College Management System Software - The Definitive Guide

What is the College Management System?

A college management system digitizes the entire operations of a college starting from the marketing activities to admission management to classroom management to human resource management to finance management. It digitizes the daily chores of your campus as well as helps in managing the administrative, academic and non-academic activities from a single platform.

This approach benefits by having only a single username credential for everything connected to the college and also the future analysis of the data captured by the different modules in the software.

The college management software is an evolved form of management information system(MIS) which is a tool that can be used to collect and analyze the data from the college operations. This data is used by management to make the right decisions.

Another form of MIS is a student information system(SIS). It contains all data regarding the students of the college. And the reports are concentrated around the academic performance of the students. Both faculty, as well as management, have access to student information systems to track the progress of the students. The management information system will contain data from finance and administration above the usual student performance data from SIS. Until recently the colleges were using separate software for MIS and SIS. The functionality of MIS was achieved using spreadsheet software like MS Excel. The student information system is a complicated system to handle by a spreadsheet alone.

In college management software, it will contain the functionality of both the student information systems and management information systems. It will manage the entire life cycle of a student, parent, and faculty within the college and also will manage the financial, academic, and administrative activities of the college.

Different kind of Institute can use this software for campus daily task management

This software is built for colleges, universities, and junior colleges. Along with these three, the vocational institutes and other specialized institutes can also use this solution in their organisation ecosystem. The college management software takes care of the special needs of campuses and is easily used by the admin, teachers, students, parents and management team.

If college management software is implemented properly it can improve multiple processes in your college and can help you achieve academic and business goals faster while reducing the expenses.

Core Modules of College Management Software1. Admission & Marketing Management

The marketing possibilities of a college management software are achieved through the enquiry module which acts as a simple CRM for collecting and managing admission enquiries. This functionality is further linked to applicant registration and admission modules where the entire admission life cycle of the students is captured in a single database.

2. Fees management

This functionality helps to simplify fee collection on the campus and provide meaningful reports and timely alerts to parents. The alerts and notifications are sent to parents regarding the upcoming fee collections. Parents are provided with the option to pay the fee directly from their mobile phones without the need to visit the campus.

3. Attendance management

One of the most used functionalities of a college management software is the attendance management module which is used to record the subject-wise or daily-attendance of a student. This can be done through the teacher’s laptop or through the mobile app. The alerts are sent automatically to parents. There are also RFID and biometric hardware integrations available to minimize the manual intervention required in attendance taking.

4. Parent-teacher & teacher-student communication management

The different modules available in college management software can help in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of parent-teacher and student-teacher communication. The mobile app available with the software is an excellent tool in making sure that all the communications are received and acknowledged by students and parents. This is achieved through the push notification available in the mobile app. Also, there are various other tools in customizing and automating the various communications on the campus.

5. Timetable management

The timetable management module provides the functionality for efficient organization of all academic and non-academic activities happening in the college and then provides predictable routines for students to follow. Students and teachers can access the timetable from their mobile app. The software also provides a master timetable for the principal and teacher’s timetable for all teachers.

6. Human resource management

The lifecycle of a faculty from joining the college to leave management to salary management is automated using the human resource management module available in the software. This provides a single place for storing all employee-related information including payslips. The payslips can be accessed by faculty directly by logging in to their respective dashboards.

7. Examination management

This module helps is setting-up examination calendars and managing the notifications of the same. The examination details are further linked to create grade book reports of the students. Also, there is an option to conduct online examinations for students.

8. ID card generator

This module allows the automated design of ID cards for students and faculty with minimum configuration. The ID cards can be generated individually or in bulk and can be then printed for usage by students and faculties.

9. Gradebook management

The college management software generates the grade book(report card) which can be accessed by parents and students from their dashboard. Options are available to configure the grade book according to the requirement of the college.

10. Library management

The library management module takes care of all library-related activities from searching for books, issuing books, tracking of books, etc. Library management with barcode integration is one of the most required modules by colleges.

11. Inventory management

This module takes care of the college’s purchase orders, goods’ invoices, in-house stock management, equipment, and other assets tracking. It also generates detailed asset reports.

12. Placement management

This module helps the colleges to plan and streamline the campus placement activities. You can plan the campus recruitment drive, track applicant status, and provide instant result announcements.

13. Reports

There will be hundreds of reports available from college management software to help with various decision making. This includes the default reports in each module and also the fully customizable reports available from the custom report module.

Fedena College Management Software comes with 50+ features which help in mitigating the work efforts and aid towards increasing your productivity for managed growth. Visit our feature page to explore all features.

Major benefits of Fedena Campus Management System Software:1. Saves precious time

The major benefit of college management software is time, professors and other faculty can save by the proper implementation of the software on the campus. With the different modules available for daily usage like attendance management, fee management, automated notifications to parents and students, etc. faculty can save precious time which would have been spent in administrative activities in the absence of college management software.

2. Customizable & Affordable

The features and functionality of various campuses vary from each other therefore we offer tailor made solutions. We offer customization according to the institute’s needs. Apart from this, Fedena college management software is an affordable solution and comes with no limits on the number of students, teacher, and parent logins.

3. Comprehensive Training & Support

We provide full fledged training sessions and support after implementation for the users. On our support page users can explore feature based tutorial videos which help in letting users learn the functionality of this system in their own time and pace.

4. Data Security

Data security is one of the key benefits of college management software. As it ensures that students & staff members personal data remain protected from unauthorized or malicious access. We also offer data backup facility.

5. Multi-Campus Management

There are various institutions that include multiple branches under them. To manage a group of institutions from a single platform we offer multi-institute ERP software. With this application, admin gets a bird eye view on all branch operations from a single dashboard. To know more about, visit our Multi-School Management System.

How to choose the right college management software for your college?

Once you understand the benefits of a college management software, you will be interested to purchase a new college management software or upgrade from the existing software that may not be serving you properly.

So it is very important that you choose the right college management software that suits the unique system and process of your college.

1. The first step is to study the software used in other colleges like yours. Collect information from as many colleges as possible and make a list. Also, collect from them the benefits and challenges faced by these colleges. This will be a good starting point to understand the software market in your geography
2. After that understand the total cost of ownership of the software by comparing it with the next 5-year operational plan. How many students will be there in the next 5 years? Will the college maintain the same student intake or are you planning to grow and expand? This is important as the software price may be dependent on student numbers. Check with your vendor for more details on five-year pricing.
3. The next step is to understand the features of the software and check whether it fits with your unique requirements. This can be achieved by creating a small panel of faculty to select and manage the college management software.
4. Along with the above step, you can also decide to host the software on-premise or online(SaaS). With present trends, you will most probably choose SaaS.

Here is an article on implementing software starting from the step of choosing the software. The tips are applicable to colleges also. And our experts are available to help you in choosing the right college management software. Contact us now.

Priyanka Gautam - Edtech Marketer & Digital Marketing Enthusiast