How Bendigo Kangan Institute Brought InPlace Into Everyday Use

Still juggling spreadsheets, chasing signatures by email, and copying the same student details into two or three different systems? Bendigo Kangan Institute’s placement team found a better way.

We spoke with Bronte Pollard and Edy Lindrea, Industry Placement Coordinators at Bendigo Kangan Institute, about how their team built InPlace into their everyday process, cutting an estimated third off admin time, without adding a single extra staff member.

The result: three separate tools reduced to one, and a team now spending far less time on repetitive admin and more time on host and student relationships.

A Team Covering a Wide Course Load

Bendigo Kangan Institute is one of Victoria’s largest TAFEs, formed through the 2014 merger of Bendigo TAFE and Kangan Institute. Today it spans campuses across regional Victoria and metropolitan Melbourne, delivering vocational training across health, community services, trades and business.

Bendigo Kangan Institute’s placement team supports a wide course load, from the Diploma of Nursing and Certificate IV in Allied Health to vet nursing, youth work and school-based education support. Ten staff manage the process, each with their own dedicated course load. Bronte and Edy are two of the team’s Industry Placement Coordinators and its most active InPlace users.

InPlace was first introduced at Bendigo Kangan Institute in 2017, with adoption growing steadily as the platform was rolled out across more of the team and became part of onboarding for new staff. By now, it’s fully embedded as the team’s day-to-day way of managing placements.

It’s a team that’s constantly looking for a better way to do things, and InPlace has become part of how they keep pushing their process forward.

1,700+

Placements confirmed completed in 2025

3-in-1

Separate tools now handled in one platform

6 months

To scale from pilot courses to full team-wide use

Early Wins That Built Momentum

Always looking for ways to cut down repetitive admin, the team’s first target was something simple: document upload. It replaced a steady stream of individual emails with a single step for staff and students alike, and meant far less printing and scanning of paperwork, with compliance documents now stored and secured digitally rather than filed away in paper folders. Looking for ways to simplify further, they also retired the separate tools coordinators had leaned on for years.

“Document upload was our quick, easy win. Instead of a thousand emails, students upload it and it’s there. We didn’t have to have multiple programs anymore, like Outlook, Excel and a folder explorer. We’re effectively performing all those same functions in the one program now.”

Edy Lindrea – Industry Placement Coordinator, Bendigo Kangan Institute

Turning Early Success Into Everyday Use

Never satisfied with just the quick wins, the team leaned in over the next six months, building on those simple early results to the point where InPlace became intuitive across the board.

“Once you have that aha moment and something clicks, you can see how efficient and easy it’s going to make your life.”

Bronte Pollard – Industry Placement Coordinator, Bendigo Kangan Institute

That momentum carried into consistency across the team. What began as encouragement to use InPlace is now the team’s standard way of working, with all new placement data entered directly into InPlace rather than tracked separately in spreadsheets, backed by ongoing training and one-on-one support.

One Thing That Helped: Having Someone to Compare Notes With

Asked what made the process easier, Bronte and Edy pointed to something simple: working through it alongside a colleague rather than alone.

“Have more than one person leading the implementation and being a subject matter expert. It helps to have a second person to bounce ideas off and work through solutions together.”

Edy Lindrea – Industry Placement Coordinator, Bendigo Kangan Institute

It’s a suggestion rather than a formal structure, but one they’d pass on to any team setting up InPlace: having someone to test ideas with and talk through solutions made the whole process feel more manageable.

What's Different Now

Still looking for ways to get more out of the system, the team has found less time spent on repetitive admin, a central point of truth for documents and communication, and a smoother connection with PlaceRight for health courses. Bronte describes that PlaceRight data transfer as close to seamless, cutting out a manual data-entry step that used to eat up time on every health placement.

“It’s a central point of truth. Everything is located in InPlace, so there’s been a huge reduction in email traffic and phone calls. I like the way Query Tool lets me tell it exactly what I want and how I want it ordered. Most things are achievable in a report.”

Edy Lindrea – Industry Placement Coordinator, Bendigo Kangan Institute

30%+

Estimated reduction in Admin time

Coordinators estimate spending at least a third less time on administrative tasks than before InPlace.

Automatic

Data Synchronisation

A student’s information flows through automatically once a placement is confirmed, with no manual re-entry needed.

Query Tool in particular has given coordinators a way to build their own reports, without relying on spreadsheet formulas or IT support.

The team is candid that they’re still finding new ways to get more out of InPlace across the wider group, a sign of how much they enjoy working out a better way to do things rather than settling once something works.

Suggestions for Other TAFEs

Involve a Second Subject Matter Expert

Having someone to test ideas against and talk through solutions made the process easier for Bronte and Edy, and it’s something they’d suggest to any team setting up InPlace.

Give It Dedicated Time

Bronte and Edy suggest two to three days a week for the first three months as a realistic starting point.

Use the Sandbox Early

Testing configurations in a safe environment built the confidence to keep expanding use with each new course.

Give Adoption Time to Compound

The value of InPlace builds the more the team uses it. Giving the rollout around six months to take hold across the whole team is what unlocks the full benefit.

“Be open-minded about the system. There’s more than one way to skin a cat in InPlace. You can get the same outcome by going about it ten different ways, so find what suits you.”

Edy Lindrea – Industry Placement Coordinator, Bendigo Kangan Institute

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