Introducing Edu Connect: workforce and site safety built for schools

We are pleased to introduce Edu Connect, a new product built specifically for schools and multi-academy trusts. It brings staff attendance, visitor management and fire roll call together in one system designed around how schools actually run, and it works alongside your existing management information system rather than trying to replace it. This post explains what Edu Connect is, what it does, and just as importantly what it does not do.

Why we built a product just for schools

Computime has spent more than thirty-five years helping UK organisations manage their workforce, and a good number of our customers are schools and trusts. Over that time one thing became clear: schools have needs that general workforce software does not quite fit. The people on a school site are not only staff. They are visitors, contractors, supply teachers and governors, and when the fire alarm sounds, every one of them has to be accounted for. The admin office is often doing this across several disconnected systems, or on paper.

Edu Connect is our answer to that. Rather than ask a school to bend a generic system to fit, we have built one around the way schools work, drawing on the same platform and the same UK support team behind our wider Connect range.

What Edu Connect does

Edu Connect brings three things that usually live in separate places into one connected system.

Staff attendance

It records when staff arrive and leave, giving the office an accurate, live picture of who is on site, which feeds straight into the fire roll call when it is needed. This is staff attendance, not pupil attendance, which stays with your MIS.

Visitor management

Visitors sign in digitally rather than in a paper book, so the school has a clear, searchable record of who is on site and when. At sign-in, reception can record that a visitor’s DBS check has been seen, giving you a log that the right checks were in place. The school still runs the checks and keeps the single central record; Edu Connect records that the check happened.

Fire roll call

Because the system already knows who is on site, staff and signed-in visitors alike, it produces a live evacuation list that a marshal can carry out to the assembly point on a mobile device. The roll call uses Roll Call Connect, the same marshals’ app behind our wider fire roll call, so no one is relying on a printed register that was out of date the moment it was printed.

It works with your MIS, not against it

This is the part worth being clear about, because it is where schools are rightly cautious. Edu Connect is not a management information system and does not replace one. It does not do pupil attendance, it does not run DBS checks, and it does not hold the single central record. Those are your MIS and your safeguarding processes, and they stay exactly where they are.

What Edu Connect does is sit alongside them. It includes a live sync with Arbor, so staff and site information stays consistent across both without anyone rekeying it. The result is that the things an MIS is not built for, staff attendance, visitor sign-in and fire roll call, are handled properly and join up with the records you already keep.

Built for single schools and trusts

Edu Connect suits a single school that wants these three jobs done well in one place, and it suits a multi-academy trust that wants one consistent way of doing them across every site. For a trust, having the same visitor process, the same roll call and the same staff attendance across the estate is worth as much as the features themselves, because it means every school is doing site safety the same way.

Part of the Connect family

Edu Connect joins our growing Connect family of products, built on the same foundation and the same principle: do a clear job well, work alongside what you already have, and be backed by a UK team you can actually speak to. If you would like to see how it fits your school or trust, the best place to start is a short demo, so you can see it working alongside your own MIS rather than in the abstract.

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Frequently asked questions

What is Edu Connect?
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Edu Connect is Computime’s new product built for schools and multi-academy trusts. It brings staff attendance, visitor management and fire roll call together in one system designed for how schools run, and it works alongside your existing management information system rather than replacing it. It is part of Computime’s Connect family of products.

Who is Edu Connect for?
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Edu Connect is for schools and multi-academy trusts that want staff attendance, visitor sign-in and fire roll call working together rather than across separate systems. It suits single schools and trusts managing several sites, where having one consistent way of doing these things across the estate matters.

Does Edu Connect replace our MIS?
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No. Edu Connect is not a management information system and does not replace one. It does not handle pupil attendance or the functions your MIS performs. Instead it works alongside your MIS, with a live sync to Arbor, so staff and site information stays consistent without being rekeyed. It handles staff attendance, visitors and fire roll call, which sit outside what an MIS is built for.

Does Edu Connect carry out DBS checks?
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No. Edu Connect does not run DBS checks and does not maintain the single central record. What its visitor management does is let reception record that a visitor’s DBS check has been seen at sign-in, so there is a clear log of who was on site and that the right checks were in place. Running the checks themselves, and keeping the single central record, remains with the school.

How do we get Edu Connect for our school or trust?
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The best starting point is a demo, so you can see how Edu Connect fits alongside your MIS and how staff attendance, visitors and fire roll call work together for your setting. You can book a demo or talk to the Computime team through the Edu Connect page, and pricing is tailored to the size of the school or trust.