| Type | Privately held |
|---|---|
| Industry | Student information system |
| Founded | 2008 |
| Headquarters | Beaverton, Oregon |
| Key people | Aris Yahaya, Azreen Latiff |
| Products | QuickSchools student information system |
| Revenue | Not disclosed |
| Website | QuickSchools.com |
QuickSchools.com is an online school management system that runs on the Application Service Provider model. It was released in mid-2008 by Maestro Planning Solutions founded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2002. Typical features such as admissions, student information management, scheduling and grading functionalities are made available over the internet using the software as a service model.
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Maestro Planning Solutions early origins was in providing supply chain management software. The company was founded in early 2003 after winning the Venture 2002 Business Plan Writing competition [1]. This competition was organized by McKinsey & Co and supported by Malaysia's largest venture capital company, Mavcap and the Ministry of Finance of Malaysia. With the publicity and support garnered from the win, the company was born.
In 2006, Maestro made an exploratory move into the schools market via a project for a premier Malaysian private school, Kolej Tuanku Ja'afar. Maestro used the same optimalOne platform and injected supply chain ideas into the creation of a School Management System for this project. This cross-fertilization of ideas from supply chain into the school management system was recognized by KTJ as being different from several school management systems it was evaluating at the time.
In January 2008, Maestro decided to embark on launching this school administrative software [2] as an online system, and it was subsequently branded as QuickSchools.com a fully online school management system for small schools.[3]
In April 2009, Maestro Planning Solutions raised 4.5 million [Malaysian Ringgit] in venture capital funded by DTA Growth Capital, Malaysia. The financing will support QuickSchool.com's expansion into the US school market and strengthen the company's R&D as well as its sales & marketing efforts.
Also in April 2009, Maestro received a grant of 1.06 million Malaysian Ringgit to spear-head the R&D of a [Web 2.0] timetable scheduling software that will eventually be a part of QuickSchools.com.[4] The grant was awarded by Mdec (Multimedia Development Corporation, Malaysia).
On August 17th 2009, QuickSchools released a brand new version of its school management system based on extensive feedback from the current user base.[5] This approach to software design was decided upon as best way forward because it focused more on improving the user experience. Therefore more attention was give to introducing a simple user interface with extensive feature hiding.
One of the key improvements is to allow users to be up and running in minutes. The administrator simply registers his/her school on the website along with a custom domain for the school. The software then automatically creates and publishes a fully functional school management system in real time. The admin can then proceed to 'invite' teachers and other faculty to test out the system. Another improvement involves a 'LiveFeed' feature that creates notifications when certain activities take place.
The essential paradigm shift achieved here is the way the software reformats to match to the user's requirements. Only the features required by a specific school are made available - making the software very easy to use. This makes the barriers to entry almost negligible. QuickSchool's long term goal is to create software that will require no technical support and no training, and this release goes a long way to achieving this.
The system allows users to log details of inquiries from parents or guardians and keep track of their contact details. Student applications can also be maintained along with grades achieved during any entrance exams.
Details such as picture, subjects taken, classes attended, grades and extra-curricular activities can be tracked. Student grading can also be done for end of term reports and can be printed out in PDF.
Parents can track the progress of their children on a daily basis. This makes it very hard if the student wants to cut, is missing an assignment, or is just plain tardy. The system will be sending parents e-mail notification as soon as the teacher marks a student late/absent.
Schedules can be generated for students, teachers, subjects and classrooms. Flexible to the type of information that the school wants to track about students. Foreign language character support for Arabic & Chinese are currently available.
As of late 2008, the primary method of delivering school management system was typical of enterprise application systems. The school management software would be installed on servers on-site at the school. As in most industries, the idea of using the software as a service model for schools started garnering interest. A couple of early players emerged in this space, such as RenWeb and Teacherease. QuickSchools.com made its debut in this space in mid-2008. QuickSchools.com offers its entire suite of solutions via a Web2.0 internet application. Schools subscribe to the application by paying a fixed per-student, per-month fee. In order to make this possible, trainings are provided online, and support is provided out of their Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia office.
Schools have some reservations about the QuickSchools.com model. The primary concern by many schools is the fact that the data is now stored in computers outside of their control. This is actually a common concern for any software vertical which makes the initial jump to the software as a service model. For example, in the CRM industry, there were many skeptics in the early days of SalesForce.com. Proponents of this model argue that the data is slightly safer than installing the software on-site as a dedicated, specialized team is responsible for the safe running of the system, which is often beyond the capabilities of individual companies or schools to manage.
QuickSchools.com is based on Maestro's optimalOne platform. QuickSchools.com runs on a Java EE backend. The front-end runs on Adobe Flash (previously Macromedia Flash). The use of Flash enables QuickSchools.com to run on many different browsers and on different operating systems. It also enables the Web2.0-style interface. Servers are located in 2 locations around the world. The first location was established in Malaysia in January 2008, and the second location was established in Seattle, US in August 2008.