Moving your school off spreadsheets: a 90-day plan

Schools run on spreadsheets far longer than they should because a switch feels risky mid-year. It does not have to be. Here is a 90-day plan that keeps the running year stable.

Weeks 1 to 3: stand-up

• Choose cloud or on-premise and deploy.
• Run the security hardening pass: secrets to environment config, seeded passwords force-reset, debug artefacts stripped, audit log on, off-site backups scheduled.
• Migrate students, staff, classes and fee history from spreadsheets, with a validation and exception report.
• Set up structure: classes, sections, subjects, fee heads and the academic year.
• Train the admin and office team.

Weeks 3 to 8: staff go-live

• SIS, attendance, timetable and fees go live for staff.
• From Tier 2, examinations and report cards come online.
• Run the first attendance and marks cycles with support on hand.

Weeks 6 to 12: layer add-ons

• Roll out the parent app, online payments and WhatsApp or SMS together.
• Finalise board report-card templates.
• Start any standalone modules such as transport, library or payroll.

What you need ready on day one

Student and staff lists, class and section structure, subject list, fee heads, last year fee history if available, and your board and report-card format.

Tips to de-risk it

• Pilot with one grade or section first, then extend class by class.
• Keep the spreadsheet as read-only history for one term.
• Nominate one owner per module on your side.

AcadiPlus follows this exact template. Request an instant quotation to get your dates.