Today many schools, academies and educational institutions still use manual and paper means for educational and administrative management and for daily operations. The experience accumulated over years of work allows them to efficiently manage the school even if, thanks perhaps to the increase in enrollments and new user expectations, the expenditure of time, energy and resources required is always greater.
In fact, there are many challenges that a school faces every day: planning the course calendar, registering attendance and absences, moving lessons or replacements, communications to teachers and members, collecting payments, are just some activities that can be very demanding, as well as at risk of error. Not to mention the “hot” periods such as the beginning of the new academic year, where you have to deal with a large number of course enrollments, perhaps managed in a personalized way for each student.
Precisely for this reason, the use of a school management software that increases efficiency, reducing time spent and efforts has become important.And the benefits will not only be of an organizational and operational nature: a computer system dedicated to the school can also become a showcase to the outside and an important means for communication and sharing of the institute’s activities and initiatives.
Here is a list of the main reasons why each school should have a computerized management system:
Accessibility and security: A cloud management software for schools allows all users to connect at any time, from any place and from any device connected to the internet. In this way, the administration and secretariat will have the opportunity to consult and operate from home or in any case when they are not at the institution. The teachers can at any time check the time of their lessons, even from smartphones, and record attendances in real time even if they are in remote locations. Enrolled and responsible tutors (for example students’ parents) will always have the agenda and the history of the lessons, the payment status and will be able to receive instant communications from the school secretary, for example about the next lessons or events and initiatives.
But the fact that the software is delivered “in the cloud”, therefore through the Internet, also brings with it advantages in terms of security and reliability. Unlike the programs that are installed on the PC or even on dedicated hardware located at the school, a cloud system is hosted in equipped structures (Data Center) where all the resources necessary to guarantee the continuity of service (e.g. internet band, energy electricity, human resources) are guaranteed and abundant. But above all, an advanced cloud system is programmed to make timed backups so that it is impossible to lose data, and even in the event of a failure, the service can be restored very quickly.
Finally, a cloud service is constantly maintained, assisted and updated and all these operations can be done at any time, in a completely transparent way for users who use the service.
Data archiving: Over the years, the amount of data available to school structures becomes increasingly large and it is always difficult to maintain a well-structured archive, so that data can be reused in a simple way. Without considering that these data will have to be copied to multiple places to avoid being lost just because a computer or hard disk fails. With a school cloud management system, the data entered over time will always be available to the administration, stored in a totally secure way. Not only that, the data are kept in a structured way so it will be possible to use them at any time, for example to check the history of members, to carry out comparative statistics between the teaching years, to manage and verify the relationships between users or to send communications and promotions.
Organizational efficiency: It is known that the management of the courses and classes of a school, especially at the beginning of the year, is a complex activity, which must take into account several factors: the availability of classrooms and teachers, the requests of the students, old and new. Stucking everything together can sometimes be difficult and can take a lot of time and energy; and it is here that a school management system can give great support both in the course creation and planning phase, and in enrollments. A web management system for the school allows you to plan courses in an assisted way, for example by checking that classrooms and teachers do not overlap and with the help of a clear and simple interface.
Even during the academic year, in the regular course of lessons, the school software allows for better organization, for example to move lessons, keep track of attendance, keep enrolled and tutors up to date through automated notifications and massive communications.
Administrative efficiency: But a school management system must also be equipped with all the administrative, financial and accounting aspects: only in this case can we speak of a real ERP system for the school. Through the software it will therefore be possible to associate the prices to the individual courses and manage the registration or membership fees. Cumulative offers and a price list of other goods and services may be defined, perhaps complementary to teaching.
A school administration software also has the payment schedule available (for example, student fees), and will automatically calculate the teachers’ fees based on their remuneration and the lessons actually held. Finally, you can generate and print (or send by email) receipts and invoices, keep the register of income and expenses and export tax data periodically.
Sharing and transparency: As we have also seen in a previous point, the cloud software for schools will have to have multi-level access (for example, teaching secretariat, administration etc …) and will give the opportunity to their teachers and members to connect in any moment at school. In this context, all the data entered (e.g. attendance or payments) will be available in real time by all users, who will be able to consult them as and when they want. A way of operating that brings with it two great benefits: first of all transparency, so that everyone will always have access to the information concerning him, decreasing (or avoiding precisely) those disputes and complaints often present in schools, perhaps regarding attendance on lessons held weeks before.
Second, but not least, the possibility of the school to share any type of event or initiative with all its users, proving to be a school in step with the times, and so on …
Increase involvement: exactly! Sharing information and experiences is the best way to engage people and retain them. A school closed in on itself that does not speak to people is a school that perhaps will not be very successful. For this reason, the management software must necessarily have all the precautions to improve the experience of its users, thus increasing their involvement and consequently that stimulus to speak well of the school they attend.
Statistics and reporting: The owners or directors of schools and training institutes know how important it is to understand the data and information that is acquired and archived over time. We could safely say that in this context they are completely similar to the managers of “normal” companies. Integrated data reading can be a very intelligent way to understand the progress of the school and the actions to be taken. For this the management software must have a section dedicated to statistics, which can also be extracted from the system, for example on Excel files. Who would not want to know, for example, the economic and educational differences compared to the previous academic year, the profitability (therefore considering all costs and revenues) of specific courses or even between departments and thematic areas? There are many questions that the “manager” of the school wants to know and to which the software must be able to answer.
Promotion and marketing: The school system must also ensure that all those actions and initiatives can be put in place to promote the school’s courses, spread the name and thus increase enrollments and sales.
We have already seen that the software must have an integrated management of the cumulative offers, valid tools to attract new members. Not only that, a section will be dedicated to the generation of promotions, such as limited time economic benefits, for brothers or friends who register together, or for students enrolled for many years.
But obviously, then a means is needed to convey these promotions, both to current students, and to those who have been enrolled in the past but also (and above all) to those who have never been enrolled in school.
And here an advanced software for school must act as a proper Web App which, in addition to all the operational advantages it brings, can be used to convey promotions, invite users to events as well as to share their school experience or communication received. The Web App can be used by anyone who wants to have more information about the school, the courses provided, the teachers present, offices and classrooms and all the contents that the school will want to publish in what can be considered the App of the schools. to all effects.
Customization and configurability: The school’s cloud management system will also have to be very flexible in covering the needs of each individual reality. In fact, each school, even in the same sector, has its own way of organizing, managing courses and managing administration. The management software must therefore have the possibility of being optimized according to the specific context and must therefore be equipped with a very rich configuration and settings panel, through which to activate, deactivate and customize the functions present in the system.
And when this is not enough, the system will have to have a staff behind it able to understand the needs of the school and quickly integrate the system so that it responds 100% to customer requests.
In addition, a very convenient feature in these cases is the management of the “custom fields”, so the school itself will have the possibility of attaching personalized information, for example to users’ personal data or courses. Finally, the possibility of extrapolating customized reports (for example pdf or Excel) from the system will allow the school to have considerable room for maneuver in cases where it should, for example, print personalized certificates for students or assignment letters for teachers, rather than extracting the information from the system according to certain formats that can be used for internal use or to meet specific requirements (for example, printing the members’ book of associations).
Support and advice: Lastly, as a last point but no less important than the others, the school software must have assistance (via chat, email or telephone) that will go to support the users of the system. Support that, in the initial start-up phase, is transformed to a certain extent into a real consultancy in order to arrive at an optimal system setup based on the school and its organization and workflows present.
If you are looking for an ERP cloud software for the school, academy, study center or educational institution, and you consider all the aspects covered in this article important, request a free consultation with dp.
dp provides cloud software development for school management where you can recognize all the points covered in this article.
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