- Edtech
- MVP & POC Development
- Custom App Development
- DevOps
The pilot worked. Procurement is a different product
A learning tool with happy users and a successful pilot meets its first institutional buyer and discovers that single sign on, roster sync and a data protection review are the actual product. Getting there does not have to mean the rewrite most pilots trigger.
Representative engagement. This describes a pattern we build rather than one named client: the situation that produces it, how we approach it, and the range of outcomes that kind of work lands in. Figures are stated as ranges or targets, never as a measured result for a specific customer. Our named client work is on the work index.
- Industry
- Edtech
- institutional sign in and class sync, not manual accounts
- SSO and roster
- identity, tenancy and data lifecycle replaced, the rest kept
- Not a rewrite
The problem
A pilot optimises for proving the idea, which is correct. It means accounts are email and password, cohorts are set up by hand, and data retention was never a question anybody asked. An institution asks a completely different set of questions. Can students sign in with their existing identity, does the roster synchronise, who can see a learner's record, what happens to it when they leave, and can any of this be evidenced. None of those are features the pilot users ever wanted. The common outcome is a rewrite, because the pilot was built as though it would be thrown away. It usually was not thrown away, and now it is load bearing.
What we built
A short assessment of what genuinely has to change and what only appears to. Identity, tenancy and data lifecycle almost always do. The rest of the pilot is frequently fine, and replacing working code to feel thorough is a way to spend a quarter. Identity is replaced with real single sign on and the roster integration standard the institution actually uses, so a class appears without an administrator creating accounts by hand. Tenancy is introduced properly, with isolation in the data layer rather than in a filter somebody has to remember. Data lifecycle is made explicit: what is retained, for how long, who may access it, and how a record is exported or deleted. That documentation is part of the delivery, because it is what the procurement review reads.
What changed
The tool becomes buyable by the institutions it was already working for, which is a commercial change rather than a technical one. The pilot survives it. Preserving the parts that were sound and replacing only identity, tenancy and data lifecycle is what turns this into a phase of work rather than starting again, and it is why the assessment comes first.
Built with
- Next.js
- TypeScript
- PostgreSQL
- SAML
- LTI