Navigate K-12 Architecture Kit

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Describe how K-12 Architecture Kit helps educators and school personnel.
Set up K-12 Architecture Kit in your org.

This module provides information about the managed package version of Education Cloud. As of March 2023, new or migrated customers use Education Cloud integrated platform solutions instead of managed packages. For information about the integrated platform solution, go to our Education Cloud Documentation.

Calling All Guardians of Goodness!

K-12 Architecture Kit is a single architecture that allows everyone—educators, staff, and families—to work better together by connecting people, processes, and data. And you, yes you, have been selected as the guardian of this goodness (congrats!). As your school’s stupendous Salesforce administrator, you have accepted the great honor and responsibility for the installation, configuration, maintenance, and operation of Salesforce’s suite of powerful technology and tools, and now you get to add K-12 Architecture Kit to your amazing skill set (you rock!).

Whether you’re a full-time admin, part-time volunteer, or have taken on these administrative responsibilities in addition to another role, you are in the right place. In this module, we walk through a basic overview of what K-12 Architecture Kit is, including the setup process, the K-12 data model, and key customization tools and features. Let’s get started.

Three overlapping circles with one icon inside of each circle: one icon representing people; one icon representing data; and one icon representing processes managed by the Salesforce administrator.

What Is K-12 Architecture Kit?

First things first, let's dig a little deeper into what exactly K-12 Architecture Kit is. As we just learned, K-12 Architecture Kit is a single architecture that empowers schools and districts to collaborate around 360-degree views of students' needs and outcomes, engage families, and operationalize improvement efforts.

But how does K–12 Architecture Kit help educators and school personnel accomplish all of this? Great question. K-12 Architecture Kit is an open-source framework (this means that its source code, a list of easy-to-read programming instructions, is publicly accessible) built on top of Education Data Architecture (EDA).

EDA is a flexible data architecture that configures Salesforce for educational institutions. For a review of EDA basics, check out the Trailhead module on Education Data Architecture Basics in the Resources section. Because EDA is built on Salesforce technology, it has the powerful capability to create a complete, shared view of every learner, from day one. K-12 Architecture Kit taps into this powerful capability and makes it relevant for K-12 schools and districts. Pretty cool, right?

Now that we know what K-12 Architecture Kit is, let’s take a look at the setup process.

Get Set Up

Before you install and configure K-12 Architecture Kit, it’s important to complete these preparatory tasks.

Consider best practices for initial installation.
Learn what’s installed.
Review the managed and unmanaged package considerations.

In this module, we show you the steps for accessing, configuring and exploring K-12 Architecture Kit, which is available on the Salesforce AppExchange at the link in the Resources section.

If you choose to start by installing K-12 Architecture Kit into an existing Salesforce org, be sure to assess your internal support resources or reach out to your consulting partner beforehand. For more details, check out the install documentation in the K-12 Architecture Kit documentation linked in the Resources section.