Building Next Generation Education Institution with Microsoft Apps

One vertical which will continue to grow as time passes with most modern technologies and facilities is the education sector. Whether physical classroom sessions or online education, the fee payment for the same and related activities are to be carried out. To do this, a very systematic process is required, starting from investing in a strong human capital to a proper Supply Chain management system as it involves a variety of items even involving import.

This process has come a long way from a 10ft X 10ft room where 2 to 3 staff do these operations, as the facilities offered to students are changing which results in a shift in the Finance management aspect of educational institutions. Not only that, due to the increase in enrolments, an ERP became a possible option for them.

As you all agree, one of the main challenges for them is the low conversion rate from applicant to student. However, they need to record all the relevant information for an applicant and much more when he or she becomes a student. The data that registration department requires is very different from the data that finance department requires. There are quite a few leading softwares which handle all registration and student related information like class and timetables. In most cases both departments will have to update their own systems separately and that too manually. Another issue is the Term wise fee generation based on the facilities each student subscribed to and the fee deduction policies based on various conditions and the distribution of the revenue across the academic period. The payment of the fee may not be for 1 student but for 2 or 3 students paid by the same parents and parents expect a faster service.

Another issue is the item requisitions from teachers who have no idea about the stores structure. Most of these educational resources cannot be compromised and the teachers would be very specific and the count of teachers will be too many. This means additional investment in licenses just for requesting for these items. In such situations our IP solution will handle this through Microsoft Power platform.

The major cost of operation in any educational institute is from the human resource. Recruitment of the staff itself is very complex as most of the resources are to be hired from those countries based on the curriculum the school is providing. In most of the institutions teachers' accommodation and related maintenance activities are to be provided by the management itself. So, these requests are also to be addressed by ERP. Then the performance appraisal for teachers are different from the standard cycle for which there are many applications available in the market. However, they need to be integrated with payroll calculation from Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Having implemented the integrated solutions to take care of the requirements from various departments, we at Intertec have solutions for:

• Integration with major registration applications including the applicant details

• Mass Generation of invoices per school/class

• Combined payment by parent or by student

• Material requisition Apps

• Customized recruitment process

• Integrated solution for service request ana maintenance

This will enable the customer to have a database with accurate data and without repeated data entry. This can be analyzed with the Power BI plugin. As the competition reached a different level these techniques will have to be applied to understand the market condition and will help decision making to a great extent.

About the Author:

Jalaja Prakash, Project Manager at Intertec Systems has 20+ years of experience with various Microsoft ERP solutions and has implemented these solutions across verticals.

Jalaja has worked closely with major hospitality groups and educational institutes across the Middle East.