Best School Management Software in India in 2019

What is school management software?

School Management Software is an entire school administration management system intended to digitize a school's different operations from classes to exams like registration, enrolment, fees management, scheduling, attendance, examination, transport, payroll is also used efficiently. This (Enterprise Resource Planning) ERP is capable of bringing parents, teachers, and students on a connected platform. The online school management system is a paperless office automatic and reliable answer for all the challenges faced by schools on a regular basis.

The way the schools operates today is totally different that was a few years ago like schools have multiple campuses, buildings which need to be connected on one database, examinations and learning modules are getting online and the school management needs a lot of analytical reports to take fast and reliable decisions. the audit and statutory requirements also need a school to maintain records in an arranged and digital manner so that any information, even many years old can be retrieved just in few clicks.

Features among the best school management software in India:

The features of the best school management software are:

• User-Interface: Easy to use and interactive features facilitate different users to manage operations efficiently and effectively.
• Customizable Modules: Modules present are interlinked or interconnected and can be tailored easily.
• Cost And Energy Saving: Generates reports, receipts and challans through the software, can be exported in (Portable Document Format) PDF, Ms-Word, etc.
• SMS And Email Integration: This feature sends SMS and Emails to parents regarding the events and activities of the student.
• Online Client Support: It is available online and on-site, 24x7, it helps in solving regarding any technical issues.
• Free Demonstration: Free demonstration or a trial version of the software, to understand features of the product more efficiently.
• Fee collection: It provides features such as online fee payment, mobile app etc.
• Academic management: It keeps all the records of the student from the very first moment student joined the school. They can track the performance graph of the students.
• Library management: This module manages all the procedure of the school libraries. It keeps the record of books issued, returned, number of books, and purchase requirement of books.
• Timetable management: This module manages the timetable of the school. 
• Online examination records: This feature helps the students and staffs to view the test marks of the students online to keep a track of their performance in school.
• Inventory management: This feature helps a school in maintaining and check the inventory level of critical items. You can store details of the items purchased, and to determine when to buy new stock.  
• Hostel management: This feature manages all the activities of students residing in school hostels such as room allocation, stock of hostel items and supplies, etc.
• Transport management: Transportation software is designed to help you efficiently and cost-effectively manage your day-to-day needs and offers fully integrated service delivered as a cloud computing. It is adopted by many schools as this software makes sure that students can get to where they wish to go. You can keep track of buses from time to time.
• Dashboard for school top management: this feature helps the principal or the higher authority to keep a track of important performance indicators in their school as a number of students-classwise, fee collection status, examination result trends, registration to an upcoming event, etc.

Benefits of top school management software:

Benefits of the top school management software are:

• Transparency in school operations.
• Branding of the school.
• Complaints and query management.
• Availability of real-time up to date information.
• Better management of school academic process & administration.
• It has a centralized database system which makes reporting possible at one place.
• keeps a parent up to date with their ward’s progress in school.
• It includes completely automated modules which help teachers to reduce manual workload and increase productivity time to improvise the quality of education.
• It tracks the information like attendance, fee submission, examination schedules and many more.
• The software should be mobile friendly and it can be accessed by any member through smartphones.
• It must be user-friendly and hassle-free for the teachers and parents to use it in a convenient manner.

Market Trends followed:

As you evaluate School Management software packages, consider these current market trends:

• Cloud-based software - Most of the schools have started using cloud computing services to store the data and information. This has made it possible for them to access the data from anywhere and at any time.
• Mobile Learning - Mobile applications are gaining popularity across the board, and school management is no exception. Studies have also shown that learning digitally enhances the remembering power in students.
• Play and Learn Methodology - Today, ideas are innovated to combine studies and frolic activities. Different interesting learning games are designed keeping in mind the age and grades of students.

Your queries before you choose the best school management software:

Q1. Which features should be available in a good School Management Software?

Answer: A productive software solution which is developed to serve the academic institute, it should be able to handle the fee management, student/staff record management, attendance management, scheduling, examination management, homework management, etc. Aside from this, it ought to have the option to let the parents, administration staff, faculties, and students communicate via it. Necessary notification should be conveyed through emails and portal accounts of the SMS users.

Q2. How do you decide your budget before you go for school management software? 

Answer: The expense of using such software is determined by the number of users, enrolled or registered to the portal. In this way, the schools will be charged on the 'per-user' basis. it depends on school size like a number of students, campuses, etc. it depends on whether you are going for cloud-based or installation based school software. it also depends on the number of modules you require like hostel management, transport management, e-learning module, etc.

Q3. What's the minimum requirement to start using a Software for a School? 

Answer: Even if you are a small school or a primary school, you need basic communication among your staff or students via SMS, Email. thus, a basic school software will enable you to communicate better and at least maintain records of admission, fee payment and accounting for your tax filing.

Q4. What deployment type is available in the market?

Answer: School software modules are present in offline as well as of online type, app-based software is getting popular.

Q5. Which of these types will be the best for our academic institute?

Answer: It is prudent for the big schools and universities to go for the online or the best, for cloud-based solutions. If your school is working at a very small level, online and offline solutions can be considered as your choice.

Q6. Is it difficult to operate school management software?

Answer: No, not by any means. These software systems are planned to give the user convenience the first priority. Anybody, who has basic knowledge of how to use the PC or a smartphone, can use them.

Q7. What's the capability expected in such software? Do we have to give special training to our staff? 

Answer: Computer proficiency is required yet it's not required for you to be an expert in operating PCs. It will take a few hours to comprehend the entire working system of the school software. most important point is that your previous data of last year student records etc should be entered easily in the new school software.

Q8. What if I was using a school software and now changing to new upgraded school software, what precautions should I take for a smooth transition?

Answer: The first thing is data conversion capability in the new software. please check with your new software vendor that how your old data will get transferred in the new software without errors. Please ask a sample demo from him. the second important point is about data backup and security. Also, whether the new software can give reports related to compliances and analytics on forecasting.