Finalsite

The client

Established in 1999, Finalsite is the premier communications and website platform for educational institutions, trusted by over 7,000 schools and districts in 119 countries. Being the #1 choice for school websites in the US, Finalsite delivers digital tools that help educational institutions connect and engage with their communities. Finalsite’s products and services help foster engagement, drive enrollment, and support fundraising, all while meeting data privacy, accessibility, hosting, and security requirements.

The challenge

In 2022, Finalsite expanded its reach and portfolio by acquiring Blackboard K12, solidifying its leadership in the EdTech industry. This strategic move positioned Finalsite to offer a broader range of services to educational institutions worldwide.

Finalsite focused on integrating diverse assets and teams to maximize the acquisition's potential and deliver a seamless user experience with a more competitive product offering. The company set out to modernize its technology stack, refine development processes, and ramp up its engineering capabilities. This modernization also included the introduction of intelligent tools that enhance user efficiency to meet the rapidly evolving needs of the education sector.

Finalsite partnered with Transcenda to rapidly scale during a high-growth phase. Together, the teams focused on building a dedicated school communication platform and a new mobile app and web portal, enabling real-time updates, notifications, and chat functionality for teachers, parents, and students.

In addition to the core platform updates, the collaboration included support for AskAI – an intelligent assistant designed to help users navigate the system, find relevant content quickly, and reduce the need for manual support interactions.

Transcenda’s engineering team contributed to Finalsite’s modernization roadmap, focusing on scalability, performance, and long-term flexibility. The product design team supported the implementation of a new design system for efficient and consistent UI development across the platform.