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Tag: Best Student Information System

5 things to keep in mind while buying a SIS

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the functioning of educational institutions worldwide. To continue the pace of learning and teaching, institutions have adopted various technologies like LMS, ERP, SIS, and various others.

There are various complications that institutions have faced while going digital during the pandemic, the academic and administrative tasks were affected and so were the learning and teaching methods. Institutions that have opted for Student Information System got the opportunity to manage and run everything smoothly & effectively. With the increasing times, institutions must adopt SIS to have better and more focused management in the institution having the best SIS. So, let’s discuss things to keep in mind while buying an SIS. 

Things to keep in mind while buying an SIS

A student information system is one of the most important and helpful technologies for modern educational institutions. Becoming the core of institutions, it can manage all the academic and administrative operations focusing on complete automation and digital transformation of institutions, but with the increasing technology usage, innovation, and automation, institutions must keep some necessary things in mind. Let’s discuss some of them.

  • Top functionalities and feature-rich SIS Software 

This is one top-most thing that you need to look for in a Student Information System, it should have all the fundamental functionalities for Universities, colleges, and schools. It is necessary to check the major features such as the efficiency of portals, mobile apps, and other technology tools provided. It should also need to be feature-rich in all senses leading to overall growth and opportunities for the institution.  

  • Flexible and adaptable (Configurability)

Institutions need to opt for Student Information Student (SIS) that provides huge scalability leading to adaptability. It should provide easy customization according to the needs of the institutions. It avails scheduling of students’ performance, standards-based grading requirements, and complete modification of the user interface. Institutions need to be able to create and consolidate any type of screen, page, and field in single or multiple groups of institutions to collect any type of data and information easily. 

  • Interoperability 

Interoperability for educational institutions is one of the important factors that allow the exchange and use of information systematically providing synchronization of all parts. It is considered as a component that attempts and addresses all the needs of institutions such as duplicate information in different areas and systems resulting in cooperation, development, integration, and the rendering of all the academic and administrative operations easily and efficiently. So the SIS you choose must need to have high scaling capabilities related to interoperability. 

  • Improved security & support 

Buying a cloud-based technology like ERP/SIS for your institution directly helps in keeping the system safe and managing your data security along with providing continuous support for all the tasks. An SIS having the right security mechanisms, and support customizations can help in improving on-premises and online academic and administrative support for institutions. 

A robust and securely improved SIS provides complete tech support to encourage overall growth in the institution. 

  • Business intelligence

Every organization needs business intelligence, whether it is a small business venture, a hospital, a small shop, or an educational institution. The institutions must opt for technology that helps acquire all the business intelligence from systematic academic and administrative management and cost-saving leading to high ROI, growth, and opportunities. In this technological world, automation and digital transformation of the institution can be considered as a good start for initiating business intelligence. So, it becomes important that you must choose an SIS that can lead to complete business intelligence in the best ways. 

  • Workflow coordination 

There are multiple departments in the institution, including various operations from admission, enrollment, assessments, examination, results, and a lot of others. Having manual intervention institutional management often faces a lack of workflow coordination that can be erased by having a Student Information System. A feature-rich and flexible student information system can help create efficient workflow coordination among internal and external departments of the institution. 

Hope you got to understand how a good, flexible, and efficient ERP system is important for your institution. There are various ERP vendors available but it is a bit difficult to find a good one that can help in accomplishing the above-discussed objectives. Academia is one of the best, leading, and cutting-edge student information systems that are focused to bring automation in every single operation of the institution. 

What’s Next! 

So, what are your opinions about buying a student information system, what are the features that you must think can be in your system? Let’s discuss it now! Contact us now or Request Demo!

Download Exclusive Gartner Reports Brought to You by Serosoft (Academia):

When to replace or renovate your student information system (SIS)?

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

The educational ecosystem is on the path of change for various years, and year by year institutions focus to adopt changes in technology that can lead to growth and success of the organization, Student Information System (SIS) is one of the most common technological changes that institutions are focusing to adopt from last few decades, but it is important to check that the SIS you are using is supporting your institution to drive changes along with providing you to deliver modern, innovative technology services being the best student information system for higher education.

Let’s discuss how you can evaluate your current SIS and is it the correct time for you to update or renovate your current SIS software attributing the latest research report by Gartner for “Deciding to Replace or Renovate Your Student Information System With the Fitness Attribute Framework”.

Important things to consider while checking the fitness of your current SIS:

1. Evaluating the capabilities

There are various SIS vendors out there who are providing the same outdated technology for SIS that is restricting the ability to deliver new and modernized services. It is also not wrong to say that most the institutions are using the same SIS without any upgrade for many years leading to restricted growth and advancements in the institutions. 

According to Gartner’s latest research report, it is important to assess the fitness of the institution’s SIS by evaluating its capabilities to function, enable, differentiate, and transform the institution. 

It is important to evaluate the fitness of your SIS based on its:

  • Function

The SIS software in your institute must provide the best and most modern functionalities in maintaining the routine operational expectations, performance, uptime, architectural sustainability, routine maintenance, and skillset availability. It should lead your institutional work in a more fast and actionable way along with a touch of modernization and technological trends leading to the overall growth of your organization.

  • Enablement

A modern SIS includes a lot of advanced features and not just administrative operations. It should meet business unit requirements being responsible for workflow changes and education-specific functionalities for financial aid regulation, satisfactory academic progress, common core application, international visa regulations, tax reporting, and legislative mandates.

  • Differentiation

In today’s modern world, it is most important for educational institutions to opt for change that supports the deployment of unique processes along with the capacity to provide a competitive advantage. Let’s say, in the current situation it is important for institutions to use BI and analytics leading to competitive growth in every way. 

  • Transformation

Modern ERP or SIS software works to automate complete processes of all the tasks in an institution that leads to digital transformation focused on aspects like automation, artificial intelligence, digital relationships, personalized interactions, and ecosystem partnering. So the SIS you choose must lead to complete digital transformation along with all the above aspects.


2. Cost quantifying 

Cost is one of the primary elements of the SIS fitness framework if you are thinking of replacing or upgrading your current SIS software, it is necessary to compare and evaluate the costing involved. 

You can especially compare costs and expenses that you will need to spend on upgrading your SIS versus the expenses you were doing with your current SIS. 

It is important to note that if you are using outdated SIS software, it will include various expenses to meet the current criteria of the technological world, and on the other hand an advanced SIS solution will save most of your institution’s cost providing complete automation of all the processes along with easy access from just one click providing everything efficiently and effectively. 

So take your decision wisely choosing an SIS software that helps you in saving cost-effectively.

3. Develop an SIS modernization plan

This pandemic has taught us to opt for technologies that can ease our work effectively, so the impact of this has created a perception for institutions to evaluate the workings of their current SIS and if it is not meeting their expectation criteria it is better to replace and renovate it as the institutions who are not opting modernization are at risk of being left being in the digital business environment, isn’t it true?

So hope you have got the things that you need to consider while evaluating and checking your SIS fitness. Now let’s discuss the advantages of using the best student information system in higher education institutions.

Advantages of using the best and updated student information system in higher education institutions:

  • Complete automation having multiple data backups

Different and modernized from the traditional student information system, an upgraded SIS automatically updates all the data from time to time. With regular and automatic security updates there are very few chances of the student information system getting hacked by anyone leading to complete data security. With all this, it also initiates multiple automatic backups of all the information stored providing the satisfaction of complete data security in any manner. 

  • Increased productivity

A technology updated student information system increases the productivity of institutions, it eases out every task providing access to everything with just a few clicks, it manages all the tasks like admission, library management, course selection, hostel management, transportation, all other hundreds of tasks. So having easy access to everything the staff and faculties get the opportunity to use the time and energy in greater productivity and growth of the students and ultimately of the institution. 

  • Fosters efficiency 

With the best student information system for higher education, the complete operations of an educational institution get automated. Various things like manpower, time, resources, and paper works, get reduced from every perspective. Meanwhile, these things can be used for better processes driving students’ progress and outcomes. Simply, we can say that a technology-upgraded student information system fosters efficiency making everything simple, efficient, and worthwhile. 

  • Comprehensive management 

In an institution, there are various things to manage for every student, so it becomes messy for administrators to manage all the operations of hundreds of students like student registration, attendance, examination, results, and so on. So to ease out all these operations they choose SIS but imagine a scenario where you have opted for an SIS and it is becoming more tricky to manage tasks, the management of all the things will go adverse. So you must choose the best student information system for higher education that is technology updated and can help to automate all the processes with ease, and if you can find one such; then in simple words you can attain comprehensive management of your institution in the best and most effective ways. Just think- isn’t it satisfactory?

Is it the correct time to update or upgrade your current SIS?

So what do you think of the above? Do you think it is the correct time to update your student information system (SIS)? You can also check Gartner’s latest research report that can help you in deciding to replace or renovate your student information system with the fitness attribute framework. Its ideology will help you understand things that you need to keep in mind while analyzing and evaluating the results of SIS software available in your institution. 

Download Gartner’s latest report now!

Wrapping up 

Hope you find this blog relevant and if you think that you need an advanced, modernized, efficient, and the best student information system for higher education, you must check with Academia. It is one of the best SIS solutions having all the latest functionalities that must be there in your institution. We will feel obliged to provide you with a free demo of the system, just reach out to us and our team of experts will be there to manage it for you. 

Download Exclusive Gartner Reports Brought to You by Serosoft (Academia):

Top 4 Features of Academia Student Information System that Educators Like

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

For modern educational institutions, it is important to adopt technologies like student information systems, whether a university, college, school, or training institution, a student information system can be a good choice for maintaining any day-to-day tasks. 

Academia by Serosoft is an award-winning Student Information Management System that is benefitting 300+ institutions around the world, providing and powering education leaders to bring a better, faster, efficient, and productive education system to the institution. 

To enhance the experience of our clients, we have extracted the most used and favorite modules that are providing enormous benefits to education institutions. 

Here are a few of the Academia SIS modules that they like the most:

1. Online Admission Management

Admission season is one of the most important sessions of any educational institution, it needs to be effective and efficient in any sense. It involves various tasks from admission inquiry, form sales, and student registration, to the enrollment process. 

The Academia admission management system provides a systematic approach to solving all these problems. It manages the complete admission process simply, effectively, and efficiently. 

Benefits of using an Academia admission management system:

  • Manage Admission Inquiry Online

Admission starts with the most prominent step called pre-admission, pre-admission involves inquiry and ends with admission. So having a proper and effective management system like Academia for the complete admission process helps in resolving the query of applicants following the next steps for admissions. 

  • Easy payment processing

The Academia admission management system provides all the processes of fee, registration, fee, enrollment, etc. It provides seamless management of all the records, without any human error. Admission management system using Academia helps in streamlining easy payment processing making it less time-consuming and efficient. 

  • Applicant Status Setting

It is also one of the prominent steps as after applying for admission, students and their parents get eager to check the application status. 

They have to call or even come to the institution over and over for updates, which sometimes becomes so inconvenient. 

The Academia management system provides features by which applicants can check their application status. Academia applicant portal exclusively can be used to check status, upload and download documents, applications, fee payments, and all other things. 

  • Improved Communication

Communication is the key to effective management in the organization and sometimes having mouth-to-mouth communication in manual intervention creates gaps, chaos, and confusion. Academia admission management system helps in all-around communication by having facilities like chatbots and various other communication functionalities that help in improving communication between applicants and institutions. 

  • Uniformity in admission across multiple academies

Various educational institutions own multiple academies. So having multiple academies, it becomes difficult to manage all the processes of admissions effectively. Academia owns the capability of managing several institutions simultaneously providing all the processes related to admission like inquiries, payments, bills, etc. through a single system efficiently and effectively.

2. Report management with Smart Analytics

Educational institutions usually have endless paperwork, reporting, documentation, etc. There is no way to stop it, but there is a way to manage it. With the digitization of academic processes, it becomes way more comfortable and time-saving to generate reports and keep track of every document whenever and wherever needed. 

Academia SIS enables educators to organize that reporting system seamlessly. The integration of the smart analytics system assists staff to generate reports within a few clicks. As it is a centralized student database system, it becomes super convenient to use some filters, gather data from other departments, and generate reports within seconds—no need to do data entry for hours. The reporting system of Academia is available in different charts & bar graphs, which helps education leaders analyze and thereby faster decision making.

Benefits of analytics and reporting for educational institutions:

  • Understanding and recognizing the demographics and behavior

Using advanced analytics, education institutions can seek transformation along with having an understanding of constant demographic trends and behavior in pursuing administrative services and managing effective and efficient institutional management. 

  • Optimizing the use of resources

By implementing an analytics and reporting engine you can optimize and achieve your desired targets in a better way. Institutions choose to adopt a well-designed and systematic approach through an analytical system that can capture, manage, share, and store any information easily along with solving and de-escalating any problem effectively. 

  • Recruitment of students

Higher education institutions, colleges, schools, or even any educational institution often face various complications following various modes. Having proper analytics and reporting, it can become easier to recruit students in a systematic manner. 

  • Helping the students to learn things more properly

Educational institutions that choose Academia get effective, proper, systematic, learning to the students, as having the power of modern educational systems enables faculties to get more insights related to the student’s performance along with having the opportunity to grab and learn. It gives them a chance to learn according to their pace and convenience, with courses, and facilities remaining one click away. 

  • Creating data transparency

In educational institutions, there are various operations that can be mismanaged by having manual interventions. Having a systematic analytical process, Academia provides the opportunity to access anything at any time creating data transparency for faculty members, students, and management. 

With data transparency through analytics, institutions can be able to take a snapshot of how students are engaged and how well they are performing, the management can also check the efficiency of faculty members and how excellent teaching and learning are. Using advanced analytics, institutions can maintain a clear and clarified data transparency.

3. Interoperability with multiple software solutions

Interoperability is an understanding of the software to work with other software programs now or in the future. It is useful in when

  • It is not possible to configure everything in one software.
  • A customer wants to use previous software with which they are familiar.
  • A customer wants some functionality that is not available in the current version.

Then, with the interoperability feature, vendors can integrate other software and fulfill customers’ needs.

Academia offers multiple integrations with software like Moodle (Learning Management System), KOHA (Library Management System), Alfresco (Document Management System), Tally (Accounting Software), etc. Moreover, it is entirely compatible with other software as per the requirements of customers. 

Benefits of using Academia Interoperability include:

  • Adaptability

Adaptability is one of the best advantages of interoperability, various systems take in information, and connect and distribute that information automatically and flexibly. 

  • Data Cohesion

Academia promotes interoperability features that have a proper and systematic arrangement of all the information that is managed effectively and controlled by all parties. 

  • Increased Growth

It is one of the most important benefits of using interoperability, it provides all availability of information associated with the value chain. Using faculty members and students they get the opportunity to operate cohesively along with managing academic and administrative processes ensuring all the information is available and accessible to all the students.

4. Inquiry management with Academia AI Chatbot

What if you could save the staff time from handling 24X7 hr questions from prospective students?What if it is not limited to only the working hours of your institute? Wouldn’t that be more productive?

All this and much more are possible with Academia AI Chatbot. Academia chatbot works on your institute’s website where students can ask whatever they want related to admissions, courses, etc. This chatbot will answer all the queries of students and save them in an excel sheet where you can keep track of it to take follow-up in the future. 

Benefits of using Academia Chatbot include:

  • Instant Action 

The Academia chatbot is responsible for instants actions on any of the queries that should be raised by anyone. It firstly provides an automated response to the queries along with providing a notification to the authorized person or committee about that questions or query to solve them immediately. 

  • Quick Response 

It is also one of the coolest features of Academia Chatbot as it provides a quick response to the queries providing a solution to the student, faculty, or any other associated person. 

  • Easy to use

It is easy to use and configurable as it can be seen on the website homepage having a simple box to write any of the messages or queries for the student, faculty, or any other inquiry-associated person.  

  • User Friendly 

As it may be understood now, the Academia chatbot is absolutely user-friendly and doesn’t need much effort, and can be used easily and conveniently. 

Bonus, 5th Feature:

5.  Academia-Whatsapp Integration:

Academia Educational ERP Software comes mobile-ready with Android and iOS apps. Following the addition of the ‘SERA’ voice assistant to our app, we now offer Academia-WhatsApp integration to keep stakeholders (students and parents) informed.

Conclusion 

Want to know what are the other modules of Academia ERP/SIS? You might find your favorite as well. Download our brochure or talk to our expert to learn the complete working experience of these modules. Book your free demo now!

Academia by Serosoft Features in Gartner’s Market Guide For K12 Student Information Systems

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

After being featured in Gartner’s Market Guide for Higher Education Student Information System, we are thrilled to get featured in Gartner’s research in their report, Market Guide for K12 Student Information System, published on 2nd April 2020. 

As the adoption of digital transformation is increasing in educational institutions, being included as a key representative vendor of the Student Information System is surely a validation of Academia being one of the driving forces for creating changes in the education eco-system.

According to Gartner’s report, “K-12 education organizations continue to bring new requirements and expectations to this category. With such a long-term investment, K-12 CIOs and education leaders will want to understand the SIS marketplace and how it might influence future planning.” Institutions are migrating to SaaS-based solutions, which virtually every SIS vendor is offering now. It has been the impetus for many K12 institutions to shift to automation and move out of the conventional method of institute management.

The report also mentions that Student Information Systems digitizes administrative processes and streamlines many day-to-day tasks such as online enrollment, curriculum management, etc. Due to the interoperability standards that SIS software offers, institutions are relying heavily on automation for data resources.

The key features of Academia SIS:

  • Student data information
  • Registration and enrollment
  • Online registration 
  • Attendance
  • Calendar management
  • Grades and transcripts
  • Fee management
  • Health and medical records
  • Teacher portal
  • Parent and student portals 
  • Applicant portal
  • Administrator portal 
  • Standard and ad hoc reporting 
  • Data Analytics
  • Mobile app 

“We are thrilled to be recognized by Gartner as a key representative vendor of the K12 student information system. It’s overwhelming for us to be a part of the Gartner report for the second time in a row after being featured for Higher Education SIS last year. This places us among the top vendors in the world in the School Management System category. We are perhaps the only company from India to be on this list. Cheers to all the hard work put in by all of us, Serosofters!” CEO & MD Serosoft Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

About Gartner

Gartner, Inc. is a global research and advisory firm providing information, advice, and tools for businesses in IT, finance, HR, customer service and support, legal and compliance, marketing, sales, and supply chain functions. Its headquarters are in Stamford, Connecticut, United States. 

Founded in 1979, Gartner is the world’s leading research and advisory company and a member of the S&P 500. With over 100 offices globally, it provides business leaders with vital advice, research, and tools to achieve their vision to build the thriving institutions of tomorrow.

Gartner Market Guides help organizations understand the digital market, trends, and the significant attributes that impact it. It helps chief officers and authorities observe which vendors have a good track record and which service providers can be trusted so that they can make informed investments in the right solution at the right time.

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