Page 67 - EducationWorld Oct 2021

EW SPOTLIGHT FEATURE

Life Journey of School

Management Software

he concept of school management behind why schools are unable to implement
software or a school ERP was there such powerful pieces of technology.
Tfor years. However, what has changed After building SchoolPad’s online school
for the better is its deployment from offline to management software in 2013 and working Abhiraj
CEO & Co-Founder
online. on the pilot version with a handful of schools,
School management software started as the first thing we did to address this problem
an offline software. These were installed was to set up a team of expert coaches who It isn’t necessary that you have all of them
on computers/ laptops and used by only a worked closely with schools to help them ready at this point, but the ones used regularly
handful of people in the daily routine of school implement SchoolPad. should be implemented first. For example, on
operation. A data entry operator would use it They didn’t just extend their support but the 1st of every month, your school prints and
for maintaining daily records, or a front desk nurtured them into advanced users. And that shares a fee bill with parents in a particular
staff member would use it for routine work, nurturing is what we figured out was the real format along with the payment details, so that
or it would help manage students’ records. answer to this problem. they can make their fee payments in time.
Someone from the accounts team would Implementation of school management If they don’t do it by the 10th of the month,
take its help for maintaining fee entries and software across different departments of a they have to pay a fine of Rs. 10 per day as
generating reports. Marks entries would school is a journey but starting the journey mentioned on the fee bill.
be done by a data entry operator/computer right is one of the most essential activities Roles and accessibility permissions
teacher to create report cards and print them required by schools to get the implementation Once you’ve picked up the right software
out. That was more or less it. going in the right direction. and started implementing it with a process
The offline school management software document, this becomes the most crucial step.
was a big hit as it helped schools manage Triggers for adopting school management I see this missing in most school management
their internal management tasks more software software implementations. After creating
efficiently and accurately. This is one of the most fundamental the process document, it is also essential to
However, with the passage of time, the steps that set up the stage for successful mention the people involved at each step of
school management software has matured implementation of your school management the process and their work. With this, schools
from offline, on-premise software to online software. You might require school can easily map these staff members on the
school management software. management software for everything that it software, giving them access to the features
Teachers, students, parents and other has to offer, but think about it a little deeper; they have to work on to accomplish their work.
staff members across different departments there must be a handful of requirements or Health checkups and monitoring
have access to the software, and they could triggers that pushed you to decide on going Once all of the above steps are in place
use it to manage their work from anywhere ahead and implementing school management and the implementation has started, the only
and at any given time. The combination of software for your school. Make a note of these way you can validate the success of your
communication- collaboration-features and and keep them handy. implementation and ensure that it is helping
powerful-internal- management-features Evaluating the software against the your school and the associated staff members
made it a perfect platform for schools to keep triggers achieve their desired outcomes is through
up with the times. Once you have your triggers documented, regular monitoring. Make sure you generate
Its capability to connect all stakeholders try to validate them during your shortlisting specific, actionable reports and make people
and keep them involved and informed made process by actually simulating them on the responsible for monitoring these reports to
it a superpower for the schools. This matured software or ask the software team to simulate check the usage insights and correctness of
and seasoned school management software it for you during the evaluation process. It isn’t the data. Keep this practice going till the time
is what we see and use today in our schools. necessary to try them all but maybe a few or you see stability in the usage patterns and the
Though the school management softwares just a couple of them. For example: one of desired outcomes being achieved regularly.
have gained traction with the schools but your triggers is that you need to take your fee No short term investment
unfortunately, many schools that invest in payment option online so that parents can School management software is not a
this superpower are not able to use it well or pay their fee online as a lot of them have been short term investment. It works like fuel for
do not use it at all. They keep it as a regular asking for it. Validate this and see it in action your engine of systems running inside the
‘software’ to add to the portfolio of technology during your shortlisting process. school, which are responsible for running your
tools used by the school. Processes & Systems school and helping it grow. Spending time
Right implementation Once you have shortlisted your school and making a conscious effort will help you
Involved in the school management management software and are ready to start implement and run your school management
software space for the past decade ten years, with the implementation, make sure you have software and make it a superpower for your
I’ve always been curious to find the reasons a document of your processes and systems. school’s growth.

EDUCATIONWORLD OCTOBER 2021