Pearson saves customers time and money with Google Maps

Editor's note: We’re pleased to welcome Bryan MacDonald, Chief Technology Officer at the School Systems group of Pearson – an international media company specializing in education, business information, and consumer publishing – as our guest blogger today. Pearson has integrated Google Maps API Premier into their flagship student information systems, PowerSchool® Premier and Chancery® SMS. With Google Maps, districts and schools can easily and accurately identify geographic boundaries and assign students to the correct districts.

As a global leader in education and education technology, Pearson develops student information systems (SIS) used by district and school administrators and teachers to perform functions such as scheduling, enrollment, attendance, grading, and reporting. Here at Pearson, we've recently integrated Google Maps technology into PowerSchool Premier Version 6 and Chancery SMS Version 7, both of which were released last month.

Pearson's customers rely on our product to manage their student enrollment process smoothly and efficiently. With the integration of Google Maps API Premier, users can create their school and district boundaries within the system, and use information on students to easily confirm that these students are appropriately enrolled in the correct schools.

Unlike the technology used in most other SIS applications, which requires complex definitions based on latitude and longitude coordinates,Google’s technology makes boundary definition as easy as drawing lines on a map with a virtual pen. We’ve also created a process that will allow our customers’ existing student addresses to be entered into the system in one easy step. This is a significant breakthrough and timesaver for school districts across the country, and the data integration also helps ensure that the school system can communicate important information such as report cards and newsletters to students and their families.

You can see how it works in this video:

Google Maps will revolutionize the way our customers manage their address data. They'll now be able to easily manage it from within their Pearson SIS and won't have to maintain separate databases, which are frequently prone to error. Through our address verification process, customers will reduce returned mail and associated printing and mailing costs.

Additionally, access to Google Maps technology provides this critical functionality in an intuitive format, delivering an ease-of-use breakthrough compared to the typical address technology in other systems.

At Pearson, we believe that the integration of Google Maps will provide our products with the competitive advantage that truly makes a difference for today’s educators. We’re excited to partner with Google, and we look forward to more opportunities in the future. For more information on Pearson School Systems and our SIS products, visit us here.

Bryan MacDonald, CTO, School Systems Group, Pearson

Posted by Colleen Horan, Google Enterprise team