Data ownership
SIS remains authoritative for student record.
Why. Avoid inconsistent records.
Trade-off. Depends on SIS API quality.
Industry patterns · Education
Student and learner services platform
One front door for enrolment, support requests and communications, integrated with the student information system and learning platform, with safeguarding built in.
A reference architecture from EITSAA, not a named client system. Service limits, prices and product features change, so confirm current details before you commit to a design.
- Australian Privacy Principles
- WCAG 2.2 AA
- ACSC Essential Eight
- Child safety and safeguarding expectations
Architecture
- People and clients
- Security and identity
- Databases and data
- Messaging, events and workflow
- SaaS and business systems
- Monitoring, audit and analytics
- Request or data flow
- Asynchronous or optional
- Boundary: region, account, network or trust zone
Request and data flow
Students and families sign in through the school or institution identity provider.
The portal shows only the services and records the person is entitled to.
Requests and consents are stored with timestamp and version.
Enrolment and attendance data are read from the student information system by API and cached.
Workflows route requests, such as extensions or support, to the right team.
Staff approve or respond, and welfare concerns escalate by rule.
Notifications go to Teams or email, with minimal personal information in the message.
Components and why they were chosen
| Component | What it does | Why this choice |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Entra ID (or school IdP) and external ID | Identity for staff, students and guardians. | Matches existing Microsoft 365 for Education. |
| Portal (App Service or Power Pages) | Self-service front end. | Faster delivery on Microsoft stack. |
| Dataverse or Azure SQL | Cases and consents. | Dataverse suits low-code processes. |
| Power Automate or Logic Apps | Workflow. | Business teams can adjust steps. |
| SIS integration (via API or iPaaS) | Authoritative student data. | Do not duplicate the SIS. |
| Teams and email notifications | Outbound communications. | Where users already are. |
| Reporting (Power BI) | Service and equity insight. | Aggregate view. |
| Safeguarding escalation | Rules route welfare flags to named staff. | Duty of care. |
Design decisions and trade-offs
Platform
Power Platform for workflow, Azure code for integration.
Why. Speed with control.
Trade-off. Governance needed for makers.
Minors
Guardian consent and age-aware access.
Why. Privacy of children.
Trade-off. More complex identity.
Messaging
No sensitive details in email or Teams text.
Why. Limits exposure.
Trade-off. Link back to portal.
Well-architected pillars
Security
Private networking, Entra ID with Conditional Access, encryption with customer-managed keys, least-privilege roles and WAF on the public edge.
Reliability
Zone-redundant services, backups with tested restores and queue-based retries for integrations.
Performance
Edge caching for public content, asynchronous processing for anything slow and indexes tuned to the main queries.
Cost optimisation
Scale with demand, use reservations or savings plans for the steady baseline and set budgets and alerts per environment.
Operational excellence
Infrastructure as code, pipeline deployments with rollback, dashboards on service-level objectives and runbooks for the top failure modes.
Sustainability
Right-size, schedule down non-production and archive data to colder tiers on a retention schedule.
Network, identity and data
Networking
Spoke virtual network with private endpoints to data services. Public ingress only through the edge service with WAF. Private connectivity to on-premises or partner systems by VPN or dedicated link.
Identity and least privilege
Students and staff via Entra ID. Guardians via external identities with verified relationships. Conditional Access for staff.
Data and encryption
Student data, including minors, needs strict access control. Encrypt, restrict region, define retention and handle correction requests (APP 13).
Security and compliance mapping
| Control | How this design addresses it |
|---|---|
| Multi-factor authentication | Required for staff and administrators. Essential Eight. |
| Restrict administrative privileges | Just-in-time elevation and separate admin accounts. Essential Eight. |
| Regular backups | Automated backups with a copy held outside the workload account or subscription. Essential Eight. |
| Privacy and security of personal information | Encryption, access logging and retention support APP 11. |
| Logging | Central, tamper-resistant logs support ISM event logging guidance and ISMF expectations. |
Mappings show how the design supports each control. They are not certifications, and EITSAA does not claim IRAP assessment or compliance for any reference architecture.
Failure modes, targets and scaling
- Target RTOMinutes for zone failure; hours for a rebuild from code
- Target RPOSeconds to minutes with point-in-time recovery
- Scaling and limitsSized from measured peak demand with a load test before go-live. Check service quotas early.
| Failure mode | Mitigation |
|---|---|
| SIS API outage | Cache and show data age. Queue writes. |
| Wrong guardian access | Verified relationships and review. |
| Peak enrolment load | Autoscale and queues. |
| Missed welfare flag | Escalation rules with acknowledgement timers. |
Observability and runbooks
- Service-level objectives for availability and latency with burn-rate alerts.
- Audit log review for sensitive actions.
- Queue depth and integration error dashboards with a named owner.
Cost drivers and levers
Compute, database, data transfer and licences for any SaaS components.
- Reserve the baseline.
- Schedule non-production down.
- Cache and compress at the edge.
- Archive old data.
Implementation and fit
Phased approach
- Discovery: process, data and obligations mapped with the business owner.
- Foundation: landing zone, network, identity and pipeline.
- Thin slice: one journey end to end in production for a small group.
- Expand and harden: remaining journeys, load and penetration testing.
Anti-patterns to avoid
- Building before the decision rights and audit needs are agreed.
- A single shared admin role.
- Personal data in logs and test data.
- Integrations without retries or a dead-letter path.
When to use it
- Schools, TAFE and training providers with several systems.
- Services needing one front door.
When not to
- Replacing the SIS.
- Collecting more student data than a service needs.
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