Holland, Michigan

17,000 Students

Ottawa Area Intermediate School District (ISD) is an Educational Service Agency (ESA) located in Holland, Mich. Ottawa ISD provides services to 11 public school districts, seven public school academies and 23 non-public schools in Ottawa and Allegan counties. The district became an official ESA partner with Infinite Campus in 2011. Through the ESA agreement, they provide services and support for more than 17,000 students across 10 districts.

Choosing the Right SIS
In 2006, Ottawa Area ISD organized a search to look for a new student information system (SIS). Of the seven districts included in the search, six selected Infinite Campus. Ottawa Area ISD believes that when purchasing an SIS, it is important to consider all of the costs including the base product, training, equipment and future add-on costs. After analyzing the estimated expenses, Infinite Campus was found to be the best investment for their money compared to the other vendors.

Ottawa Area ISD chose Infinite Campus because it is the most complete SIS. In a list of features, Infinite Campus scored significantly higher than other vendors. Having state reporting, special education (SPED), health, fees and behavior management modules included with the core product, and not as an add-on or third-party costs, was a big factor in their decision.

“Infinite Campus is a forward-thinking company with goals to improve education, not just a data management system. I think this sets them apart from all other companies,” said Greg Shepard, Enterprise Systems Manager, Ottawa Area ISD.

Campus Support
Ottawa Area ISD has received superior support and customer satisfaction from Infinite Campus. “Cases are handled as well, if not better, than any other company we have worked with,” said Shepard. With a 97 percent support satisfaction rating, Campus Support provides a centralized point-of-contact for responsive, personalized solutions and advice.

Recently, Infinite Campus won the 2013 HDI Team Excellence Award. The prestigious award recognizes Infinite Campus for its outstanding customer service, technical support and commitment to continual improvement.

Campus Community
Ottawa Area ISD uses the Campus Community Knowledge Base for forum discussions, learning tools, news stories and support related questions. “The documentation and online support through the Campus Community is one of the best we have seen. The ease of finding documentation and assistance through the Campus Community, as well as the videos and hands on tutorials is beneficial for all,” said Shepard.

The Campus Community allows customers to share product knowledge, tips and tricks, while also networking with peers among the entire user base. This user-friendly site provides single sign-on access from the Infinite Campus system to the knowledge base, forum discussions, learning tools, support, customer events calendar and news stories.

Campus Hosting
Ottawa Area ISD values the hosting services they receive through Infinite Campus. In the past, they spent a lot of time performing upgrades and maintaining servers. Now, that process takes minimal time and allows staff to concentrate on using the system instead of having to maintain it. It has saved Ottawa Area ISD countless hours in support time over the years. “It literally takes us about one minute to request an update, and downtime is minimized because trained professionals familiar to the system perform the updates and maintenance. If an issue does arise, Campus Hosting is quick to fix the problem,” said Shepard.

Campus Special Education
The special education (SPED) module allows a student’s entire team to be involved in their success including teachers, counselors, staff, guardians and community members by providing different levels of security for each member. “It is nice to have everything built within one system structure instead of having to export and maintain a whole separate system,” said Shepard. “This saves us both time and money as SPED systems can be very costly.” Staff is able to spend more time collaborating and providing individualized instruction for students through Campus SPED.

State Reporting
A committee was formed through the Michigan Infinite Campus User Group (MICUG) that conducts regular phone conferences to work on new state reporting requirements. With the ever changing requirements, Campus Business Analysts assigned to Michigan state reporting and SPED have done a great job at keeping up with them. The process is streamlined and monitored, making it easy to meet deadlines.

Ottawa Area Intermediate/Kent Intermediate School District Pupil Membership Auditor, Kathy Breen, audits student counts for the district electronically. “As a pupil membership auditor conducting electronic attendance audits in many different student information systems, I find Infinite Campus is very user friendly and easy to navigate. It contains every report view that I need to conduct a thorough and in-depth audit.”