Buying a school management software? Here are 5 things to consider

Purchasing an education software is a major decision for any school organisation that must play between the usefulness and necessity of software that cater to established and associated business practices. While managing budgets, operational efficiency and the value delivery from the school management software, a school must bring things to order for all its academic and administrative tasks.

No decision maker ever purchases anything without analysing the features and benefits of a software system; but when the market becomes saturated with vendors selling software suites with similar features decision-makers must consider the differentiators associated with the product that delivers in the longer run.

1. After sales service: A school software vendor can be helpful in the longer run for the organization only if it provides the required support on infrastructure and services. Training back-end staff, users and admins about how best to derive value out of the newly implemented software through its processes, roles, workflows, etc. is a must. Secure archival of past information and its easy accessibility over web browsers or mobile applications is another pointer that must give mileage to your purchase decision.

2. Customizable and scalable: The school management system must be customization to the future needs of its users. If a certain school wants to configure their own administrative rules for a given process through a workflow differently than the default setting, they should easily be able to do it without bringing any code-level changes to the software system. Also, with any expected increase in the user base of the software, the need to bring in scalability to handle greater incoming volumes and archiving past data also needs to be present.

3. Mobile access: Making decisions on the move is no longer a good-to-have functionality. With the increase in mobile workforce, and people working from not just their office spaces but literally anywhere, mobile access to a school management software system brings in an unparalleled level of usability freedom to the workforce. Students may access the mobile application of the school software to make online assignment submissions. They may also utilise the mobility feature for accessing other critical information related to their curriculum or otherwise. Same is true for the teaching, administrative and ancillary staff - they do not need to be present near their desktop or laptops to grant approvals for urgent matters or simply avoid being a bottleneck.

4. Quick and easy to implement: The longer a software takes to get implemented in the organisation, the greater is its cost. A best-in-breed school management software system like Eduwonka takes lesser time to get aligned with the institute’s already present IT eco-system, depending upon the scalability of the implementation. Make sure the school management software you select for your institution has prior delivery experience.

5. Safety and compliance: The buzz around data security is real. The average cost for each lost record rose from $141 to $148 in USA in 2018, according to an IBM study. Safety of student data is as important as data from any other segment. Finance and healthcare data may have an edge when it comes to criticality, however, the need for educational data protection and putting it under proper frameworks for its safe and effective usage should never be disregarded. Laws like FERPA & COPPA, combined with other state specific laws in USA and GDPR in EU issue specific guidelines for providing parental consent, access controls, data re-usability permissions for all the educational data under its purview.

While zeroing down on any school management software vendor, the institute must ensure that the incumbent player contributes positively towards the culture of data protection responsibility, compliance and operational efficiency through all its admin and academic functions and processes.