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HESA's Data Futures programme has changed how higher education providers collect, validate and submit statutory data, and the pressure doesn't ease once a provider's core system is in place. Configuration, data quality and sign-off timelines still demand close, ongoing collaboration between the software provider, the institution and Jisc. That's the work behind this update.
A healthy pipeline, shaped by providers
Our product roadmap for SITS' HESA capability is shaped directly by providers. Regular fortnightly engagement sessions with our user community keep the pipeline focused on the issues that matter most, and that collaboration is a core strength of the relationship, rather than just a box we tick.
Advisory support and the numbers behind it
Our Advisory team works proactively with providers to close gaps in HESA readiness before they cause problems at submission. Our consultants have been busy delivering HESA Student Health Checks with customers, which give a clear, evidenced view of where to focus investment and improvement. As you may expect, challenges often relate to complexity in data quality or business process, and in some cases changes in teams or resource constraint. Whilst we can’t solve these for you, our health checks help shine a light on practical ways to aid readiness and help you plan the improvements that matter.
Separately, we’ve had a fantastic response to our HESA Survey - and there’s still time if you’d like to take part. These responses show us where customers face the greatest challenges in practice, including the workarounds end users sometimes feel they need to adopt. Many of these emerge due to challenges that our Health Checks help uncover, and they've already shaped priorities on our product roadmap.
If you’re a SITS customer, and would like to complete the survey, please visit MySITS.
We're also seeing support call volumes fall compared to the same period last year - currently we have 0 outstanding tickets. While that's not proof on its own, when combined with the readiness data above, it points to providers experiencing fewer urgent issues than in previous reporting cycles. We would strongly encourage you to continue raising incidents via RemedyForce for any issues you encounter, even where a workaround has been identified. Logging these incidents helps us accurately assess the impact and prevalence of potential bugs across institutions, ensuring they are prioritised appropriately.
Milestone progress
Sign-off is a staged process, and Milestone 2 (the point at which source data is submitted to Jisc for validation) is where we're focused right now: 90% of SITS institutions have reached it, and we're working closely with the rest to plan targeted support ahead of the deadline. That builds on real momentum from the last cycle, when 92% of SITS customers achieved final sign-off by the 2024/25 (24056) collection deadline - the standard we're working to set as the benchmark.
Working closely with Jisc
Our partnership with Jisc continues through fortnightly engagement and steering group sessions, and we were glad to catch up with the Jisc team in person at Empower this year. These conversations keep us closely connected to sector priorities as the leading SMS provider in the sector, and give Jisc a direct line into what our provider community is experiencing day to day. Attendance at our HESA session at Empower was particularly strong, which tells us providers want the chance to contribute, challenge and help shape what comes next.
SITS customers can find a short summary of steering group discussions in our monthly HESA mailshot, with full meeting minutes available on the MySITS forums.
Looking ahead to In Year Collections
Our message is simple: we're listening, we're acting on feedback, and we’re continuing to evolve SITS and our associated services to meet provider needs as the sector prepares for the transition to In Year Collections.
To find out more about our HESA Student Health Checks, please contact your Customer Success Consultant.
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