How an international school leveraged automation to streamline visa and passport renewals
The client
Alice Smith School, Malaysia's pioneering British international school, stands out in Kuala Lumpur as the sole 'not-for-profit' institution of its kind. It offers a world-class education to students aged 3 to 18 across two outstanding campuses, Primary and Secondary, both nestled amidst lush green surroundings.
Renowned for its exceptional teaching, diverse learning opportunities, and exemplary student conduct, Alice Smith School fosters an environment where students thrive. This success is underpinned by a committed staff, robust governance, and vibrant community involvement.
The opportunity
At Alice Smith School, managing students’ visas and passports had always been a tedious challenge. Every term, the administrative team had to manually review hundreds of student records, checking which documents were up to date and which were nearing expiration.
After identifying the students at risk, staff had to individually contact each parent, reminding them to renew their child’s documents. This process was time-consuming, repetitive, and prone to human error. With this in mind, Alice Smith School approached Cursor seeking an improved automated solution.
The solution
Enter the Renewal Manager. This solution automates nearly every step of the document renewal workflow - it tracks document expiration dates, flags upcoming renewals, and sends timely notifications to parents.
Tasks that once took hours of manual effort can now be completed automatically, reducing errors and freeing staff to focus on more meaningful work. With the Renewal Manager, Alice Smith School and Cursor have transformed a stressful, cumbersome process into a smooth, reliable system, ensuring every student’s documentation stays current with minimal effort.
The challenges
Building the Renewal Manager required bringing together several tools and integrations to create a seamless end-to-end experience. The school needed a system that could handle the complexities of document management, extracting information, updating system records, and communicating with parents, without burdening staff with extra steps.
The first challenge was handling document uploads. Parents often submit scans of passports or visas, but staff shouldn’t need to manually check through them. To solve this, the Renewal Manager uses the Nanonets API, which intelligently extracts key details such as expiration dates and document numbers directly from the uploaded files. This data is then passed back into the Renewal Manager for processing, removing the need for manual data entry.
Next, the system needed a reliable way to update student records in their existing student management information system, iSAMS. The Renewal Manager was designed to integrate directly with the iSAMS API (application programming interface) to pull and update document details automatically. However, the iSAMS API has some limitations in what endpoints are available, meaning it is difficult to write or update data in certain fields. To tackle these endpoint gaps, Cursor developed a unique integration that can mimic user actions - such as uploading files directly into iSAMS and retrieving or updating visa records for each student. This gave the Renewal Manager full control over the process, even where the standard iSAMS API fell short.
To ensure the system was resilient and responsive, the Renewal Manager solution included a queue system. When parents upload new documents, these submissions are placed in a queue, where they can be processed in the background. This design choice had two major benefits - first, users receive immediate confirmation that their submission was received, creating a smoother experience; second, errors can be handled silently and gracefully, without disrupting the workflow.
The outcome
Alice Smith School’s Renewal Manager project has successfully streamlined the complex process of managing hundreds of student visas and passports. By automating document tracking and reminders, the system has significantly reduced administrative workload and minimised errors.
The iSAMS integration ensures a seamless data management experience, allowing staff to focus on more impactful tasks. This initiative demonstrates the power of thoughtful technological solutions in enhancing school operations, providing efficiency and an improved experience for parents and staff alike.