The ABCs of workflow integration in education management

Establishing a transparent workflow across education operations, business operations, and education delivery is difficult to achieve, especially if you are using applications not made for integration. Typically, if you are using applications that are not integrated, you can run into a number of issues with your data, this can often lead to silos, transfer problems, and a lack of data visibility, among many others.

Plus, according to a 2019 study, State of Ecosystem and Application Integration:

• More than half of organizations report that poor integrations take a $500,000 toll every year.
• Nearly a third say they lack the skilled resources to build and manage integrations between systems, applications, and partner ecosystems.
• 22 percent say legacy technologies cause significant delays in generating new revenue.
• 81 percent believe replacing legacy systems will support emerging business initiatives.

Application Integration

Why is application integration vital to your business? Application integration is the process of enabling independently designed applications to work together.

This includes coordinating the integrated flow of multiple activities performed by contrasting applications. With the current lack of integration in the education industry, the effectiveness of applications is hindered.

Workflow Integration

Workflow integration refers to a workflow automation system designed to connect with applications and databases of record (ERP, HR, SIS, etc.).

Integrated workflow software, like Edsembli’s, can replace the limited workflow functionality in those systems while connecting processes across the platform.

What are the top five integration workflow challenges in K-12 education?

We often speak with school districts and schools across North America and they regularly express their integration challenges. This are their top five:

• No supported API infrastructure in current systems
• Multiple vendors required to deliver on education operations
• Manual data entry across education management systems
• Resources required to manage on-premise infrastructure
• Aggregating information into meaningful insights

With this said, a well-integrated education management ecosystem should include a few of these fundamental components:

• Integration technology
• Process automation
• Data transfer capabilities
• Data visibility
• Interoperability (information sharing)

Edsembli’s Education Management Software

With over 75% of all enterprises using at least six applications for workflow management—many of them with overlapping features—the need for a sound integrated solution is essential.

The role of Edsembli’s education management software is to provide North American school districts and schools with a cloud-managed SaaS solution that can reduce the resources required by school districts and offer an integrated ecosystem that includes HR, payroll, finance, student information management and learning management applications. By creating an integrated software solution, the need for additional applications—that often cannot communicate with one another—is decreased.

This eliminates data silos, allows for the ease of interoperability, and empowers schools and school districts to review, collect and measure data all through the workflow.

Edsembli has also incorporated API for easy real-time integration, automated HRP management approval workflows from hire to retire, and automated finance approval workflows for purchasing journal entries and budget transfers. Other automated features include:

• Payroll workflows integrated with HR and Finance
• Compliance with collective agreements
• Student registration and re-registration

Regardless of size, school districts need up-to-the-minute information in order to make informed decisions that are in the best interest of the student. The smaller the school district, the smaller the margin of allowable error for every single decision—which can be daunting. Chat with an Edsembli’s education specialist about how we can guide you through this process and assist your schools and boards on how to cut any unnecessary costs, so they can be reallocated back to classroom resources.