There are a lot of things to consider.

From the experience of the provider, useful features available, ease of use, all round functionality and its pricing (let it be stated that if the developer’s drive is passion for providing a solution and not money, then the price for the software in question will not seem like a ripoff). Don’t be carried away into deploying any school managment system for your school without a thorough assessment of your needs and what it does.

Flexibility

The school system & processes can and usually change. Better methods and standards are always adopted in order to improve the system. When your school adopts some software, it is necessary to understand the level of flexibility that comes with it. Changes in standards or methods should not be a reason to dump a solution or compromise old records.

Reliability

In choosing a School managment system software, it is important to go for the tested and trusted. As a school owner, I will like to know how long other schools have been using the software. Has it been solving their needs and been reliable at the most critical time?

Long term support

Many school owners may have had a bad experience with some software. When the school needs a critical update or support, the designer of the software will be nowhere to be found. He has either gone for studies or got a job offer and is no more supporting the application. In such situations, the schools usually have to start all over or even worse decide to go back to the manual method.

Web-Based Solution

Depending on your requirements and available infrastructure, it may be more effective to host the school mangament system offline or online. Both methods have their pros and cons. If you have internet challenge in your school, the offline model will be more effective since the application will not depend on the availability or speed of Internet.

The key advantage of online deployment is that the application is accessible anywhere, making it possible for staff, students and parents access from home.

Scalability

Initially, when you adopt software in your school, you may have a few students and staff. As the school grows, the records also keep growing. The number of staff and parents that will also access the application will increase.

If the application was not design to scale,  it will become unusable. The best method to determine if a solution is scalable is to look at its track record as mentioned earlier. Determine the school size of existing clients and the duration that the software has been in use.

Ease of Use

The user friendliness of a software is very important in determining the level of benefit a school will derive from it. When you have a very complicated software, teachers may find it very difficult to adopt, and instead of making the work easier it ends up complicating it.

The search feature will also greatly improve the user experience in using the software.

Useful Features

It is important to be careful not to get carried away by the features listed as available in a product. It is always a more profitable investment in a solution that has fewer features but almost 100% of them are useful rather than having numerous features with just about 20% useful ones.

The features should also be solving problems in reality, not just for frivolous fantasies.  “All that glitters is not gold”.

Impact on Learning

The primary objective of every school is to pass knowledge to its students. Any software application that is not positively contributing to the school’s knowledge base does nothing but hinder its growth in all aspects.

Cloud based

A school management system should be cloud based. All “cloud-based” means is that your software and information are stored on remote servers and accessed over the internet. That’s all. If you’ve used web-based email like Gmail, Hotmail, etc then you’ve already used “cloud-based” software.

Being an online student information management system comes with many advantages over traditional in school server solutions or installed software solutions. Most importantly, cloud bases system advantages save your school time and money.