What to prepare before onboarding
Everything Scholarium needs from your college to stand up a branded portal — gathered in one place so your registry, bursary and IT staff know exactly what to bring to the first call.
Nothing here is a hard requirement to begin. Bring what you have; we start with your institution details and add the rest as it arrives.
The onboarding checklist
Six groups of information. Tick them off as your team gathers each one — the tally is for your own tracking and is not sent anywhere.
Institution details
The identity of the college as it should appear to students, on notices and on every document the portal generates.
Students, programmes and sessions
How your academic structure is shaped, so levels, courses and cohorts are set up the way your college actually runs.
Domain and DNS
Where your portal will live. Starter and Pro run on a Scholarium subdomain; Business plans can use your own domain.
Branding assets
Your portal carries your college identity, not ours. Send the best originals you have — we will not redraw a logo from a photograph.
Accounting and fee structure
What students owe, how it is collected and where the money settles. This is what makes the fee ledger reconcile on day one.
Staff, roles and academic records
Who gets access to what, and which historical records should come across with you.
How the five days run
Your team is needed on day one and day four. The rest is our work.
Discovery call
Twenty minutes on your programmes, intake size, fee structure and who will hold admin access.
Portal stood up
Your branded subdomain goes live with logo, colours, programmes, levels and fee heads loaded.
Staged import
Your student list is mapped and imported into a staging pass, with a report of anything ambiguous.
You check the data
Your registry compares the staged records against its own files and we correct anything flagged.
Go live and train
Records confirmed, gateway connected, staff walkthrough delivered. The two free months start here.
File formats we accept
Send whatever your offices already keep. We do the mapping — you do not need to reformat a spreadsheet before the call.
Student files are regulated data. Send them by the secure link we issue after the first call, not by open email attachment or a public drive link.
Who does what
Onboarding is not a project your staff have to run. Three things come from you; the rest is ours.
Your college brings
- Institution details and logo
- Programme, fee and grading rules
- Your existing student lists
Scholarium handles
- Portal build, branding and hosting
- Column mapping and staged import
- Gateway connection and staff training
Not needed at all
- A card or payment to begin
- A server or in-house IT team
- Clean or reformatted spreadsheets
Can we start before we have gathered everything?
Yes, and most colleges do. Institution details and a student headcount are enough to open a trial portal. Fee heads, branding and historical results can arrive over the first week without delaying anything.
Who from our college needs to be involved?
Three people, briefly: the registrar for academic structure, the bursar for fees and the settlement account, and whoever controls your DNS if you want a custom domain. No one needs to be technical.
Do we have to clean our spreadsheets first?
No. Send them as they are, inconsistent column names, merged cells and all. We map the columns and send back a report of anything we could not read confidently, rather than guessing.
How is our student data protected in transit?
After the first call we issue a secure upload link tied to your institution. Files land encrypted, are accessible only to the engineer handling your migration, and the staging copy is destroyed once you confirm the live import.
What if our fee structure changes mid-session?
Fee heads and amounts are editable at any time by the bursary, and changes apply to new invoices only. Existing student ledgers and receipts are never rewritten retroactively.
Can we onboard one office at a time?
Yes. Colleges commonly start with admissions and student records for one intake, add fees the following month, then results at the end of the first semester. Modules can be switched on in whatever order suits your calendar.
Got most of the list? Start the trial
Send the trial request with whatever you have gathered. We will ask for the rest during the first call. Nothing on this page blocks you from starting.