When customers compete for a small number of available items, how does a company fairly select the customers to receive the highly coveted items? Such was the case at the University of Alabama, and Blackboard (News - Alert), maker of mobile learning services and other educational products, had a solution.

Football tickets are the most coveted item on campus and 28,000 students compete for 15,000 reserved seats in the student section of the stadium. The university wanted to be sure they could not only serve students promptly and fairly, they also wanted to reduce lines and wait times.

The biggest challenge was to implement the necessary logistics to distribute football tickets to 15,000 students fairly and efficiently. Before the 2008 season, the Athletic Department simply distributed paper tickets to students for all home games, presenting specific challenges.

At the same time, expediting student traffic into the stadium was difficult as students not only had to present their paper tickets, they also had to swipe an Action card. Students not attending games often sold their tickets to non-students.

To address these issues, the University of Alabama sought to create a program that students would easily adopt and turned to Blackboard and its Transact system. Students were already familiar with the system and it presented a solution that was stable and reliable. The ticket application was customized using Blackboard’s Commerce Management capabilities to develop the My Football Ticket system.

Once in place, the new system enabled students to have secure online self-service access to verify ticket balances, transfer tickets, donate to a ticket pool or request from the ticket pool if they did not have tickets. Everything was on a game-by-game basis and transaction receipts were e-mailed and the stadium entrance process was streamlined.

As a result of the integration of the Blackboard Transact and Connect platforms, the game day process is much more efficient. More students attend games and are happier with the process. Since the 2008 implementation, there have been more than 308,000 system hits and 18,000 tickets donated to other students electronically.

Even with the new system in place, the university still needed a way to contact students who could receive a donated ticket. Administrators integrated the use of existing Blackboard Connect services to facilitate outreach regarding available tickets. Lucky students not only receive an e-mail, they also get a phone call.

“With My Football Ticket—and the Blackboard platforms— we’ve met student expectations, streamlined processes, enhanced self-service options, and the Connect product allows us to reach so many more people,” said Jeanine Brooks, director, Action Card, University of Alabama.