Ty Dennis, a seasoned teacher and student manager, was grappling with the continued challenge of performing administrative tasks on antiquated systems. Schools tend to use manual processes, spreadsheets, and isolated tools to track student data, attendance, and behaviour monitoring. These inefficiencies not only burn valuable instructional time but also heighten the risk of data inaccuracies.To overcome these problems, Ty saw Data Boards, an all-around school management application that could help simplify and systematise school administrative processes across institutions. Together with Appomate, Melbourne’s top mobile app development agency, he began working on creating an easy-to-use digital solution that makes it easier to manage student data while improving educators’ decision-making processes.

Problem Statement

Schools tend to experience difficulties in handling student data in an efficient manner because:

• Old-fashioned systems: Paper records or isolated spreadsheets remain common in schools, making it difficult to monitor student progress.
• Inconsistency in integration: Separate tools for attendance, behaviour monitoring, and academic performance lead to data inconsistencies.
• Administrative time-wasting: Teachers and school staff waste too much time manually entering and accessing data rather than working on student learning.

Seeing these inefficiencies, Ty Dennis wished to create a student information system that consolidates data, enhances reporting accuracy, and enables teachers to make data-informed decisions in real-time.

Solution: Data Boards App

The Data Boards application offers a unified digital hub that transforms school operations with three dynamic and interactive boards: Attendance Board, Behaviour Board, and Wellbeing Board. The Attendance Board monitors student attendance with visual intervention cues, provides reports, and enables staff to mark actions as complete. The Behaviour Board separates students into tiers of intervention and enables drag-and-drop updating, and the Wellbeing Board shows active wellbeing initiatives, such as tier status and colour-coded progress markers. Staff can tailor data views, handle student profiles, author feedback, and toggle between year groups or terms quickly. Other core functionalities are intervention tracking using coloured dots, profile search and dashboard navigation, and dynamic subscription management by a number of students and school academic programs. Subscriptions can be controlled by schools throughout the year and scaled up or down at renewal. The platform has feedback comments, commenting functionalities, data validation, manual uploads, onboarding flows, and an admin-managed trial period for schools.

Technical Implementation

Data Boards is developed on a cutting-edge tech stack that comprises React, Material UI, and Redux for a responsive, interactive frontend. Node.js, Tsed, and MySQL are used for the backend to facilitate smooth data handling and security. Deployed on AWS, the platform uses Cloudflare and GoDaddy for efficient domain management and security, with AWS SES handling email notifications and image storage.

User Roles & Permissions

The app has a variety of roles such as Global Admin, Local Admin (School Admin), and Teachers, with each having specific permissions. Global Admins oversee school onboarding and can create additional admins. School Admins manage staff onboarding, permission assignments, school data, subscription payments, and view reports. Teachers are able to log in, track attendance and pupil data, utilise the drag-and-drop boards for interventions, change terms and years, include feedback comments, and produce reports on pupil performance. Permissions are completely adjustable to fit every school’s working model.

Expected Impact

In the lead-up to the official launch of Data Boards, schools are expressing keen interest in adopting the platform to:

• Minimise administrative workload through automated pupil management functions.
• Enhance data accuracy by removing human errors from student records.
• Facilitate quicker decision-making by teachers and school administration through real-time information.
• Upgrade tracking of student performance with combined behaviour and academic analytics.

The imminent launch of Data Boards seeks to establish it as one of the top school management software solutions, empowering teachers with a simple, easy-to-use student information system.

Conclusion

With Data Boards, Ty Dennis is poised to transform school administration with an efficient, cloud-based school management app. As schools increasingly go digital, Data Boards can become a leading school administration software for schools that want to streamline their processes.

If you are looking for a custom school management solution or need a mobile app development company in Melbourne to bring your educational app idea to life, Appomate has the expertise to turn your vision into reality.

Contact us today to discuss how we can bring your app idea to life. Book a free discovery session with us