Edtech Elevated: Three Colorado Districts Achieve New Heights with Skyward

Case Studies > Edtech Elevated: Three Colorado Districts Achieve New Heights with Skyward

Elizabeth School District, District 49, and Archuleta School District 50 JT select Qmlativ ERP and modernize their business offices.

Reminiscent of Colorado's heritage of exploration and advancement, three school districts have revolutionized their administrative processes with Skyward’s Qmlativ Business Management Suite.

We sat down with representatives of three Colorado districts to learn more about their experiences with Qmlativ.

"One of the things we were really interested in with Skyward was its API abilities and interoperability."

Meet the districts:

District 49 (D49) began their implementation in 2022. John Wilson and Mary Velasquez, both senior systems analysts at D49, are new to their roles and weren’t there for the initial implementation, so it has taken a bit longer for them to get acclimated.

Elizabeth School District (ESD) began implementing Qmlativ in August of 2023 and went live in January of 2024. Rebekah Brooks, CFO, led her team throughout the entire implementation process. “We are still working on getting some modules added [more on that later], so we still consider ourselves in the implementation phase,” said Brooks.

Archuleta School District 50 JT (ASD) went live in January of 2024. Eric Burt, finance director at ASD, saw his district through their implementation of Qmlativ.

Throughout their implementation processes, these district leaders have built a strong connection and collaborated closely as more districts in Colorado get started with Skyward.

"For us, it's about transparency and better planning are kind of the key pieces that Skyward brings to our strategic plan"

Blazing a new trail

In 2022, a new ERP solution became available in Colorado. Learning of this new option, ESD, D49, and ASD explored what a new business software system could mean for their districts as they were ready to leave their struggles with their previous solution behind.

“With our previous provider, there was no live data, so we had to wait until a certain time had passed before changes were reflected, which was frustrating,” said Velasquez of D49. “The cost was also high.”

“For us, our old system was lacking functionality and required a lot of extra work to get what we needed out of it,” said Brooks of ESD.

“We were experiencing a lack of training, poor system setup, and poor customer support with our previous system,” said Burt of ASD.

Ready for a change, all three districts found themselves choosing between Skyward and another solution. Various traits put Skyward ahead of the game. For example, Brooks and ESD noticed right away that Skyward had better customer service, and a lot of the same functionality of complex systems Brooks has worked with in the past on a smaller, more manageable scale.

“One of the things we were really interested in with Skyward was its API abilities and interoperability,” said Wilson of D49.

ASD was on their previous system for a little while, but it was chosen by someone who left their district, so no one was in love with it. “We looked at a couple of potential alternatives, but Skyward stood out above all others,” exclaimed Burt.

Apart from better functionality, Skyward also met each districts’ long-term goals and overall vision for the future.

“For us, it's about transparency and better planning are kind of the key pieces that Skyward brings to our strategic plan,” said Brooks of ESD.

D49 had a similar quest for transparency with a district goal of one source of truth. The district is also interested in the automation of data transfer within and outside of the district. “These points affect the improvement of the onboarding process, which is one of the district's major goals,” explained Velasquez. “We’re looking forward to Skyward helping us meet those goals.”

“Our district has many manual, paper-based processes that can be streamlined and automated in Skyward,” said Burt of ASD. “We see using the immense number of Skyward tools for continuous improvement for years to come.”

While all three districts had different goals and concerns, it became clear Skyward was the common denominator in their search for a better solution.

"The ability to consolidate other third-party software platforms into Skyward have been our favorites"

Breaking ground

Getting started with Skyward looked different for each team but some implementation steps lived in harmony among the three Colorado districts. Planning, teamwork, responsiveness, and intuition blended together to create a fruitful go-live for each district in different ways.

“We thought the implementation process was very thoughtfully laid out,” said Brooks of ESD. “Skyward did have suggestions on what the process should look like but would take our feedback and shuffle things around based on what we saw as important. They made sure we weren’t taking on too much at one time, making less work for us in the long run.

“At our district, implementation has taken a while,” said Velasquez of D49. “The person who was overseeing much of the process left our district, so we’ve needed some extra time. Skyward has been very helpful in answering our questions and providing training for us.”

“Our implementation was incredible!” said Burt of ASD. “I come from the corporate supply chain world, so I’ve been part of dozens of transitions. From the initial setup work and the training sessions, implementing Qmlativ was by far the best onboarding of any type of software platform I’ve ever been a part of. The level of support we received was amazing.”

Along with support from Skyward, ESD, D49, and ASD took to additional ways to help reduce the learning curve with Qmlativ. Each team harnessed the pioneer spirit, gravitating toward Skyward’s many selftraining options, such as the Professional Development Center (PDC) and Knowledge Hub, for learning the ropes in a new school administrative system.

Brooks of ESD and Burt of ASD also highlighted the intuitiveness of Qmlativ, while Velasquez of D49 added that the modules resemble each other, so it's easy to use your previous knowledge to help you find the answers you need.

“Quite honestly, the amount of resources we have available with Skyward is a bit overwhelming,” said Wilson of D49.

“For us, having a strong Skyward team was important, of course, but getting the initial buy-in from our staff, and personally investing a significant chunk of time to ensure that the setup was correct helped make our go-live a success,” said Burt of ASD.

Implementation aside, ESD, D49, and ASD were excited to start using Qmlativ.

Blooming benefits

Although early in their journeys with Qmlativ, all three districts have seen the benefits to their business office quickly.

“Workflows and approval processes have helped us bring our ERP into the current century,” said Brooks of ESD. “Previously, we were still doing interoffice mail, multi-part paper forms, and handwritten signatures. Now that has gone away and the speed at which things get done has improved greatly, which has been a drastic change. Communication and visibility are also better because we can attach backups in Qmlativ, which we couldn’t do before.”

“Independence when it comes to reporting has been a game changer for us,” said Wilson of D49. “We were seeing the same people ask us for reports monthly, so we created them in Qmlativ and said ‘Ok, now this is available to you 365.’ Before Qmlativ, information was kept on personal spreadsheets that only they could see. Now, the reporting module makes information viewable to the people who need it always. Also, data now has a place in Skyward that we’ve never collected before because no one saw the benefits of having it, which has been a big game changer.”

“So far, the ease of use, simple interface, the ability to consolidate other third-party software platforms into Skyward have been our favorites,” said Burt of ASD

Now established with Qmlativ, ESD, D49, and ASD are just getting started on their journeys to Skyward superstardom.
 

Beyond the horizon

All three districts look forward to making some improvements to their systems as they get more familiar with the software.

“We are currently building out online forms and process manager items and tasks,” said Brooks of ESD. “We also want to build out a better onboarding process, because we still have paper forms that employees come and turn in. Lastly, we are focusing on setting up custom report writing. We are excited about what Qmlativ can do for us.”

“Our district is still exploring all of the modules that are available,” said Velasquez of D49. “We look forward to seeing how we can expand our use of Qmlativ so we can reduce some of the other third-party systems that make our district go.”

Right now, ASD is prioritizing the current manual processes that will be automated in Skyward over the next few years. “We are also customizing some of the canned reports to meet the needs of the school board, building leaders, and more,” added Burt. “In the future, we plan on utilizing the numerous tools in Skyward to streamline and automate our operations, strengthen our budgeting and staff planning processes, and make better use of the data in Skyward to help achieve our strategic goals.”

For other districts in Colorado or elsewhere looking to make the switch to Qmlativ, they’ve got some golden advice for you:

“Skyward is very customer service oriented and is eager to get a good standing in Colorado, so I am glad we got the chance to go with them, and I would definitely recommend them to others,” said Brooks of ESD.

“We suggest Involving as many people as you can early in the beginning; we found that to be really important,” said Velasquez of D49.

“Just do it!” exclaimed Burt of ASD.