When Australia’s National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence arrived, universities across the country had to rethink how they support, document and report on every disclosure. For the University of Western Australia (UWA) and the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ), Symplicity's Advocate Flex became the foundation for that work.

The two institutions came at the challenge from different directions. Sebastian Toro Velez, Senior Administrative and System Officer in UWA’s Student Conduct and Resolution Centre, leads the Flex project across the university from the technical side. Tessa McCredie, Associate Director, Wellbeing at UniSQ, manages the practitioners who support students day to day.

Together, they show what thoughtful workflow design can look like.

Good Timing for a Fresh Start

For UWA, the move to Flex in September 2025 came at exactly the right moment. “With the national code coming in late 2025, it was a good opportunity for us,” Toro Velez says.

UWA organised its build around collections, each sitting with the department that owns the cases. Initial disclosures go to the Care and Wellbeing team, while formal reports and complex cases move to the Student Conduct and Resolution Centre.

“That’s the beauty of Flex,” Toro Velez says. “As the name says, it gives you the flexibility to create your workflows however you want to do it.”

A simple four-stage disclosure workflow can convert into a six-stage formal report in a few clicks, keeping a record of both. Letters, notices and outcomes populate automatically from the case. “The last thing we want is emails or communication sitting outside the system,” Toro Velez explains. “We want everything integrated.”

Tasks That Drive Consistency

At UniSQ, the Safer Communities team responds to all concerning behaviours, not just gender-based violence. Its student support workflow moves through intake, assessment, safety and support, and resolution.

“The real key for Flex for me is the ability to create tasks that sit within each stage,” McCredie says. “Any practitioner receiving and reviewing a report follows the same steps. Therefore, there is a consistent, well-documented and well-structured approach to the support that we provide to students.”

UniSQ designed its safety and support forms around the code, then applied them more broadly. “We’ve found that the support requirements detailed in the code are the same as the support provided to students disclosing other types of behaviours, such as bullying and harassment,” she says.

With a small Safer Communities team, UniSQ also built sub-workflows so others across wellbeing can step in while keeping support aligned.

Service First, System Second

Both leaders say the hardest part wasn’t the technology. Toro Velez spent three to four months aligning stakeholders on each workflow, while legacy data stayed safely in place. “You’re not going to lose anything,” he says.

For McCredie, the challenge was helping experienced practitioners map what they do instinctively. “Practitioners do this naturally. It’s their bread and butter,” she says. Her guiding principle was clear. “Technology should be used to meet the needs of the service, as opposed to the other way around.”

The payoff is a smoother flow of information. “It cuts out the middleman, so to speak,” McCredie says. Staff at UWA have responded well too. “I have everything here. I know what I have to complete,” Toro Velez says of the user experience. “I’ll do it my way, and on my time.”

Data on Demand

With the code requiring around 120 data items, UWA is now feeding Flex data into Power BI dashboards that track open cases, timelines against the 45-day maximum, and trends by faculty and issue.

It’s a big change from the past. “We used to get calls from the Vice Chancellor at the last minute, with a meeting in Canberra, asking us for data on a Friday afternoon,” Toro Velez recalls. “Now we are at a point where we can respond quickly.” McCredie has her sights set on similar reporting at UniSQ.

What’s Next

It's time to figure out how your team can stay organized, compliant, and supportive of the whole student. It's time to explore Advocate FLEX. Let's talk about it.