Dynamics 365 education accelerator update supports K-12 application

On Jun 22, 2020

First, a heartfelt thank you to educators around the world. Many schools are now out for the summer, marking the end of a school year in the most uncertain of times. This spring, schools gave more to students than an educationthey provided a sense of purpose, consistency, and normalcy. Teachers and school administrators worked relentlessly. And, as students and their families take a collective deep breath, school leadership teams all over the world are preparing for school in the “new normal” this fall and the years that lie ahead.

Today, we are launching an update to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 education accelerator to include a component to accelerate K-12 school application development. Schools that use Dynamics 365 or Power Platform can now accelerate their development of K-12 school-specific apps based on relevant workflows and data models, adding functionality to:

Empower students and family members, and grow connections: school portals provide relevant and timely communication between home and school, and share information such as homework, grades, school forms, extra-curricular school activity registration, and attendance, to facilitate a stronger connection between schools, families, and students.
Manage attendance: school administrators and educators can easily analyze, understand, and act on student attendance patterns through a Power BI dashboard. Additionally, educators can easily communicate with students and their families to make necessary changes.
Manage fundraising: administrators can easily manage donations and connect with donors.

Schools and their technology partners are already using the new K-12 component to develop apps. Microsoft Dynamics 365 partner Mazik Global used the new K-12 component to build a virtual classroom to support remote learning. The app enables schools to manage virtual classrooms, send students notifications for online meetings, keep up to date through a student portal, and share teacher announcements.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 partner Eduphoric created an app that identifies students that are falling behind, provide specific intervention and instruction, assign supplemental materials, and stay connected while students work to achieve their learning goals. Chris Sprague, President of Eduphoric, shares:

“We are excited to partner with Microsoft to accelerate data-driven solutions that allow educators to take action to improve student outcomes – in particular in a world where norms of student-teacher interactions have instantly changed. In response, we’re offering a Student Progress Monitoring and Intervention solution that pulls together student performance data from multiple sources to enable teachers to identify students needing help, assign supplemental interventions, and follow up with students to achieve learning goals. We’re leveraging Microsoft’s K12 Education Accelerator and the Power platform to rapidly develop the solution and be able to adapt it to evolving needs and new best practices.”

Ready for a test drive?

Educators and their technology partners can use this scenario to create a holistic student profile, facilitate communication between schools and families, and support fundraising efforts.

You can access the K-12 component in the Dynamics 365 education accelerator. Please reach out to our team with any feedback or questions about the education accelerator at http://aka.ms/cdmengage.