to our Cloud Operations team and technical support personnel.
Support available to third parties
Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
We provide a full onboarding service, including business analysis, configuration (to speed up deployment), customisation, training and user documentation.
Service documentation
Yes
Documentation formats
PDF
End-of-contract data extraction
Option (1) we agree a new contract and leave the service in place
Option (2) we move your data to another service, such as AWS, on-premise or a data-centre
Option (3) you extract your data using the tools provided
Option (4) we extract your data in an agreed format (charged)
End-of-contract process
Services to move your data or provide extraction services are charged per our rate card.

Using the service

Web browser interface
Yes
Supported browsers
  • Internet Explorer 11
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
  • Opera
Application to install
No
Designed for use on mobile devices
Yes
Differences between the mobile and desktop service
Student facing websites are designed to work on PC, tablet and mobile. Staff facing services have limited mobile friendly features
Service interface
Yes
User support accessibility
WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
Description of service interface
Room Service has a web browser interface for staff to use for operational tasks, and a power-application accessed via RDWeb for managing configuration, settings and complex back office processing.

Students access Room Service via a student portal using a web browser.
Accessibility standards
WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
Accessibility testing
Student portals are tested with screen readers. Portals are customised and branded to specifications agreed with each customer and customers may make their own changes which may break AA guidelines. Customers are responsible for making sure any changes they make to the design meets appropriate accessibility standards. Back office power-apps are not tested and are not 2.1AA compliant.
API
Yes
What users can and can't do using the API
Our API allows customers to make calls to our application for common tasks such as fetching students, bookings, rooms, and availability. The API continues to evolve and we work with customers to extend the API as needed.
API documentation
Yes
API documentation formats
  • Open API (also known as Swagger)
  • PDF
API sandbox or test environment
Yes
Customisation available
Yes
Description of customisation
The student portal has flexible layout editor using Microsoft Razor and styling using custom CSS.

Configuration tools allow customisation of branding for email headers and footers.

Reporting tools allow customisation of reports and documents.

Users access extensive configuration features to maintain users, roles, teams, sessions, licences, quotas, finance codes, prices, pathways, properties and adverts, inventory, workflow and business process rules, documents, reports, views, interfaces, payment gateways, bank accounts. The design assumes the

Scaling

Independence of resources
Subscriptions are deployed into unique instances with network segregation.

Analytics

Service usage metrics
Yes
Metrics types
Active and inactive users each month, aimed at cleaning and removing inactive user accounts.
Reporting types
Reports on request

Resellers

Supplier type
Not a reseller

Staff security

Staff security clearance
Other security clearance
Government security clearance
Up to Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

Asset protection

Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
Yes
Data storage and processing locations
  • United Kingdom
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • Other locations
User control over data storage and processing locations
Yes
Datacentre security standards
Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
Penetration testing frequency
At least once a year
Penetration testing approach
Another external penetration testing organisation
Protecting data at rest
Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Data sanitisation process
Yes
Data sanitisation type
  • Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
  • Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
Equipment disposal approach
Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Data importing and exporting

Data export approach
Users run reports to screen and then export the data to Excel. Excel connections (embedded in Excel) connect to the database to provide full access to datasets.
Data export formats
  • CSV
  • Other
Other data export formats
XLXS
Data import formats
CSV

Data-in-transit protection

Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
Data protection within supplier network
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability
SLAs for service availability mirror the SLA provided by Microsoft for uptime of their infrastructure. Compute infrastructure using single instance architecture and premium storage has a 99.9% SLA.
Approach to resilience
We use Microsoft Azure data centres which are inherently resilient. Our minimum standard is to deploy single instance VMs with automatic failover in the data centre, with automated daily backups of each VM in full to a second geo-redundant data centre.
Outage reporting
An internally accessed dashboard/API and email alert.

Identity and authentication

User authentication needed
Yes
User authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • Username or password
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
Security is applied at the database level to restrict access to data on a need to know basis. Access to the application requires a login which is linked to the database level role. Access to the technical infrastructure is restricted to our Cloud Operations team. Access to our support channels is for named domains.
Access restriction testing frequency
At least once a year
Management access authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

Access to user activity audit information
Users have access to real-time audit information
How long user audit data is stored for
User-defined
Access to supplier activity audit information
Users contact the support team to get audit information
How long supplier audit data is stored for
At least 12 months
How long system logs are stored for
Between 6 months and 12 months

Standards and certifications

ISO/IEC 27001 certification
Yes
Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001
British Assessment Bureau
ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date
16/07/2021
What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover
-
ISO 28000:2007 certification
No
CSA STAR certification
No
PCI certification
Yes
Who accredited the PCI DSS certification
PGI
PCI DSS accreditation date
08/06/2021
What the PCI DSS doesn’t cover
-
Cyber essentials
No
Cyber essentials plus
Yes
Other security certifications
No

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security
Yes
Security governance certified
Yes
Security governance standards
ISO/IEC 27001
Information security policies and processes
Our Information Management Security Forum is headed by our Chief Transformation Officer and includes representatives from each main department within the business. The ISMF meets monthly to review risk, audit reports, and non-compliance statements. It reviews our business management system at least annually and assesses external and internal influences.

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard
Supplier-defined controls
Configuration and change management approach
Our configuration and change management policy sets out the processes we follow. Access to cloud infrastructure services and related access permissions is restricted to specific roles. Our Cloud Operations team is responsible for configuration and change management - general support staff do not have access. The application layer and related upgrades is managed by our support team who take responsbilitiy for application changes. Updated versions of applications are tested for vulnerabilities before general release.
Vulnerability management type
Supplier-defined controls
Vulnerability management approach
We use vulnerability testing software to test application vulnerabilities prior to release to customers. If vulnerabilities are found in a current release then these are fixed and issued in a new release, which becomes the new current release.

We run Crowdstrike on all servers to provide 3rd party input into security vulnerabilities.
Protective monitoring type
Supplier-defined controls
Protective monitoring approach
We use software vulnerability testing to indentify potenial compromises in our applications. These are fixed prior to release. New potential compromises when identified are fixed and issued in new releases. We have a formal incident response policy and process which treats each incident as it is reported on its own merits - for example assessing whether the incident is a single customer incident or relevant to many customers. We assess critial incidents within 2 hours.
Incident management type
Supplier-defined controls
Incident management approach
We have a pre-defined process for incidents which are reported via our help desk. Incidents which relate to Confidentiality, Integrity or Availability of service are escalated; availability issues to our 3rd line team, confidentiality and integrity issues immediately to our compliance team via a specific incident reporting template. The incident compliance team has a template that determines the reporting process.

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice
Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)

Public sector networks

Connection to public sector networks
No

Social Value

Fighting climate change

Fighting climate change

Our Climate Commitment - we recognise that climate change poses a threat to the economy, nature and society-at-large, our company commits to take action immediately in order to:

Halve our greenhouse gas emissions before 2030
Achieve net zero emissions before 2050
Disclose our progress on a yearly basis

In doing so, we are proud to be recognised by the United Nations Race to Zero campaign, and join governments, businesses, cities, regions, and universities around the world that share the same mission.
Equal opportunity

Equal opportunity

Kinetic is committed to equality of opportunity in employment, with the aims of ensuring that all employees and job applicants are treated fairly and equally and supporting the Company’s objective of providing a working environment that is free from all forms of discrimination.

Our aim is that our workforce will be truly representative of all sections of society and each employee feels respected and able to give of their best.

We oppose all forms of unlawful and unfair discrimination or victimisation. To that end the purpose of this policy is to provide equality and fairness for all in our employment.

All employees, whether part-time, full-time or temporary, will be treated fairly and with respect. Selection for employment, promotion, training or any other benefit will be on the basis of aptitude and ability. All employees will be helped and encouraged to develop their full potential and the talents and resources of the workforce will be fully utilised to maximise the efficiency of the organisation.

Our staff will not discriminate directly or indirectly, or harass customers or clients because of age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, political affiliation or belief, sex, and sexual orientation in the provision of the Company’s goods and services.

The policy applies to all staff within the Company, including employees and other workers, such as agency workers, temporary workers and contractors. All staff are expected to put this policy into practice.
Wellbeing

Wellbeing

We provide MHFA training for all senior management and team leads.

Pricing

Price
£30,000 an instance a year
Discount for educational organisations
No
Free trial available
No

Service documents

Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at stacey.wright@kineticsoftware.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.