Ashburton’s EA Networks Centre is in better shape than ever, after completing $620,000 of renovations and maintenance and experiencing the benefits of a cloud-hosted version of Jonas Leisure’s Envibe leisure-management software.
The 8,500-square-metre aquatic and leisure hub attracts nearly half-a-million visitors annually and made the switch from Jonas Leisure’s on-premises Gladstone software to hosted Envibe in 2021.
EA Networks Centre Sport and Recreation Manager Richard Wood said the upgrade to Envibe and the centre’s new multi-purpose room and revamped pool facilities are all part of its commitment to continuously improve the leisure services it offers to the community.
“Envibe really has boosted the way that we operate our facility – it gives us much better oversight of our business. The upgrade was a game-changing project and has allowed our facility to thrive.”
Envibe can be installed on premises, or provided as a hosted solution in the cloud, depending on what best suits a facility. In both cases facilities have control over when upgrades are processed so they can adhere to their internal change-management process.
With Ashburton’s Envibe setup running on a hosted platform provided by Jonas Leisure, software updates are seamless and there is no longer a need to maintain internal servers or support resources, he said.
“Now if we want to do an upgrade it’s an easy process to go through, whereas in the past it was more impactful to our business. We had to pull the whole system down for a while, do all these upgrades and then come back online.
“With the hosted solution it happens after hours. We come to work the next day and we’re game on.”
The move to a hosted solution has not come at the cost of system stability, Wood said.
“In our almost four years of running Envibe I could probably count on one hand any issues we’ve had in terms of the stability of the environment.”
Wood said feedback from the almost 100 staff who use Envibe regularly has been positive and he was keen to make more use of Envibe’s web-based offerings in future, including its new Ticketing Module, which makes it simple to set up and sell tickets to community events.
“We were early adopters of the new lesson-based debiting feature in our swim school and we’ll continue to be early adopters of any other developments that come out of Envibe.
“Software isn’t an issue for us anymore, allowing us to focus in on delivering great service to our community.”
Benefits of hosted Envibe
- Seamless updates: Software maintenance and upgrades occur after hours with minimal business disruption.
- Reduced IT resource requirements: Eliminates dependence on internal support resources and infrastructure.
- Improved system stability: Reduces technical issues significantly.
