Charting a New Course with Qmlativ: Illinois District Boosts Efficiency Across Business Office

Case Studies > Charting a New Course with Qmlativ: Illinois District Boosts Efficiency Across Business Office

Libertyville School District 70 cuts manual work, improves reporting, and enhances staff workflows by migrating to Qmlativ.

"Ultimately, we felt it was a better use of time and resources to switch to Qmlativ."

Hoisting the sails

Q: Your district migrated from SMS 2.0 to Qmlativ in 2025. What factors led you to make the decision to migrate?

A: District 70 has been a Skyward finance customer since 2007 and migrated to Qmlativ in March 2025. Our business department is composed of five people who have used Skyward from one year to over 20 years.

As with many districts of our size, there were a lot of manual processes in the business office and Skyward was greatly under-utilized. By 2023, the business office had all new staff who were motivated to make their department and district more efficient. We had to ask ourselves, “Should we invest our time making those improvements in SMS 2.0, only to do it again in a year or two when we are required to migrate to Qmlativ? Or, do we just rip off the band-aid and migrate now?”. Ultimately, we felt it was a better use of time and resources to switch to Qmlativ.

Q: What excited you most about Qmlativ?

A: We were excited for improved state reporting, and the ability to add shortcuts, tiles, and other personalized features (live tiles for pending approvals!). Most importantly, we looked forward to a software that was easier to navigate with robust search and help features. Getting payroll out of PAC was nice too!

"After seeing Qmlativ in action, it was obvious how user-friendly and intuitive it is."

All hands on deck

Q: Since your district previously used Skyward’s SMS 2.0 product, did you find the migration to Qmlativ easier?

A: Yes! Learning any new system has its challenges, but the business office team found that Qmlativ was more intuitive and easier to “figure things out” than SMS 2.0. The menu paths in Qmlativ are similar enough to SMS 2.0, so we had a good starting point.

"As a building leader, I appreciate how Qmlativ allows me to quickly and efficiently review and approve staff orders while maintaining fiscal responsibility."

Q: How long did your migration take? Were there any obstacles incurred or anything that went smoothly you’d like to share?

A: Our migration lasted 12 months. We took the time to clean up our database and decided it would also be advantageous to have additional time to implement unused components of Skyward to make our migration go more smoothly. We also wanted to ensure that the migration process would not interfere too much with the day-to-day operations of the members of the migration team. Doing your full-time job while concurrently migrating software is not easy!

There were two key factors that greatly contributed to our successful migration:
 

1. Our district created a new business office position “Process Improvement Coordinator.” The main focus of this position was to revamp the business office’s manual processes. The first big project was to lead the Qmlativ migration. Having a full-time dedicated staff member configuring Qmlativ and testing the database meant that the rest of the team could continue to focus on their day-to-day tasks. They were assigned PDC training and practiced in the test database, but they did not have to configure their respective modules, validate the migrated data or troubleshoot migration issues.
2. We set a realistic timeline of 12 months for our migration. It was based on the amount of data that needed to be cleaned up and new processes that we wanted to implement. This allowed us to be thoughtful during the migration process and provided ample time for our migration team to do the training and practice over a year, giving them the flexibility to work around their respective busy times of the year.

Q: What did buy-in from your staff/administration for the switch to Qmlativ look like? What were their thoughts and feelings on making the switch?

A: When D70 hired a new CSBO, she asked her staff what they would like to see improved in the business office. The team unanimously wanted to better utilize Skyward, as there were too many manual processes that had not been improved over the years. The business office attended User Group conferences where they learned more about Qmlativ, after which we requested a demo of Qmlativ. After seeing Qmlativ in action, it was obvious how user-friendly and intuitive it is. With the support of the Superintendent and the Board of Education, we decided to migrate with a 12-month timeline led by the district’s Process Improvement Coordinator.

Q: How did you prepare your staff for the transition to Qmlativ? How have they responded to the transition?

A: We announced the Qmlativ migration to all staff and then provided periodic updates and the project timeline. Training and resources were provided before and after the migration to key staff members, such as purchasers, administrators, and other Skyward users. Step-by-step instructions were posted on the district’s intranet for common tasks, such as downloading a wage statement. Lastly, the business office and technology department provide one-on-one support to staff on an ongoing basis.

Q: What did your support experiences look like with the Skyward team when migrating to Qmlativ?

A: We regularly met with our migration project coordinator, who was phenomenal! She collaborated with us to create a custom timeline, provided helpful information and feedback. We also took advantage of every opportunity that Skyward provided, as well as our state user group. There were Skyward S2Q Q&A sessions with a member of the S2Q team, Qmlativ webinars and a robust help center. Our state user group created their own S2Q Q&A sessions as well, which was a nice compliment to Skyward’s version because we could get a user perspective as well as the developer’s.

When needed, we would open support tickets and quickly learned that there is an art to opening a good ticket. Having a meaningful subject allows for faster triage to get it to the right support rep, and it greatly helps them research and resolve your issue if you include screenshots and detailed information with your ticket.
 

Full speed ahead

Q: What have been some of the greatest benefits of Qmlativ? What are some improvements or adjustments you are still making?

A:

1. The canned reports are phenomenal! We use them on a daily basis and have found a canned report to take the place of the majority of our SMS reports.
2. Live tiles: Our administrators use them to track if they have any pending approvals, Accounts Payable uses them to track purchase orders and invoices, etc.
3. Dock and Dashboard: Adding shortcuts to frequently used screens is a big time saver!

  Q: What are your district’s goals for using Qmlativ in the future?

A:

1. Go paperless: Since 2023 the business office staff have been working towards going paperless. There are some additional processes that we want to make paperless, such as processing purchase orders.
2. Electronic time keeping: We want to ditch the paper timesheets.

Q: What advice would you give to districts considering a move to Qmlativ?

A:

1. Include your support staff that are daily Skyward users in the migration conversations. Solicit their feedback, understand their current workload, and ask if they are onboard with the work involved for the migration. Regularly ask how the district can support them during the migration.
2. Make a realistic timeline based on the number of staff that will be involved and the amount of time they are able to work on the migration outside of their day-to-day tasks.
3. Consider hiring or re-assigning someone to oversee the migration (and perform configuration and setup) rather than spreading the workload amongst staff that are already working full time.
4. Create a list of your district’s goals and initiatives that you want to incorporate with the migration. Do you have to clean up your SMS 2.0 data? Is all of your data in Skyward, or do you need to add it (position management, state and federal reporting, etc.)? Is there a new module that you want to rollout when you go live? Consider the additional time these will take and factor that into your migration timeline.
5. Rip the band-aid off and just do it! Change is hard, but the outcome is worth it.

Q: Is there anything else that you’d like to comment on?

A: We received the below testimonials from an administrator and building staff:

Principal:

"As a building leader, I appreciate how Qmlativ allows me to quickly and efficiently review and approve staff orders while maintaining fiscal responsibility. Principals juggle a wide range of responsibilities, and this new platform helps streamline one important piece of the work so we can stay focused on leading our schools."

Teacher:

“Navigating websites has never been my forte, so for me to say I can find my way around this site speaks volumes. With a fluctuating monthly paycheck due to extra-duty reimbursements, supervision hourly pay, etc. I have always found it helpful how Skyward lists the pay transactions in detail, allowing me to easily see what my paycheck entails for that period. The bi-monthly emails we receive alerting us with the next pay cycle's information are incredibly helpful. Even accessing W2's for taxes is a breeze. I love that I can retrieve past paycheck history if information is needed without having to keep a paper trail — it is all right there for me.”