Veracross product roadmap: AI, automation and a growing UK focus
Veracross has provided a further update on its product roadmap, highlighting developments across its core MIS and the wider Veracross 360 portfolio.
Since WhichMIS? first reviewed the roadmap following Veracross’s summer webinar, some of the more significant developments have started to move from roadmap to reality – most notably VC Studio, its new AI-powered reporting and analytics environment.
The latest roadmap also provides a clearer picture of Veracross’s plans for schools in the UK and EMEA, with continuing investment in localisation alongside AI, automation and its wider suite of products.
VC Studio moves from roadmap to product
Perhaps the most significant change since the summer roadmap is that VC Studio is now available.
VC Studio is Veracross’s AI-powered reporting and analytics environment, designed to allow school staff to interrogate their data using natural language.
Rather than having to understand the structure of a conventional report writer, users can ask questions about their school data and have VC Studio create reports, dashboards and visualisations using live Veracross data.
Examples might include analysing admissions conversion rates, identifying trends in academic performance or examining patterns across cohorts of pupils.
Veracross says users can also share and publish reports so that they continue to reflect up-to-date data rather than having to be recreated each time.
It represents a potentially significant change in the relationship between MIS users and their data: moving from “how do I build this report?” to “what do I want to know?”
From reporting to investigation
The interesting element of VC Studio is that Veracross appears to see it as more than simply an AI report-writing assistant.
The company has built what it calls Veracross Intelligence, an AI layer intended to extend across the platform over time, with VC Studio the first product developed on top of it.
Its approach allows users to start with a question, examine the answer and then continue investigating the data without necessarily returning to IT or a specialist report writer for each subsequent query.
Veracross is already promoting examples across admissions, academic leadership, student support, teaching, development and fundraising.
This could be particularly useful for senior leaders who understand the questions they want to ask of their data but may not have the technical knowledge needed to construct complex reports.
VC Automations – the next part of the picture
The second significant development is VC Automations.
This is intended to reduce repetitive administrative processes by allowing activities within Veracross to trigger subsequent actions automatically.
Admissions appears to be an early focus.
Veracross is demonstrating how schools will be able to automate communications according to family behaviour and engagement, enabling personalised admissions communications to be sent without staff having to manage every follow-up manually.
The EMEA launch activity is scheduled for October, suggesting that VC Automations is now moving closer to general use.
The combination of VC Studio and VC Automations is arguably more interesting than either product in isolation.
One helps schools identify and understand what is happening within their data; the other starts to automate what happens next.
The importance of one record
Veracross is also increasingly connecting its AI strategy with one of its longstanding differentiators – its one-person, one-record architecture.
Rather than maintaining separate records for admissions, academics, finance, development and other areas and synchronising information between them, Veracross’s proposition is based around different functions working from the same underlying record.
The company argues that this becomes increasingly important as AI is introduced because the quality of any AI-generated analysis ultimately depends upon the consistency and quality of the underlying data.
There is clearly a marketing argument here – and schools evaluating the system will want to test how completely the “one record” proposition works in practice – but it is nevertheless an interesting point.
As AI becomes embedded within MIS products, data architecture and data quality could become just as important as the AI functionality itself.
UK and EMEA development
Another important development is Veracross’s increasing focus on functionality specifically relevant to British and international schools.
The company’s latest EMEA roadmap update highlights investment across the Veracross platform for UK and EMEA customers.
This localisation matters.
Veracross has traditionally been particularly strong within independent and international schools. To grow further within the UK, however, a global platform needs to accommodate the reporting, administrative and operational requirements of British schools.
Recent development has included areas such as Exams Manager, designed around the requirements of UK independent schools, including exam entries, access arrangements, rooms, invigilation and communication with families.
Continued UK-specific development will therefore be an important area to watch.
Academics and the student record
Alongside the headline AI developments, Veracross continues to develop its core academic and student functionality.
The direction of travel is towards making student information easier for teachers and pastoral staff to access, while allowing schools greater flexibility over how information is presented.
This includes continued development around academics, student profiles, student support and the information available to staff when working with individual pupils.
For schools assessing any MIS, these developments are arguably less eye-catching than AI, but they remain fundamental to the everyday user experience.
Admissions and enrolment
Admissions remains a particularly important component of the Veracross proposition.
Because admissions information can form part of the same underlying pupil record subsequently used elsewhere in the school, Veracross aims to reduce duplication between recruitment, enrolment and the pupil joining the school.
The introduction of VC Automations adds another dimension.
Automated, behaviour-based communications could allow admissions teams to follow up prospective families according to their progress through the admissions process without relying on staff to initiate every individual communication.
For independent schools competing for pupils, this potentially moves the MIS further into territory traditionally occupied by CRM and marketing automation platforms.
A broader platform rather than simply an MIS
One of the most noticeable aspects of the Veracross roadmap is just how broad the portfolio has become.
Alongside its core MIS functionality sit products covering admissions, finance and payments, development and fundraising, student engagement and behaviour, health, websites and mobile applications.
Products including ePraise, Magnus Health and Digistorm therefore form part of the wider Veracross 360 proposition.
This raises an increasingly familiar strategic choice for schools.
Do they want a broader ecosystem from one supplier, with data and workflows more closely integrated, or a core MIS surrounded by specialist third-party applications that may provide greater depth in their particular area?
There is no universal answer, but it is becoming an increasingly important distinction between MIS strategies.
The WhichMIS? view
When WhichMIS? first looked at the Veracross roadmap, AI and automation appeared to be two of the most interesting areas to watch.
That remains the case, but VC Studio moving into live use makes the proposition considerably more tangible.
AI reporting is likely to become commonplace across MIS platforms. The more interesting question is what happens next.
If a senior leader can ask:
“Which pupils are showing a combination of falling attainment, worsening attendance and increasing pastoral concerns?”
and receive an immediate answer, that is useful.
If the system can then help initiate the appropriate workflow, alert the relevant staff or automate other actions, the potential becomes much greater.
That is why the relationship between VC Studio, VC Automations and Veracross’s underlying data architecture is worth watching.
There is also a wider competitive point.
The UK MIS market has traditionally been dominated by products serving state-funded schools, while Veracross has a much stronger heritage in the independent and international sectors. Its roadmap does not suggest that it is trying simply to replicate the traditional UK MIS model. Instead, Veracross appears to be pursuing a broader platform strategy combining MIS, admissions, finance, engagement and increasingly AI-driven data intelligence.
https://www.veracross.com/resources/eu-veracross-360-roadmaps