Skoolshine

There is no doubt that educational institutions, whether schools, colleges, institutions, or universities, play an important role in shaping our lives.

However, managing these institutions is quite a challenging task as the management and the staff has to oversee a wide range of activities such as the admission process, attendance, record keeping, fee collection, sending reminders to parents for paying fees, examinations, timetabling, events, learning and development, communication, staff management, issue documents to staff and students, print ID cards, and much more.

To add to those responsibilities, in the best interest of the institute, maintaining active relationships with the alumni members (staff and students) is also a challenging task.

If an educational institution fails to carry out these administrative processes efficiently and in an organized manner, not only the students but also the teachers, parents, and other supporting staff, will feel lost, confused, and frustrated. The lack of an effective framework and a collaborative environment at the institution will have a negative impact not only on its reputation but also on its financial health.

For all these reasons, institutions require a modern administration system to develop a collaborative framework between all the stakeholders and efficiently serve the unique needs of not only the present students, teachers, and parents but also alumni members.

This review is about one such best educational institution management system called SkoolShine. In this review, we will explore the following topics:

• Introduction To SkoolShine
• Key Features of SkoolShine
• SkoolShine Value and Pricing
• Our Final Verdict

Introduction To SkoolShine

SkoolShine is an ISO 9001:2015 and 27001:2015 certified education institution ERP / Administration application designed to simplify, organize, and automate conventional institution operations, eliminating workplace chaos while ultimately meeting the expectations of the institution’s administration, teachers, parents, students and alumni. 

This secured AWS cloud-based platform encompasses a number of innovative features that allow the institute’s administration to manage their day-to-day activities efficiently without any delays or discrepancies. In addition to WebApp, the SkoolShine app is available in Android and Apple play stores. The mobile apps are compatible with many basic smartphones as well as Tabs.

In addition to assisting management in carrying out all basic activities such as daily reports, file sharing, curriculum, timetable, fee collection, staff/parent/student profile management, alumni connect, and attendance, the SkoolShine comes with a well-designed “Assessment” module that allows teachers to organize competitions/quizzes/tests/exams online in a very simple and efficient manner. 

This feature also enables teachers to customize the online exam at a micro-level (for each question), such as selecting the exam type and question type (i.e., Multiple choice, short answer, essay type).

Furthermore, in addition to the pre-installed features and wireframe, the app can be tailored to the institute’s specific needs by customizing workflows (for the admission process and lesson planning) and taking advantage of the flexibility provided in the system configuration.

SkoolShine also works with educational institutions to enhance the existing features or add new value features with no additional costs. Besides, the platform is fortified with bank-level security mechanisms and techniques to ensure complete data security to comply with ISO 9001:2015 as well as ISO 27001:2015 standards.

The following are some of the key modules and features of the SkoolShine Education Institution ERP / Administration system:

Apart from these fundamental features, the platform is designed with an appealing user interface and includes a variety of other functions and features, such as maintaining audit information of every screen (who created or modified the data), notification, alumni connect, multi-language support, unlimited app messaging with multiple attachments (each with 150 MB size) of most of the formats such as Video, Audio, PPT, PDF, Word, Text, Excel, etc.

Naturally, these features combine to make SkoolShine an ideal education institute administration platform for institutions of all sizes and types.

Key Features of SkoolShine

SkoolShine solution is role-based. Institution management may assign one or more features to the staff based on their function at the institute. This way, each staff member who is a SkoolShine user has adequate permission or access to do their tasks without overstepping into other staff’s roles.

To better understand SkoolShine’s benefits, we must examine its key features, listed below.

1. Send notice

The platform contains an engaging notice board feature that allows teachers and administration to publish all relevant information about a specific class, group, or the entire institution at once. A notice may even be sent for a specific group of students within a class who opted for a given elective.

Along with the text (up to 1000 words), staff members can attach up to four files (Video, Image, Audio, Word, PDF, Presentation, Text, Excel) with each notice. The staff may schedule its publish time and date for scheduling messages to be delivered on a later date/time. There is no upper limit to the number of messages sent on the SkoolShine platform.

You may also set the expiry date for each notice and prioritize them if necessary. Apart from the SkoolShine in-app messaging, they may also be sent via the SkoolShine WhatsApp account, a business account that comes with a green tick mark / verified WhatsApp number, making communication more trustworthy.

When a teacher or administration posts a notice on the notice board, the relevant group of parents will be notified with an additional option to send the same notice via WhatsApp, SMS, and email. However, end users can modify and select which platforms (WhatsApp, SMS, and email) they want to receive notifications and which ones they do not (user privacy settings). 

Additionally, staff from the institution can subscribe to a specific class for notice updates, ensuring that they receive all of the class’ notices and do not miss any important updates from their peers. This helps when parents have questions about notifications sent, and the staff is aware of the details regarding their queries.

All the communication in SkoolShine is done using SkoolShine's business contact numbers. The staff's personal details, such as their contact information, are not getting shared with the parents/students. It is also worth mentioning that the communication numbers could be a mix of local and international. SkoolShine can capture the ISD codes along with the contact numbers, and SMS/text messages, as well as WhatsApp messages, are delivered to the correct destination numbers.

2. Online Assessment

As previously stated, the Assessment feature is one of the most unique and well-designed features of SkoolShine that can significantly assist teachers in conducting online quizzes, exams, or tests without any hassle. The feature allows teachers to create assessments for specific classes and subjects. For multiple choice type questions, SkoolShine will evaluate the mark evaluation provided by the faculty. 

Answers provided by the students will be saved as PDFs in the institute’s Google Drive folder with the appropriate folder structure – institution name, class section, subject, academic year, and assessment name. Faculty can view the individual PDFs and determine the score for each student. The exam module will help faculty to publish the marks.

The test author may optionally specify the Assessment start date, Assessment end date, and Assessment duration. Not only that, but they can also enable or disable the following options for each test based on the exam type and objective:

• Show the answer key (displayed against the question to the student post-assessment expiry)
• Allow students to edit answers and resubmit the assessment
• Enable negative marking
• Shuffle sequence for questions
• Shuffle answer options for multiple-choice questions

In addition, they can add exam-specific instructions for each test and, if necessary, attach a media file with each question. Similarly, the application allows the test author to select the question type from the options listed below:

1. Multiple choice– 1 correct answer
2. Multiple choice– Few correct answers
3. Short answer
4. Essay type answer

Once the test is scheduled, students and parents will be notified via the SkoolShine app, and they will be able to attend the assessment on the scheduled date and time. This feature may be used not just for exams, but the staff may use it to evaluate the student’s understanding of each part of the lesson. Institutes may also conduct quiz, essay competitions, or any other competition using this feature.

This feature is also enhanced with an option to gather survey feedback from staff or parents. A single Excel spreadsheet on the institution’s Google Drive will capture all responses for that survey.

3. Test evaluation

Once the students have completed the exam, the digital answer sheet will be locked and automatically forwarded to the appropriate evaluator as soon as the student submits the assessment (or if the assessment times out). The evaluators then assess the digital answer sheets and enter the results into the marking module (another feature presented by SkoolShine).

Furthermore, the SkookShine education institute ERP-cum-administration solution provides users with a variety of mark-sheet and other template options. Besides that, the administration can upload their own mark sheet word document templates, which will be converted into PDF files once the necessary information, such as name, mark, subject, class, and so on, is keyed in.

For mark sheets, two of the key features provided by SkoolShine are:

1. Locking the mark sheet from getting updated by unauthorized staff and
2. Displaying and tracking which staff made changes to the mark sheet (data audit). 

When a subject teacher A uploads the results, that teacher may lock the mark sheet with a unique password, and no one else can edit or delete the data except that teacher.

The next subject teacher in line– B must acquire system access from subject teacher A to update the marks for subject B. This type of security wireframe will eventually help track the editing trail and prevent any forgery or fraud. The mark update feature is Excel-compatible. If the marks are in an Excel sheet, the same can be copy pasted entirely at once into the SkoolShine system.

Once all of the data- the results are updated, staff can generate the mark sheets in PDF format and distribute them in printed format to appropriate students and their parents. Other options are also provided to distribute the PDF to parents through the app electronically. For parents who do not have smartphones, SkoolShine has provided an SMS/text option to send the marks.

It should be noted that the system can print mark sheets (or any other important documents) on ePaper (Smart Digital Micro-chip and Barcode enabled) to prevent fraud while allowing easy online verification of mark sheet authenticity.

4. Curriculum designing

Curriculum design is critical for teachers and institutes because it serves as the foundation for all training plans and class timetabling. Fortunately, the SkoolShine Education Institute ERP / Administration software has addressed this issue effectively with its well-designed “Curriculum” module.

The app contains the curriculum content of most education boards, including CBSE, ICSE, and other state boards. The school can download the curriculum from there and make suitable modifications if necessary. Additionally, the app allows educational institutions to upload their own curriculum if the available curriculum does not meet their objectives.

5. Lesson Planning

Most school ERP solutions do not give sufficient thought processes to ease a teacher’s lesson-planning task. SkoolShine has carefully designed one of the most important features for the stakeholders – the teaching staff.

The lesson planning module has the option to pick a date range, select a syllabus or curriculum section planned for that duration, mention objectives, add resources and notes, provide references and optionally create an online assessment (test/gauge the student understanding) for a planned completion date of a given lesson.

The lesson planning has an optional customizable workflow; the teaching staff may send the lesson plan to the coordinator, go back and forth to refine the content, may forward to lead staff members and, upon approval, send it to the principal for formal approval (customizable multi-level, lesson plan review and approval). Once approved, the staff may retain the lesson planned as private (available only to self), share with peers or share it with students.

The lesson planned can be repurposed for the next academic year by importing the previous academic year's information and making suitable modifications to its contents.

6. Resource Library

The Resource Library is an add-on to Lesson Planning. Faculty can select appropriate resources or content (handwritten note images, web references, YouTube video links, PDF, Word, Video, Audio, Text, Excel or Presentation) and make the content available privately or to peers or share the resources with students. If shared with students, it helps ease pressure on the part of students to cope up with missing notes and material in case of absence.

7. Attendance management

Attendance management is one of the most common features of most school management software. However, we feel SkoolShine’s Attendance module is a little more advanced than other software we’ve used or reviewed. This module enables teachers to mark each student’s attendance based on their absence in class. The faculty has to select the absentee students on the mobile app screen.

As soon as the attendance is recorded, the absentee students’ parents will be notified via SkoolShine app message and SMS/Text immediately.

Similarly, the platform allows you to track each student’s attendance by subject. This will assist both management and parents in determining whether or not their child is attending all the classes.

The SkoolShine application also shows cumulative attendance data for parents and teachers. To view the cumulative attendance report, go to the Attendance menu and enter the class, subject, date, and other information as needed and view business analytic reports. Attendance information is readily available to parents in the mobile app under the child’s information.

8. Leave module

SkoolShine provides a configurable option to institutions to get alerts based on the number of continuous absenteeism of students. When a student is absent from classes continuously for a set duration, an alert is sent to the parent to contact the office or teacher regarding the reason for absenteeism. At the end of each day, the class teacher will receive a message with the PDF attached that has the list of absent students along with parent contact information. The teacher can contact the student’s parents to find out why they are absent.

Besides this, if the parent informs the teacher that the child will be absent for an extended period, the teacher can snooze the notifications for that period. However, once the snooze period is over, the app will notify the parents again about the child’s absence if the child is absent for the same continuous duration set in the configuration.

9. User Profiling

The SkoolShine app also lets the institution administrators create profiles for all students, parents, and staff. Parents can create a profile for their children at the time of admission. Once they have uploaded all the necessary information, a staff member will review and approve it.

Against the user's (parent, staff or student) profile, there is a provision to upload and attach document images or scanned copies (such as transfer certificate, income certificate, and so on). Against a student profile, an additional feature is available to record disciplinary notes. A QR code is rendered on the WebApp, and the SkoolShine mobile app can scan this QR code, and document photos can be directly uploaded against relevant records.

To ease the task with institutional ID card printing, parents can upload photos of their children on the app. If the photo does not conform to the school's set standards, the staff can override it and click on their own. Once the photo is replaced by the staff, parents cannot change the photo for the rest of the academic year.

Similarly, management can create profiles for each parent, student and staff. Staff members have the option to limit the visibility of their personal information to other staff members, as well as the parents and the students. They can choose what information to share with other members and what not to share. This option appears on the mobile app under user privacy preferences.

In addition to these key features, some of SkookShine’s other notable features or modules are briefly described below:

10. Fee structuring

The system enables school administrators to create different fee structures for each class and student. Not only that, but management can create a fee structure tailored to each individual. Moreover, management can configure and customize the partial fee amount, receipt template, font size, receipt number sequence, receipt format, and other aspects.

Staff responsible for setting up fees can import the fee settings from past academic years (as a labor efficiency process). There is an option to validate the fee setup prior to making the setup available to all on the SkoolShine mobile apps.

Fees can be collected online, and fee receipts can either be automatically issued upon successful payment gateway transaction or manually approved after a successful account deposit. There is also an option to allow manual bulk fee receipt creation for schools collecting fees over the office counter.

Fee Receipt Configurations are provided to display all fee breakdowns or display fee roll-up at the installment level, as per institution policy. Regardless, the office will have a detailed account of the collected fee.

The staff gets detailed as well as summary reports about the fee payment. That helps to reconcile the amounts deposited in the bank with the fee receipts (which can be audited by the institution's financial auditors).

The staff can send reminders to those specific parents who have not paid the installment amount by a given date.

Parents can download the fee receipt from the mobile application anytime, saving paper and reducing office staff burden.

11. Accolades

The Accolades feature is similar to the Notice board module but only displays the students’ achievements. The teacher or other staff members can post information about an individual student’s or group’s achievement here.

12. Make Memories

Make Memories feature is designed specifically for parents of young children. Using this feature, the institution staff can send photographs of kids to their parents regularly when their child is engaged in various activities. The teacher can take a photo of each kid and send it to their respective parents.

This feature aims to keep parents of small children up to date on their children’s safety and activities. When parents view their child’s pictures in the midst of their hectic work, it gives them a happy feeling knowing that their child is doing well.

13. Tag

The Tag feature allows you to create a group of specific students or a group of specific staff members or a mix of students and staff based on any shared interest, activity or hobby. It could be students participating in a particular sport, students with poor academic performance (eligible for additional classes), and so on. When publishing the notice, you can choose any of the Tags, just like classes. When you choose a Tag, the message will be displayed and sent to only those included in that Tag (Group).

14. Bus route

The Bus Route module contains all of the information about the bus route that your child is traveling on. It shows information such as bus timing, driver details, pick up and drop information, bus number, route details, driver’s contact number with photo, and so on. This information will allow parents to plan for drop off at the bus stop or estimate when their child will arrive home. Parents can also click on the driver number and dial directly from the SkoolShine app.

15. Document Generation

At the time a student leaves the institution, institutions may have to issue a transfer certificate, conduct certificate or study certificate. These certificate custom templates can be uploaded, and SkoolShine will produce a PDF or Word document with the details from the system. This will ease the workload of office staff. At the same time, the waiting duration is also eliminated. Even if an alumnus walks into the office, as long as the data is available, a relevant document may be printed and produced for them in a matter of seconds.

16. Two-way communication

SkoolShine provides a mobile app feature to allow staff to send notices to parents, who may also respond to the messages. These confidential communication messages are not visible to peers or other staff members.

A supervisory role is provided, and staff with this role will be able to monitor the communication.

17. Student promotion and shuffling

When a new academic year begins, students from the previous class must be promoted to a higher class. SkoolShine has an automated process to promote the students to the next higher class.

An Excel-like interface is provided for the easy shuffling of students if the institute policy mandates student shuffling.

18. Alumni Connect

Alumni (staff and students) are very important for any institution. Alumni recognition adds credibility to the institution and also plays an important role in facilitating interaction between them and the present staff and students. Alumni may also be a good source of donations and sponsorships.

SkoolShine has the option to send out periodic communication and maintain relationships and invites for institutional events to alumni members.

19. Other value features

About the institution – provides information on the institution’s goals, mission, vision and values. Institution rules and procedures will be available in this section of mobile apps.

Institution contact details – provides handy contact information on different school functionaries and staff (if the staff has allowed their contact information to be available to all). SkoolShine allows direct dialing of the contact information from the SkoolShine mobile app display for labor efficiency.

The institution’s pre-planned calendar of events is available for ease of reference for the entire institution’s user base.

Gallery of photos – Photos, videos and albums may be created by the SkoolShine administrator to share the event memories with the entire institution.

SkoolShine mobile app is available in multiple Indian as well as international languages. This will help SkoolShine users who may not be well-versed in English but are comfortable with local languages.

Guardians & pick-up authorized personnel – parents can add an additional person as a guardian who will also receive all institution notifications and communications. In case parents are residing in different cities, adding a local guardian may help to take care of the child in their absence. Similarly, when the parents cannot pick up their child from the institutions, they can upload contact information of authorized personnel pick-ups, such as photos and other relevant information, which the institution staff can validate at the time of child pickup.

Online YouTube training and user guide video access are provided on every mobile app screen and WebApp. These videos are available 24×7 and have feature usage tutorials for all users – staff, parents and students.

SkoolShine Value and Pricing

SkoolShine provides very competitive pricing. Compared to other apps in the same field, the cost per feature is far more competitive. Contact sachin@hbassociate.com for demo and pricing details. Value and benefits far outweigh the cost payable to SkoolShine. Many of their clients pass on that nominal fee and include that in the student fee. Based on the 4.5-star feedback on the play store, many end users are happy to use SkoolShine for their academic purposes.

Our Final Verdict

As you can see, SkoolShine has a plethora of features. It encompasses all fundamental features such as attendance management, staff management, a notice board, and a timetable, as well as multiple innovative features such as assessment, tag, send notice, curriculum management, documentation, fee management, leave management, sending notices, and more.

With such a wide range of features, it is evident that the developer team worked their best to make ShoolShine the best education institution administration app for all institutions and users, including parents, teachers, students, and management. Each of the features was developed after consulting with the clients. 

Wireframes were developed, and stakeholders from multiple institutions were interviewed to provide feedback on the wireframe models. Based on user feedback, visual design screens were created, and the designers and developers used these screens to create a solution. SkoolShine accepts feedback from multiple stakeholders with open hearts and continues to enhance and improve the solution to this day.

Another small but noteworthy highlight of this app is that each feature is accompanied by a YouTube video link that takes the user to a tutorial video about that feature to help them better understand it. It also facilitates collaboration and communication between staff and parents and provides multi-language support.

The platform runs on the secure Amazon AWS cloud and provides users with role-based access, limiting their access to only necessary and relevant information. Furthermore, most of the platform’s features and the app wireframe are customizable, allowing schools to tailor the app to their specific needs.

In a nutshell, SkoolShine is one of the best secured cloud-based education institution management platforms we’ve encountered in a long time. Not only does SkoolShine provide all these features, but it also sets a “system” in place.

Whenever a new management team member is added, when your office staff resigns or retires, or when a new staff member is onboarded, giving basic training on SkoolShine will be sufficient to bring him/ her up and running. YouTube tutorials will make that new person comfortable enough to start using the system.

The institution will save a lot on manual training hours. Since most of the features and reports are automated, there is no waiting for any manual work. Since SkoolShine is a role-based software, there is no necessity to hire an individual person to operate this software. Each task/subtask can be handled and integrated with staff members’ day-to-day activities. 

SkoolShine is so confident of its product and services that the co-founder, Sachin himself, gives out his personal number: +91 7678600471, to all SkoolShine users to reach out to him in case of any issues. So, if you are an institution administrator who is struggling to manage staff, parents, students, and alumni, SkoolShine is worth a try!