The AIT Platform: four tools every AIT school gets as standard
We’re a school IT support company first — engineers on site, a UK-based helpdesk, cabling crews, connectivity and cyber security for schools and trusts across the country. But the way we deliver that service is different, because we built our own software to run it: a leadership dashboard, a reporting suite, an operations engine and a procurement tracker.
Together they’re the AIT Platform. Every one of them is included with our service, not sold on top. No modules to license, no per-seat fees, no upsell meeting. If AIT supports your school, you already have them.
Trusted by schools across the UK
Why we build our own software
Most IT providers bolt together off-the-shelf tools and pass the licence costs on. We took a different route: since 2000 we’ve been building the systems we wished existed for school IT — and giving them to our schools as part of the service.
Built for education, nothing else.
Every screen assumes a school: term dates, DfE standards, safeguarding duties, governor reporting, trust structures. There’s no “education edition” of a corporate product here — education is the product.
Included, not sold on top.
The platforms are how we prove we’re doing our job, so charging extra for them never made sense. Support, installs and connectivity are what you buy; the platform is how you see what you’re getting.
One provider, one picture.
Because the same platforms run our helpdesk, our engineers’ schedules, your budget planning and your orders, nothing falls between systems — and neither do you.
Want to see what the day-to-day service behind the software looks like? Start with IT support for schools.
AIT Horizon — the leadership dashboard
For heads, SBMs, bursars, trust executives and governors. Horizon turns the questions leaders actually ask — what will IT cost us over five years? are we compliant? what’s the plan? — into one live dashboard, with Executive, Schools and Support views so everyone from a CFO to a school office sees the level of detail that’s right for them.
IT Finance, five years out. Horizon’s IT Finance module lays out a rolling 5-year projection of your IT spend: every device with a replacement date feeds a hardware refresh forecast, and every subscription feeds a software licensing timeline. Instead of a surprise £40,000 laptop cliff in Year 3, a school sees the peak coming in Year 1 — and can smooth it into planned annual spend before it ever reaches a budget meeting. (All figures illustrative.)
Compliance at a glance. The RAG compliance tracker scores your estate against the standards that matter — filtering and monitoring, backup, cyber security, DfE digital standards — in plain red, amber and green. Policies live alongside it, so evidence for governors or inspectors is one click, not one afternoon.
A strategy you can point at. The strategy roadmap turns your IT vision and digital strategy into a living plan with owners and dates — not a PDF that goes stale the day it’s written.
Horizon is where multi-academy trusts get a trust-wide picture and where independent school bursars plan capital spend — included with our service from day one.
Browser-frame panel: Horizon Executive view for a demonstration trust (“Demo Trust, 8 schools”). Shows the IT Finance 5-year projection chart (illustrative: £212k / £198k / £246k / £201k / £195k), a RAG compliance tracker with 14 green, 3 amber, 1 red, and the strategy roadmap timeline. All data is anonymised, static demo data — no live figures.
Helpdesk Reporting — see the service you’re paying for
For anyone who’s ever wondered what their IT provider actually does all day. Helpdesk Reporting opens our helpdesk up to you. The Executive overview summarises your school’s support picture on one screen; KPI Insights breaks down response times, resolution rates and ticket trends; and per-trust filters let a trust IT lead compare every school in the group side by side.
Training insights goes a step further: it spots the patterns in your tickets — the same password resets, the same interactive-panel questions — and shows where a 20-minute staff session would remove a recurring problem altogether. (Example: a demo school sees 31 tickets in a term tagged “printing” and books one twilight session; illustrative data.)
And when you just want an answer, the AI Assistant lets you ask in plain English — “how many tickets did we raise last term?” — and get a straight reply drawn from your own support history.
It’s the transparency layer behind our IT support for schools — and it’s included, not sold on top.
Browser-frame panel: Helpdesk Reporting KPI Insights for “Demo Primary School”. Tiles show illustrative, static figures — 47 tickets this term, 94% resolved within target, most common category “Accounts & passwords” — plus the AI Assistant answering a sample question. Anonymised demo data only; this page never displays live SLA or performance feeds.
AIT Atlas — the engine room
Navigate. Manage. Deliver. Atlas is the operations platform our own team runs on — people, projects, schools and technology in one system, with CRM, Rota, Fleet and HR modules keeping a 75-strong team organised across 249 schools.
Why show you our internal tooling? Because it’s the honest answer to “how do we know you’ll turn up?” When your cabling project or summer works are booked, Atlas has already scheduled the engineers, the vans and the milestones before anyone sets foot on site. When you call the helpdesk, the person answering can see your school’s kit, history and site notes without asking you to explain your network from scratch. (Example rota view: a demo install week showing 3 engineers, 2 sites, 11 scheduled tasks — illustrative.)
You don’t log into Atlas — it works for you in the background of every visit, ticket and project we deliver.
Browser-frame panel: Atlas projects board for an anonymised demonstration week — project cards moving through survey → install → handover, alongside a Rota view. No names, no client identifiers; static demo data.
AIT Ordering — procurement without the paper chase
For the office manager who’s tired of chasing three email threads to find one delivery date. AIT Ordering tracks every purchase from quote → purchase order → delivery in one place. You approve a quote online, it becomes a PO automatically, and you watch the order move to “delivered” without a single “just chasing this” email.
The built-in catalogue means requesting kit starts from education-appropriate options we already support — so a “we need six laptops” request doesn’t turn into a compatibility headache later. Behind the scenes, supplier management lets us hold suppliers to their promises on price and lead time, and that accountability is visible to you. (Demo order shown: 30 pupil devices, quote approved Monday, PO raised same day, delivery confirmed for the following Thursday — illustrative timeline.)
Every order also feeds Horizon’s IT Finance module automatically — so the devices you buy today appear in your 5-year hardware refresh forecast tomorrow. That’s the platform working as one system, and it’s all included with our service.
Browser-frame panel: Ordering tracker for “Demo Secondary School” showing a quote→PO→delivery pipeline with three sample orders at different stages. Anonymised, static demo data.
One login: the Customer Portal
You don’t need four bookmarks. The Customer Portal is the single front door to everything — sign in once and move between Horizon, Helpdesk Reporting and Ordering, raise a ticket, or check an order, from any browser. Atlas keeps working behind the scenes.
Already with AIT? Sign in at the Customer Portal
Built around your kind of school
Multi-academy trusts
Horizon’s Executive view and Reporting’s per-trust filters give central teams one picture across every school, while each school keeps its own view.
Primary schools
small schools get the same platform as large trusts: a clear budget forecast, a simple ordering trail, and a helpdesk you can actually see into.
Secondary schools
RAG compliance tracking and KPI insights sized for bigger estates and busier networks.
Independent schools
five-year financial projections and procurement governance built for bursars and boards.
Frequently asked questions
It’s included. The four platforms — AIT Horizon, Helpdesk Reporting, AIT Atlas and AIT Ordering — are part of how we deliver our managed service, so every supported school gets them as standard. There are no per-platform licences, no per-user fees and no premium tier. You pay for IT support, installations and connectivity; the platform is how you see and steer what you’re getting.
No — and that’s deliberate. The platforms are powerful because they’re wired into a real service: real tickets, real engineers, real orders. Sold on their own they’d just be empty dashboards. If you’d like to see them running against realistic demo data, book a walkthrough or call 0115 9170 197.
No. Every panel on this page uses anonymised, static demonstration data, and all figures are illustrative. Your own school’s real data is visible only to you, behind your Customer Portal login.
That’s up to you. Typically heads, SBMs and trust executives use Horizon; office staff and IT leads use Helpdesk Reporting and Ordering; and governors are given read-only Horizon access for meetings. Access is role-based, so a trust CFO and a school office see different views of the same truth. Atlas is our internal operations system, so there’s nothing for you to manage there.
Yes — that’s a core design goal. Horizon’s RAG compliance tracker and policy library keep evidence for areas like safeguarding, filtering and monitoring and cyber security organised and current, so preparing for governors or inspection questions is a matter of opening a dashboard, not assembling a binder.
See the platform running on real service, not a sales deck
The best way to understand the AIT Platform is a 30-minute walkthrough with demo data — Horizon’s five-year budget view, a live tour of Helpdesk Reporting, and an order tracked from quote to delivery.
Existing customer? Customer Portal