Tips For Choosing The Right School Management Software

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Student Hostel Management Software This Online Hostel Management Software has been designed to automate and effectively manage the entire process of gaining admission to the hostel. … Then it allocates rooms to the registered students and also records their fee and other advance payment details.

School authorities all over the world are continuously engaged in numerous activities to efficiently manage school functions and provide a better educational experience to students.
However, managing school affairs is not at all easy in this fast growing world.
To better perform the functions of school management and assure parents of their child’s safety and progress, schools are using school management software nowadays.
This software boasts a variety of features that improve the overall administration of schools. Now, let’s have a look on the top 20 tips for highly effective school management software.

Below we have highlighted some best tips which you can use while selecting school management software:

1. Student Information
Attendance, homework, discipline, grades, and achievements! Almost all the information regarding the students can be accessed easily using efficient school management software.
Teachers can use the student database to avail basic information of students like grades, address, information regarding parents and siblings etc. In addition to this information, details regarding the students’ medical history, accounts, billing etc. are also added by the administration.
Smart cards for schools can be used as identity cards to access the details regarding a particular student when required. As simple as that!

2. Parent Access
Being part of your child’s school activities and stay connected with their academic progress can be a difficult thing in this busy world.
However, now it’s easy for parents to avail updates about their child’s academic activities through parent portals and school apps.
It helps parents to be with their child and teachers the whole day.
Benefits of Parent Portal
• Helps parents to actively participate in their children’s educational activities
• Provides up-to-date information regarding PTA meeting, grades, assignments etc.
• Provides great relief to teachers by providing students’ attendance report and progress cards to parents without any delay
• The feature of a direct line of communication to teachers helps students and parents to contact teachers in case of any doubts, questions, comments or suggestions

3. Teacher Information
Effective school management software not only helps in availing information regarding students but also provides information regarding teacher activities inside the school. It’s easy to view a particular teacher’s class schedule, file reports efficiently etc. Also teachers can use their database to keep the details regarding class timings, student progress and classroom activities in one place. Some of its advantages include:
• Teachers can log onto their database securely to access the records regarding school, classroom and student activities
• Classroom forms and reports can be filled quickly using the school management software where almost all information regarding the classroom and students are updated accordingly
• Teachers can easily notify parents about their student’s report once it is filed

4. Artificial Intelligence Integration
AI has slowly started to make its presence felt on our daily lives. In 2018, AI is has become part of many mainstream software. For effective school management software, one of the key areas with AI integration is School Bus Fleet Management.
With Integrated AI features such as Auto Routing, Auto Optimisation and Auto Allocation, managing school buses has become much easier than ever before. So, check out if the software of your choice offers any AI features.
AI is not a fancy term. It actually reduces your expense and makes a significant difference to safety and your ROI

5. Communication Facilities (Voice Messaging, E-mail, Chats, etc)
To a great extent, student success depends on the effectiveness of communication among parents, schools and teachers.
School management systems have Parent portal, which are capable enough to facilitate the communication process by sending text, voice messages and e-mails to a predefined set of parents and the whole school.
Thereby lessening the time invested by the school administrators in making phone calls or leaving messages to parents.
Another small but important feature of highly effective school management software is the facility to use templates that can be saved to communicate important days like teachers’ day, annual day, cultural day etc.

6. Attendance & Timetable Management
Attendance management is an important school administrative task and it requires teachers to spend a small chunk of time at the beginning of each class.
Sometimes, it is difficult for teachers to manage the whole process of taking attendance and recording them accurately.
Marking attendance in grids having small squares is very hard and errors can occur very easily.
But attendance management is no longer a burden with the Teacher App. Now, recording attendance of each student is just a click away. You can manage attendance of your students without any errors using online attendance pages and share the details with parents within a short time.
The teacher app also provides an effective way for teachers to mark their own attendance, check the timetable and apply for leaves from their smartphones.
Timetable management for schools become a much easier process with this feature.

7. Online Assessments and Assignments
While term examinations are still relevant, it is of much help to teachers and students to test and learn the knowledge each student has acquired continuously. Online assessments and assignments are therefore very important.
Teachers can provide individual assessments to each student looking at their level of knowledge if so required. Rubric-based assessments can be used by teachers for such purposes. So, this is an important feature for school management software to have.

8. Report Cards
A Report Card represents a student’s hard work throughout the year and it is the most anticipated thing in an academic year. However, both the teachers and the school administration find it a time-consuming responsibility.
School management software can help teachers and school authorities to streamline the process of generating report cards using an interactive database. With the already available information about a student’s class performance, attendance and exam results, the database completes the report card automatically.
Teachers can review this before finalizing and approving the report card and make it accessible to parents and students immediately.

9. Fee Tracking and Online Payment
Managing receipts and incoming payments, preparing bills, tracking several types of fees before applying them to the right student etc can be time-consuming and difficult without proper software to handle the functions.
A simple way to manage and deliver payments, charge fees and prepare bills is by using Smart Cards for payment system. It is easy and convenient to use.
Online billing helps schools to allow credit card payments and parents can pay their child’s school fees at home easily. This make the whole process of fee payment hassle-free for both parents and the school.

2. Parent Access
Avoid keeping bundles of files as you can save all the data in a system. This method can help you to access the data immediately if required. You can do this with effective school management software.
Such software is capable enough to manage the registration and admission process of both old and new students smoothly. This software can remove the difficulties caused by human errors and treats the new and old students differently based on the information provided.

11. Profile Management
School management system software efficiently performs profile management. It is one module of the system which is used to manage students, parents, staff and teachers. It captures information such as name and contact information of the users. Every user has unique login credentials to access.

12. Homework
With this module, daily classroom homework assignments become easily available to students 24 hours a day. It also contains the date when it was assigned and when it should be submitted. In addition to these, teachers can also modify homework assignments and projects as per the requirements.

13. Library Management
This module is an effective solution to make school library management simple and effective. It has features such as find, search, issue and return books. It supports bar code & scanning capability to automate your library. It also includes reports of library members, daily issue register and much more.

14. Transport Management
Any effective school management software will have the facility to manage school transportation effectively. With this, you can keep track of each student’s route change history. They also display information such as students who has opted for school transportation without routes assigned to them. It ensures student safety by making sure whether a student is present on the bus or not and later submits the report to their parents.

15. Use of Convenient Apps
As smartphones are daily drivers these days, it is a given that any school management software worth its salt should make use of apps. Smoothly performing apps with the right feature sets make lives easier for students, teachers, parents and support staff.
Some key apps that should be in School Management Software include Parent App, Teacher App, Transport Management App

These are some of the characteristics of highly effective school management software. So, what are your thoughts on the same? Please feel free to share them with us in the comment section.

Why RFID Attendance System in Schools & its Benefits?

Every day we all appreciate the benefits of RFID solutions even though many of us do not acknowledge their presence in different situations in our everyday life. We see it in shops, libraries, hospitals, amusement parks, airports, schools and any location where item / people movements are tracked to better serve customers. While RFID-related solutions have long been part of libraries, there is a sudden increase in student monitoring RFID applications as it improves the overall safety of students in schools and other areas where continuous adult supervision is required. RFID systems can produce huge data that can be analyzed to provide insights into decision-making.

Biometric attendance management

How RFID Attendance System works?

In a school environment, RFID can be applied to gain benefits for all participants–students, family, educators, and management. An RFID tag is issued to each student to wear. It can be in the form of an ID card and part of your uniform every day. Each RFID tag is preprogrammed in conjunction with the student’s unique user profile. The antennas will be placed in strategical locations like school gate, classroom doors, library, canteen, etc. Multiple antennas can be placed around the same location to increase accuracy and work as a standby to avoid the single point of failure.
The antennas will be connected via a well-planned network of power cables and communication cables to RFID readers and power source. RFID readers are then connected to a computer for the information and database to be stored and processed. This computer will be linked to the student information system such as Paatham by sending different warnings to the stakeholders. Ex: SMS alerts parents when they enter the main door, Mobile app alerts when they enter or leave a certain area.

Benefits of using RFID Attendance System in schools

Security & Safety

A well-developed RFID attendance system provides protection for students ‘ daily operations and health. As all the information about the student is registered and transmitted to the parents after the student enters the gate in the morning before leaving at night, there is less worry about the safety of the students. Since all the information are transmitted by SMS or mobile apps to parents, parents find peace of mind and can comfortably concentrate on their jobs.

Fast Communication

Without an automatic RFID solution, to communicate with the parents, each of the updates must be entered manually in the student information system. This job could be completed either end of the day or once every week, depending on the workload of teachers and admin staff. This is not beneficial to the parents as it is the same as how schools are pre-technology run. All location data is collected and automatically transmitted to the student information system with RFID solution. The same information will be provided to the parents on pre-set timing and logic, depending on the settings chosen by the student information system operator.

Better Discipline & Better Grades

It is observed and proven in case studies that a well-monitored school will have better discipline compared to schools without surveillance. This is not only because of the improved discipline of the kids, but also due to the improved discipline of various non-teaching staff in the school like security guards, bus drivers, maids etc.. When students are aware of the fact that the attendance is tracked live and communicated to parents instantaneously, this will avoid disciplinary issues. And better-disciplined students produce better grades and good citizens.

Other Places to Install and Benefit from RFID System in a School

Libraries

Apart from attending students, the RFID solution can be applied to improve everyone’s library experience. The books can be embedded for tracking and data analysis with RFID tags instead of barcode. It, in conjunction with student RFID tags, can create seamless experience in borrowing and returning library books without the need for library queues. Students may also check for the availability of any book in library management software or school management software. The RFID device will also provide comprehensive data on student and book movement within the library over a period of time to understand student behaviour. Where we can understand why certain actions of students enable them to become good readers and good students.

Restricted Areas

In most of the schools, there will be restricted areas where the students are not advised not to approach. This can be for privacy, security, and safety or to improve discipline. The entry to the restricted areas can be tracked and the warning can be issued immediately.

School Buses

Another recent trend is to implement an RFID system in school buses. This allows the tracking of students outside the school campus when they are on a school bus. This collects information about the stops where the kids on-boarded and de-boarded the bus. This also will be communicated to parents on a realtime basis through the student information system mobile apps or SMS.

Canteen

Similar to how a library is automated, a successful RFID system can be used to automate regular canteen operations. The pre-funded wallets incorporated with the student information system and the RFID solution will subtract transactions. This will save students and teachers a lot of valuable time.

Attendance System for Teachers and Non-Teaching Staff

While the RFID system is mainly used to track student attendance, the same system can be applied to track teachers and non-teaching staff attendance and movement without cost increases. The same components of hardware and software can be used to produce information on the performance and actions of teachers and non-teaching personnel on the school campus.

How is the school management system useful to the industry of education?

School management systems in the educational globe have become the recent cool quotient. Managing a school is complicated administration, authorities and many duties. Having school management software is essential for the smooth flow of school tasks. It is one of the modern, customized and integrated school management software. This basically makes work easier for everybody concerned with the management of the school. School management software is for classroom leadership, customized and embedded. This makes it simpler for everyone to work.

Paatham - The Learning App and School Management System

1. Keep the track of information– It is not easy for schools to maintain information pertaining to their students. But school management system makes it simpler for schools to maintain track of information such as attendance records, homework status, discipline maintenance, how well learners are doing, and what they are achieving within the boundaries of their schooling careers.

2. Access to parents– Parents are able to maintain and view the performance, progress and lack of areas of their child without physical meetings. This is what good online school management software facilitates. They always get the information they need to know, no matter how busy they are.

3. Information on teachers– The school management software is intended in such a manner that the class schedule of the teacher and the accounts that they are filing with higher effectiveness and ease can also be viewed. This database also contains data on the class schedules and timings of Teacher. Records and tracks down everything that the teachers are doing within the school.

4. Manage attendances– An important administrative task performed by a school is managing attendance. Teachers are entrusted with a tedious job of maintaining attendance records that generally cost a considerable quantity of time. No matter when it is done, precious time that could have been devoted to the class will always be eaten up. That’s where contemporary day school leadership systems can make their lives so simple.

5. Track of report cards– As of now, the report cards are maintained manually but with the school management software one can easily manage the paperless report cards & the entire process gets over and done in the most seamless way possible.

6. Tracking of fees– Activities linked to the account produced paperless and foolish evidence. Collecting fees online makes it trouble-free. Each organisation has to cope with their companies cash inflows and outflows. Academic institutions also have activities related to their own account, such as managing fee vouchers, school staff salaries, daily collection reports, etc.

7. Managing admissions– It can also be quite difficult to manage the entire process of learners being admitted to your college. There is always a possibility of losing important information. School leadership systems assist you to conduct the entire internet job and therefore save time. School management system decreases complex duties and manual labor making account management process simple and accurate.

8. Track on assignments– Facilitating students ‘ duties and assignments becomes simpler. The software stores critical data such as when the homework was assigned when to submit it, and other details such as what the task was. This is advantageous for teachers as they can readily change homework tasks whenever necessary.

9. Security and communication– School management systems have added a lot of security features to the schools like live tracking of school transportation system, live communication between students-teachers-parents-management, etc. An effective school management system enable you to keep track of the routes being taken by students to the school premises and if at any time the routes are being changed or not. You can also see if students used school transportation without using the routes that had been assigned to them. As far as student safety is concerned this is an important feature indeed.

10. Inventory Management– Easy Library Management such as e-library facilities and Improved Hostel management and Better School inventory and asset management becomes easy with software.

What is library management software?

Go back to the typical days in our school classes when our teachers would spent their initial five minutes marking the attendance in the registers and students enjoyed this by dragging, but, now this redundant practice has become fully automated thanks to India’s Most Preferred School Management Software – Paatham.

In the progressively competitive environment, an excellent management of the school would directly lead to student success.

An effective & efficient management of all the stakeholders & resources available to parents, teachers, & students gradually leads to such an educational experience which will define the next few generations of our nation.

Thus, opting for a best School Management Software is now not just an option but a necessity which includes certain reasons which are as follows :-

Partnering with Parents to Enable Success

Parents are the ones who are often involved in the everyday activities of their child’s schooling. Now, Paatham has given an option to every parent by providing access of the child’s performance & progress, attendance, at any time & moreover make the educational decisions much more effectively. Moreover, it also helps the school by daily homework management, school attendance app, online school fees payment and management, admission process in terms of new students, Library management, Transportation management and much more.

Efficient Course Management

Staff, parents & students alike are more adeptly able to track the progress related to the courses and thus, help in effective management by library automation management system with the help of mobile apps. Fuss free management of examinations for the schools can now be easily done with the in-built tools provided in school management software & ensures the staff is not overlooking any student’s progress or development.

Seamless Fees Management

School Online Fees Management Software mainly puts its focus on the student and not the inefficient and time-consuming paper work. Eliminating the excessive time consuming process of fees payment, it becomes more cost-effective. Hence, the parents are the ones who benefit the most of this school ERP software since the fee payment can be done on the go at any time from anywhere.

Robust School Administration Management

At a glance, starting from the admission & registration processes that marks the beginning of a new class in the school, having access to all the details of students, attendance entries of students by the school attendance app, leave status & records, in fact everything for the overall managing of the school can be handled in just one click and that too at your finger tips by the school management mobile application.

Personalized Performance of the Students

Staying connected always with the child’s academic & co-curricular development can be little bit hassle task, when the parents are at work. So, this has been made easy by just communicating one on one where the teachers & parents can be connected via SMS in addition to the in-built messaging facility.

Therefore, it helps to share all the relevant information regarding the student’s academics as well as extra-curricular activities by this school management software which therefore, leads to the key to success.

Library management system

School may not look much like it did few years back. With the increasing advancement of cutting-edge technologies such as cloud, mobile, digital and analytics has transformed the way libraries offer many services. School libraries are making headway, despite the rising challenges and expectations of today’s students.

Schools Library Management Systems are web and mobile-based applications that allow higher education institutions to deliver content and resources to students, faculty and staff. The cloud-based library system provides easy ways for librarians to create and store their library collections. It enables students and staff to communicate and collaborate through multiple channels. These systems can be used in college libraries to augment classroom teaching.

5 Reasons Why You Should Use A Library Management System

A library management system is important to a library in the following ways;

1. It increases efficiency

A library management system (LMS or ILS, integrated library system) enhances the efficiency of the librarians and library users. A good library management system enables librarians to easily catalog books and keep proper records of books issued, reissued, and those not returned. On the other hand, library users can easily check the availability of any book that they need.

2. It reduces the cost of managing a library

A library management system reduces the cost of management. The system eliminates the need to employ many workers and keep different manual files thereby reducing the cost. Additionally, one librarian can accomplish what more than what other several others can achieve at a given time. One computer can also store a lot of data eliminating the need for many manual files.

3. It saves time

Time is of the essence for both librarians and patrons. The librarian can easily record and go through the history of individual library users. On the other hand, the library users can know the location and availability of a particular book faster than before. Both the librarian and the student can accomplish more with less time.

4. It increases the productivity of library workers

Automating your day to day processes will increase the productivity. An LMS ensures that the librarian spend their time doing what is important. Due to the growing ease of doing their work, librarians can engage in other important activities in the library without the library incurring any additional cost.

5. It enhances the presentation of the library

A library should be as much about the looks as it is about the books. A library with a good management system looks tidy and attractive. The librarians can arrange the available books in good order, while the students can locate them easily. It, therefore, increases the comfort and enjoyment of the librarians and the library users.

Here are the ten benefits of integrating cloud-based library management system in your institution:

1. Simple & Easy to Use

The Library Management Software is simple, user-friendly, and can be easily integrated with your existing system. The library management system provides online and offline storage, automated backups, and easy upgrades to simplify and enhance learning process.

2. Increased Library Engagement

Avoid frustration and tediousness by providing students with 24/7 access to library resources from anywhere, anytime. Library Management Software allows librarian to maintain all types of books, eBooks, journals, photos, videos, and create events.

3. Efficient Cloud Data Management

Automate, simplify and deploy library database seamlessly to make it easy for your institution to benefit from secure cloud services. Improve efficiency with the automation of various library tasks including acquisition, cataloging, serials management, circulation and reference.

4. Highly Secure, Scalable & Reliable

College libraries benefit from scalable infrastructure, role-based secure access, high performance and reliable to ensure seamless access to library database.

5. Mobile Access

The library management system provides mobile access to search the library catalog, schedules, books and resources from anywhere, at any given time via smartphones and tablets.

6. Dynamic Reports

Maximize the performance of libraries with dynamic reports, charts and graphs to review and track the progress for better decision-making.

7. Error-free

The automated library software is user-friendly, powerful and developed for easy entry of data, makes library operations free from errors.

8. Innovation

Students can search, write articles, upload photos and videos, manage email, send messages, but also help them to keep up with the librarian and other students via chat, discussion forums, and social media.

9. Fully Customizable

The library automation system is fully customizable and adaptable to the needs of educational institutions to provide fast, reliable data.

10. Cost-effective

Embracing sophisticated technologies is cost-effective and a viable choice for education institutions. Using cloud, mobile and digital libraries eliminates paper-based processes and maintenance overheads, improves productivity, reduces operation costs and saves time.