Elcom Partners with Studentnet to Drive Administration Efficiency in Schools

Elcom Technology (Elcom), specialists delivering school portals, intranets and websites to over 1 million end users through their Digital Engagement Platform, have partnered with Studentnet, a leading provider of identity management services to schools through its Cloudwork product. Through this partnership, Studentnet will provide authentication and authorisation services for Elcom solutions. Schools who choose Elcom and Studentnet benefit from significant increases in administration speed and efficiency; streamlining the process of maintaining identity for thousands of students, parents and staff, and the school communication and information they have access to.

When users log in and are authenticated by Cloudwork, Studentnet’s identity provider, they can securely proceed to their Elcom solution and other integrated systems. This facilitates a seamless user experience from one system to another, without the need for logging in repeatedly and with different login credentials. Both mobile and desktop devices are supported, in line with the need for busy students, parents and teachers to access information on the go.

In addition, the identity of a user, including their profile information, groups and permissions in Studentnet, can be pulled into equivalent groups in their Elcom solution. This ensures each individual receives information relevant to their group.

Josh Anstey, Customer Solutions Director at Elcom explains, “We’ve partnered with Studentnet because we have a shared vision for driving administrative efficiency for schools and improving the user experience for their communities. Each school has hundreds or thousands of students, parents and staff requiring relevant information on all aspects of their school (or their child’s) lives, both on and off campus. Both our solutions are designed to make it easier for administrators to manage this information digitally. Now they can operate at a level of efficiency that was not previously possible.”

Kevin Karp, Managing Director of Studentnet added, “Studentnet's partnership with Elcom has meant our technical teams have jointly extended the depth and sophistication of our automated account-provisioning functionality. Doing so delivers real cost benefits to the school administration, and real user experience benefits to the whole school community of teachers, students and their parents. In addition, by automating processes previously carried out manually, we increase the levels of confidentiality, reliability and auditability in the handling of sensitive personal account information. Overall, the school and its community benefits from far greater levels of trust and confidence.”

Elcom has recently released their out-of-the-box school portal to provide students, teachers and parents with a rich and comprehensive information and communication resource hub, including personalised news, notices, timetables, academic reports, class marks and assignment feedback, online forms, calendars and upcoming events. As part of this partnership, Elcom turned to Studentnet to provide a single sign-on application suite. Once Studentnet is configured across all systems with the same credentials:

 - Users who access the portal are automatically logged in to other applications they visit during the same session, such as their School Information System (Synergetic, Edumate etc.) and CanvasLMS.

 - The first time users log into their portal, an account is created for them based on the information from Studentnet.

 - Any updates to the user profile information and group membership in Studentnet is automatically updated in Elcom whenever they login.

 - Staff can manage and service user accounts easily, and change the user password in Studentnet and see it instantly implemented in the Elcom portal.

About Elcom: Elcom has a long history of collaborating with schools, universities and other educational institutions to deliver compelling intranet, portal, website and training solutions that meet their evolving digital needs. Elcom is trusted by many of the leaders in education including the Ascham School, Geelong Grammar, Saint Ignatius’ College Riverview, Haileybury School, Sydney Church of England Grammar School, Moriah College, St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School and many more. The knowledge we’ve gained from working with schools over the years has culminated in the launch of the Elcom School Portal. To learn more, please visit: https://www.elcomcms.com/schoolportals

About Studentnet: Studentnet specialises in security, privacy and innovation in education. Since 1996 the company has been recognised for its dedication to the needs of educators, students, parents, IT staff and school communities. Studentnet’s identity management system, Cloudwork, simplifies the provisioning and administration of secure, private user accounts in a cost-effective manner. Cloudwork builds school communities, is parent-friendly, fulfils privacy obligations, and allows school IT staff to maintain control of their own services. For more information, please visit: https://studentnet.id