The client
Alice Smith School, founded as the first British international school in Malaysia, holds a distinguished position as the only 'not-for-profit' British international school in Kuala Lumpur. With two exceptional campuses - Primary and Secondary - surrounded by lush green spaces, the school provides world-class facilities to students aged 3 to 18.
The school is celebrated for its quality of teaching, broad range of learning opportunities, and exceptional student behaviour. With a dedicated staff, high levels of governance, and strong community engagement, Alice Smith School has built a reputation as a place where students flourish.
The opportunity
Cursor was introduced to Alice Smith School via our partners at HubGem, who had been working closely with the school team to implement a new and improved admissions and marketing platform via the HubSpot CRM. We were invited to consult on the data integration side of the project, supporting the Alice Smith team in integrating this exciting new HubSpot system with their existing iSAMS school management software.
A key goal was to streamline processes and enhance the user experience for internal staff. Our first step was to implement Cursor’s HubSpot to iSAMS Admissions Sync solution, which allows student admissions data in HubSpot to be copied into iSAMS at the point of enrolment, ensuring seamless data transfer into the school’s MIS once the applicant becomes an accepted student.
Another key area of focus was improving communication with parents. The school realised that sending communications from HubSpot would be far more efficient and effective than from iSAMS, which was limited in its communication capabilities. However, they faced a challenge: once student data was synced across, the most up-to-date contact information would sit in iSAMS, not in HubSpot, making it difficult to maintain accurate records for effective outreach.
Developing a bespoke sync solution to pass newly updated contact data from iSAMS back into HubSpot would unlock the school’s ability to leverage HubSpot’s advanced filtering, segmentation, and tracking features for more targeted and effective communication.
The challenges
One of the first hurdles in developing this bespoke solution was the need for a fully populated database with all relevant records present. To enable the bi-directional flow of data, a reliable mapping needed to be created between the iSAMS and HubSpot records. We developed a script that leveraged key data points to cross-reference records between iSAMS and HubSpot. This allowed us to accurately identify whether a corresponding HubSpot record already existed for a given iSAMS record, ensuring the integrity of the data sync.
It was also important to determine the "single source of truth" for data. While a true two-way sync might seem ideal, it was clear that iSAMS needed to remain the core record for student data, as it was the system most widely used at the school. This decision came with its own set of limitations, particularly around how data could be accessed or managed via the iSAMS API.
One of the more complex aspects of this was how iSAMS handles the "last updated" function for parent contact details. Unlike HubSpot, which has clear mechanisms for tracking updated contacts, iSAMS lacked a direct method for identifying when a contact had been updated. Instead, the sync relies on the linked student record to track these changes in iSAMS. This approach required us to carefully manage how we retrieved and synchronized data based on those updates.
The school required specific filtering to ensure that only relevant data was passed back into HubSpot. The sync needed to exclude records without key contact information that would hinder effective communication. For example, if a contact didn’t have an email address, it was unnecessary and unhelpful to sync that record to HubSpot. This filtering required additional logic to ensure that only the most valuable and up-to-date data would be transferred.
The time zone difference between the UK (where the sync was running) and Malaysia (where iSAMS was being used) added another layer of complexity. The system had to account for time zone discrepancies, ensuring that the sync accurately captured updates in iSAMS, even if they occurred at different times locally. Filters needed to be fine-tuned with exact times based on Malaysia’s time zone, ensuring no data was missed or improperly synced due to the time difference.
These challenges required careful planning, problem-solving, and flexibility, but ultimately the collaboration between our team and Alice Smith School allowed us to overcome each challenge we encountered.
Technologies used
Launch and outcome
As the integration system operates in the background, with no direct user interface, building confidence in its reliability was paramount. A “soft launch” phase ensured the sync system was running correctly before executing live updates in HubSpot.
This phase, known as “safe mode,” allowed the system to perform checks, compare updated iSAMS records against HubSpot, and generate detailed emails outlining the proposed updates. However, the actual updates were not executed during this phase, giving staff time to review the proposed changes and monitor the process. This “safe mode” ran for several weeks, giving the school team confidence in the system's accuracy and stability before the launch took place.
Through close collaboration, careful testing, and ongoing monitoring, Cursor delivered a solution that not only integrated Alice Smith School’s systems, but also significantly improved operational efficiency and communication with parents.