Microsoft Dynamics for Education Industries
The educational sector today faces numerous challenges: the need to exercise a tight rein on limited financial resources and balance this with the need to improve communications and collaboration as well as the need to empower staff and students by delivering information in a controlled and secure manner.
Microsoft through its experienced implementation partners, such as M4 Systems, is able to deliver integrated solutions to juggle these priorities effectively and within very reasonable cost.
For example, Dynamics GP is a comprehensive ‘out-of-the-box’ ERP solution with financial management, project accounting, HR and funding modules which offer educational organisations a system for:
- Tracking and managing budgets
- Automating regulatory and financial reporting with ability to e-mail reports to board members and other staff or to publish to intranet sites, thus reducing distribution time and cost
- Grant management to better track applications, sources, collection and disbursements of funds
- Managing human resources and payroll, including Web browser-based access for employees to check details and submit online changes to personal information
- Facilities management
- Paperless requisition and purchasing
- Visibility of performance management, important for compliance with government and union requirements
Additionally, Microsoft’s relationship management application (Dynamics CRM) can help you track and manage contacts with parents (in case of schools), students/alumni and potential funding and collaboration partners.
Dynamics GP and CRM can be integrated, allowing information to flow from "front office" to "back office", thus reducing data entry, labour costs, increasing accuracy and improving access to decision-driving data.
Furthermore, integration with SharePoint technology for Dynamics GP or CRM gives you the freedom to communicate, share information and collaborate using a web-based platform, plus have all the advantages of an audit and regulations-compliant content and document management solution.
The cogency of the Microsoft integrated package is the ease of adoption (built around familiar Microsoft Office interfaces) and the reduced total cost of ownership by leveraging your existing IT infrastructure, reducing IT complexity and lowering licensing obligations.