The use of facility management software for the education sector has become widespread, and the adoption of CAFM with ERP mixed with other facility management software is almost universal because of the ways in, which it makes managing the education sector so much easier.

Colleges, schools, and universities whether publicly or privately funded have embraced such software packages for a variety of sound reasons. Those colleges, schools, and universities that have already installed facility management systems have already been convinced of the managerial benefits of installing such software. There are various requirements that educational institutions need to make sure are carried out and facility management would help them achieve what they have to do.

The first obvious requirement for facility management in the education sector is to implement components that records the details of the pupils and students that are set to attend, are already attending, or have attended institutions. The management of colleges, schools, and universities need to know how many pupils and students intend to study at their institutions from the start of the next academic year, to work out the total number of spaces available in very much the same way a hotel needs a channel manager to handle bookings. Some of the most popular academic institutions have more people wanting to become students with them that they need to select the most suitable candidates and computer-aided results help determine those offers.

These more popular institutions could therefore use systems to record whether or not prospective students meet the criteria, for example, the schools with a really high demand for places can insist that all future students within a certain number of miles of the school, the filter and criteria can be unlimited in theory. Most schools have a catchment area for pupils so the more in demand ones can just reduce the size of their catchment areas and furthermore some schools even restrict entry to new pupils that already have an older sibling already attending their school.

The more in demand colleges and universities can restrict entry depending on the exam passes obtained by potential students, and make the required grades specific to the subjects that students have applied to study. Many countries have an overall clearing system for colleges and universities but the most in demand institutions will often insist on making the entry requirements stricter still.

Besides recording the grades of all the students applying to start course, colleges, schools and universities need to keep a record of all the grades obtained by their students, this is where ERPFM can come in and help with that capture and storage process. These test results and exam grades are vitally important for schools, especially where there are school league tables and the results can affect the levels of school funding. School league tables can have a strong influence over how many students are applying to attend, which schools. Lower performing schools tend to have less demand for places, whilst higher performing schools can often run out of spaces. The best performing colleges and universities will not want to record the exam results of their best students they also publish those results or post them online. Having the best grades is a virtuous circle as it means the best students, who in turn get the best grades and can then help to attract the next batch of brilliant students to enhance reputations for excellence even further.

All colleges, schools, and universities tend to record how often students attend classes and lectures. Often for school’s attendance is recorded to keep a look out for truancy levels and make only pupils with valid reasons are excused from attending school, ERP:FM can even go to this level utilizing mobile devices to record real time information and set tasks based on calling home to confirm why a pupil is absent. This is important from an educational institutions perspective as the register of attending students helps synchronize with the health and safety aspect as well as to keep them in within fire safety regulations.

Universities tend to be less interested in recording attendance levels and more interested in making students have paid their course fees where applicable, which again, ERP:FM performs fantastically well at making sure all relative requirements are met and tasks generated against pupils who have fallen behind.

For all of these requirements facility management systems fused with enterprise resource planning (enter ERP:FM) are more than capable of recording and using all relevant information. Software systems are generally highly adaptable and will allow management to acquire, use, and record all of the data they need.