Automating user accounts across 23 schools at a growing MAT | The Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham Multi Academy Trust

The Customer

The Challenge

With 23 schools (soon to be 24), SNMAT faced a familiar but significant challenge: manually creating and managing user accounts for thousands of pupils and staff.  

Each month, primary schools submitted spreadsheets listing account changes, which then had to be processed by the IT team centrally using PowerShell scripts. Unsurprisingly, this was a time-consuming and error-prone task. 

“Onboarding and offboarding users – that’s our biggest overhead. It’s admin-heavy and prone to error.” – Mark Hardisty, Trust IT Manager.  

Meanwhile, secondary schools in the trust each had their own installations and processes, but lacked consistency across the trust. With 20+ primary schools feeding in data separately, maintaining centralised and up-to-date digital systems was growing increasingly unsustainable.  

As the trust expanded, Mark and his team needed a smarter solution that would standardise and automate these processes, while supporting different MIS platforms, such as ScholarPack and Bromcom.  

The Solution

As Salamander was already in place with the Trust’s secondary schools, Mark saw an opportunity to expand its use and roll it out across the primary schools.  

Working closely with the Salamander Support Team, SNMAT implemented a multi-school installation hosted at one of their secondary sites. This allowed a single integration to automate processes across 20 primary schools. 

SalamanderSoft connected SNMAT’s MIS platforms with Microsoft 365, so user accounts, email groups, class access, and digital classrooms could all be created and updated automatically. 

The Results

Since rolling out Salamander across all schools, SNMAT has significantly reduced manual admin time and improved the accuracy of its systems. 

The IT team no longer needs to manually update accounts or manage class groups. Instead, all updates happen automatically in line with the school’s MIS data: 

Hundreds of hours saved 

Manual spreadsheets, updates, PowerShell scripts and duplicated data entry are a thing of the past. Admin and IT teams across the Trust now rely on streamlined, reliable and automated processes, powered by Salamander.  

Error reduction and compliance 

Automation significantly reduces the risk of human error and ensures accounts are correctly provisioned or removed based on MIS data. 

Teaching and learning enhanced 

Microsoft Teams and class groups are created automatically via SDS integration, meaning teachers can simply turn up and teach, while email groups enable easy and straightforward communication between staff.  

Scalable and future-ready 

The set-up is designed to scale up with the MAT, making it easy for the Trust to onboard new schools and be assured that syncing user data and provisioning new accounts will be covered automatically by Salamander.  

By working with SalamanderSoft, SNMAT has freed up its IT team to focus on more strategic projects rather than firefighting. Automation ensures a consistent, secure and scalable system, making it easier to support a growing number of schools and meet staff and pupil needs from day one of term.