For Becca Chaytor, Accessibility Advisor at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the before-and-after of implementing Symplicity Accommodate is stark. Before, her team was manually emailing professors about individual student accommodations, a process that could take considerable time and involved multiple manual steps, sometimes causing errors and inconsistencies. Today, that same process takes three minutes. Here's how they got there.
When Becca joined Saint Mary's University five years ago, the Accessibility team was working with a combination of systems and processes that had evolved over time: a partial competitor platform, ad hoc email threads, and a form that fed into a spreadsheet. Faculty notifications were manual. Students had to tell the office which classes they were enrolled in. Accommodation letters sometimes weren’t reaching professors until mid-semester.
"We were doing everything manually," Becca says. "And really the people most impacted, with the exception of my team administratively, were the students — because they weren't getting what they needed."
Approaching their two-year mark with Accommodate, the team hasn't looked back.
Working together, the team at the Fred Smithers Centre for Student Accessibility prioritized implementing Accommodate, and Becca is quick to credit the Symplicity team for making it work. Saint Mary’s, like many other post-secondary institutions, runs on its own rhythms. Their IT department has their own way of operating, and their accessibility workflows were quite unique.
"Every school has their own way of working and functioning," she says. "A lot of the times we were finding that we had to adapt some of our preferred approaches to make it fit within a box. But Accommodate really worked with us to find a middle ground that made everybody feel more comfortable."
The team took a staged approach — becoming internal experts before rolling out to faculty, then to students — and invested in building "super users" on staff who could troubleshoot in the moment and help colleagues who needed extra support. ⬅️ Great pro tip!!
The shift didn't just streamline operations, it further enhanced the accessibility experience for students. Many of the students Saint Mary's Accessibility team supports have executive functioning challenges, making forms, deadlines, and administrative tasks difficult. Accommodate's centralized, reminder-enabled platform has made a measurable difference.
"We had students who struggled to get testing requests in before a deadline or book a timely appointment," Becca explains. "But with Accommodate, because it's more of a one-stop shop for them, it makes the whole process a lot easier."
Students can now log in to check upcoming test bookings, see their accommodation details, and receive automated reminders. A feedback survey conducted by the team confirmed what staff were seeing firsthand: students appreciate the visibility and the ease.
One of Becca's most compelling arguments for Accommodate isn't about features — it's about the ecosystem. In Atlantic Canada, it's common for faculty members to teach across multiple universities simultaneously. That makes consistency in platforms more than a convenience; it's a practical necessity.
"It can be challenging to support faculty engagement across multiple systems — why don't we all work together and have the exact same system so that faculty have to learn one system, and students only have to learn one system if they're changing schools?"
The consistency piece, she says, is what ultimately made the decision easy. And the support from nearby institutions already using the platform helped smooth Saint Mary's path to adoption.
If there's one thing Becca returns to again and again, it's the ongoing support. Two years in, she and her team still connect with her Symplicity customer success contact weekly.
"You buy it and then that's when the journey begins, instead of just being sold to and then told to figure it out," she says. "That relationship doesn't really end. And that is so amazing, because so many other people don't have that."
For any institution weighing whether to make the switch, Becca has a clear message: focus on the student experience. The operational efficiencies are real, but the mission is bigger.
"It's not about making our jobs easier — it does do that. But the reason we're here is to make sure students feel supported and have everything they need. And being able to have that all in one spot is really the best way we can ensure they're getting all that information."
Symplicity Accommodate is a purpose-built accessibility management platform that helps higher education institutions streamline accommodation workflows, improve faculty communication, and create a more empowering experience for students with disabilities. From intake to exam scheduling, Accommodate centralizes every part of the process — reducing administrative burden while keeping students at the center. Book your demo today and get all your questions answered!