Improving and mobilising communication and collaboration for school communities
Background
SIMON is a not-for-profit organisation passionate about developing and delivering a learning and school management software solution to make life easier every day for teachers, students and parents.
The Challenge
SIMON encompasses two primary applications, student management and parent access. The Parent Access Module (PAM) provides a huge amount of functionality and information to parents about their child’s learning experience.
Parents are encouraged by schools to use PAM, however schools were reporting low engagement for a variety of reasons, including a perceived difficulty in navigating to and logging into the website. Additionally, competitors were entering the market with apps offering a subset of the PAM features as well as direct notifications to mobile phones. It was becoming clear that Simon needed to enter the mobile app space.
Simon knew they needed a bespoke mobile app that would seamlessly integrate with the existing PAM website and enable communication and delivery of important information anytime and anywhere to students, staff and parents.
They considered developing their own mobile app, but whilst having a team of highly skilled software developers, there was apprehension in taking on the task due to inexperience in mobile app development. Simon approached HordernIT with their ideas which were formalised after some consultation. HordernIT were engaged as their exclusive mobility partner to create a cross-platform app, Simon Everywhere, that would deliver a mobility solution single sign on with push notification messaging.
Solution
The Simon Everywhere app was quickly adopted by several schools. Parents enjoy single sign on, improved communication with schools, quick and mobile access to the PAM features and schools have the ability to instantly message all parents, or a particular cohort of parents, with push notifications.
A key benefit to schools has been a reduction in the number of paid subscriptions required to deliver services to parents.
Simon Schools continue to work with HordernIT on improvements to Simon Everywhere, and are currently working towards version 2 that will integrate the student management app for staff and students. HordernIT works closely with Simon Schools to triage and service support requests, and meet regularly to discuss and plan the Simon Everywhere future roadmap.
