Expensive, but worth it... take the long view of your data
August 23, 2021

Expensive, but worth it... take the long view of your data

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Veracross

Veracross is our new school information system. It's replacing Blackbaud's Education Edge. We're implementing Veracross over a 3-year period... year 1 (now) is the school data (gradebook, attendance, school directories, etc.). Year 2 is our Business Office implementation (replacing Sage50) and Year 3 will be the Advancement Office (replacing Blackbaud's Raiser's Edge). Blackbaud announced that they were sunsetting Education Edge and we found their replacement platform lacking so we went through an RFP process which resulted in the selection of Veracross.

Pros

  • mobile-friendly portal for staffulty, parents, and students
  • built-in or easy-to-configure integration with other systems (for example, RankOne and Naviance)
  • targeted messaging based on data within the system
  • "where is student now?" is one-click away

Cons

  • it's easy to get data OUT of Veracross but their data import features could use some improvement
  • they recently changed their knowledge management and help desk system and are still experiencing some growing pains with that platform (for example, I believe that any error message a system throws should be easily and readily searchable in the KB; that is not currently the case)
  • it's early but we've identified some inconsistencies in some displays and while many displays offer a field to specify the sort order, some important ones (teacher schedule, for example) do not and it's a lot of cognitive load to decipher some of those (seemingly unsorted) screens. Sorting by an internal ID field that is not controllable, not editable, and not over ridable (with a sort key) is a poor choice.
  • single record for the life of the individual (applicant to student to donor to parent)
  • ease of integration with third-party platforms
  • well prepared and well executed training modules
  • tasks that used to take 30 minutes can take as little as 30 seconds (I'm not exaggerating)
  • it's a complex platform so there is signficant investment in both training and data preparation (for conversion)
  • it's really expensive (but over time will pay for itself with systems we can sunset and attrition that we don't need to replace)
Veracross had superior support, training, and integration with other systems.

Do you think Veracross delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Veracross's feature set?

Yes

Did Veracross live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Veracross go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Veracross again?

Yes

Veracross' only customer base is private, independent, K-12 schools. In other words, they're not spending resources on configuring the next state-mandated report in Alaska. They're only dealing with private, independent, K-12 schools. Towards that end, their management of student/teacher/school data is excellent. I have read, though have no direct experience yet, that their Advancement module is less well-suited to sophisticated fund-raising activities. Similarly, their LMS is somewhat lacking. This doesn't affect us directly, and I hold out hope that their API will continue to evolve and mitigate some of these limitations.

Veracross Feature Ratings

Student Data
9.0
Student Attendance Tracking
9
Student Health Information
9
Grade Book Management
9
Student Background Records
9
Student and Parent Portal
9
Transcript Management
9
Student and Faculty Administration
8.6
Integrations with 3rd-Party Education Technology
9
Online Registration Management
9
District Communications, such as messaging and alerting
8
Roster Management
9
Platform Customization
6
Teacher Self-Service
9
Student Data Security
9
Community Support
9
Class Scheduling
9
State and National-level Reporting
Not Rated
Compliance Support
Not Rated
Teacher and Parent Mobile Application
9

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