Digitally futureproofing schools via iPaaS
A Brisbane-based secondary college has eliminated time-consuming manual processes as part of its digital transformation.
St Laurence’s College (‘Lauries’) is now using the Boomi integration platform as a service (iPaaS) to enhance the end-to-end experience of its 1990 students and 250 teachers and staff — from enrolment and onboarding through to exiting the school.
Founded in 1915, Lauries is a boys’ school for students from grades five to 12. As a result of serving such a large cohort, the college manages significant volumes of data across dozens of systems within a complex hybrid environment.
With no integration capability previously in place, Lauries selected the Boomi platform to connect its on-premises and cloud-based applications to establish a centralised database and ensure data is consistent across all systems. This enabled the college to overcome challenges in accurately collecting and managing the vast information sets it requires throughout its students’ learning journeys.
“Although we are a secondary college, the vast number of groups and user accounts within the Lauries community makes our data processes similar to that of universities — we face the same challenges in managing student and staff information,” said Nick Lieschke, Dean of Business Operations and Information Technology at Lauries.
“We needed an integration platform to remove the complexity and chose Boomi for its robust, low-code integration capabilities. Boomi connects our data points and helps us maintain a single source of truth, reducing the burden of data entry practices and freeing up time for staff.”
Lauries is using Boomi’s integration platform as a service (iPaaS) to connect its human resources (HR), finance and school management systems, as well as a growing number of cloud-based applications. The platform maintains all data in a consistent manner between these systems and Microsoft Azure and Active Directory, with data validation built in to notify staff of any conflicts in account data.
Before using the Boomi platform, Lauries handled all data collection and management processes manually. This caused difficulties in ensuring data consistency across its IT environment, requiring time-consuming manual handling which also introduced the risk of human error.
“Boomi has helped us save an entire IT staff member’s workload. Time previously used to field all changes, log data and conduct checks and balances across multiple systems is now better spent on higher value projects to drive better outcomes for students and teachers, with Boomi automating all manual work in the background,” Lieschke said.
“It’s a crucial part in our mission to futureproof Lauries, and makes it much easier to introduce new software as a service (SaaS) as part of our cloud-first strategy. Even more importantly, we can focus on the teaching and learning of students.”
With the knowledge of where its data lives and how it’s being leveraged, Lauries has also created a digital safety net. Once students, teachers and staff leave Lauries, the college can ensure their information will be disposed of, reducing the risk of data leaks.
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