PowerSchool eSchoolPLUS vs. SchoolAdmin

It is well suited for Charter Schools. I say charter schools because most charts are built from the ground up, and using a specific set of tools from PowerSchool will help all departments to work seamlessly together. The hardest part of the education process is being able to track your own payroll, PD, overtime hours, emails and messages, grades and documentation for students. Schools in perpetual existence have a hard time converting all their documents and processes to a brand new portal. However, new schools, private schools, charter schools, even new online universities would have an easier and much more effective time purchasing and using every single tool that comes from PowerSchool. I believe that it is bigger than just using eSchoolPLUS for education, but using efinance, and atrieve are important also. In terms of eSchoolPLUS it is useful in all schools because it does make the teacher's jobs easier. Managing curriculum, lesson and grade data is quick and easy and engagement is relatively simple on the website and on my mobile iPhone.

Incentivized

SchoolAdmin has been great to work with and the advantages of the product definitely outweigh the disadvantages. With the frequent turnover in admissions offices, it is nice to have a product that is simple to use, easy to train on, and easy to learn quickly. Also, customer support has been great, and we really put them through their paces and they never complain. They also use their support team to help train you - not just give you a fish, but teach you to fish so you can problem solve on your own.

Incentivized

• One-stop resource for student data, from test scores to medical alerts.
• Parent information, including contact and custody details, are readily accessible.
• Clean and easy-to-use format makes finding what you need very easy.

Incentivized

• The online application and checklist - because it is highly customizable, fairly intuitive, and quite effective for managing all the moving parts of our application process.
• The online enrollment checklist, forms, and contract - because of the level of customization, the level of professional appearance, the ease of tracking and managing students in the enrollment process, the integration it provides to our FACTS billing and payment system.
• The communications system - because of the possibilities for both internal and external communications are so vast, the ability to produce highly customized, personalized, and segmented emails, text messages, and/or physical letters, and the relative ease of use.

Incentivized

• It can be difficult to find information when first beginning with it.
• It can take many steps to perform one task.
• Can run slowly on certain networks.

Incentivized

• Not as flexible as we sometimes need the features to be.
• Data and historical information is not terribly accurate, which means we cannot use it for reporting.

Incentivized

This would be the same reasoning as in the previous question. It is all about having enough bandwidth to run it across your district and buildings.

Incentivized

Reports do run in a reasonable amount of time based upon the number of entries you are working with. You are also able to continue working on other areas while the report is being created so your device is not tied up during this process.

Incentivized

PowerSchool eSchoolPLUS effectively allowed for access to all data, while enabling links to other critical PowerSchool platforms like Kickboard, Enrollment, and other software platforms.

Incentivized

Blackbaud's enrollment management product, OnBoard, was extremely clunky and did not support an online review process. The CRM was also not great. The only benefit of it was that it was a seamless experience, as Blackbaud is our academic software. The import/export from SchoolAdmin into/from Blackbaud has been no problem.

Incentivized

There are days when PowerSchool can be very slow when loading. You definitely have to make sure you have the bandwidth in your district to run the platform appropriately.

Incentivized

• Our Return on Investment is high, as it makes our jobs easier, allowing us more time to troubleshoot and train staff instead of digging for student information.
• Overall our business objective is to store and access student information quickly, efficiently, and securely. eSchoolPLUS allows us to do that.
• eSchoolPLUS has no negative impact on our ROI. Sometimes, after an update, there is a learning curve and bug fixes that need to be worked around, but in general, it is a great product and there is little downtime for our organization.

Incentivized

• Customer satisfaction with our CRM is up.
• Completion of applications is up.
• Office use and satisfaction with the product internally is way up!

Incentivized