ClassLink Launchpad: Personalised Cloud Desktop for Schools

"We are satisfied with their work, and we expect our partnership to continue for years to come."
- Stanley Watts, CTO

About the app

ClassLink empowers educational institutions by removing barriers between students and valuable learning resources. Their mission is to create a seamless environment where technology enhances, not hinders, the learning process.

With over 20 million daily users worldwide, ClassLink provides solutions for educators, students, administrators, and IT professionals, ensuring learning opportunities and simplifying tasks like rostering and account provisioning.

The main goal of this project was to develop iOS and Android mobile apps that mirrored the functionality, design, and branding of the existing Launchpad web app, while also providing schools with a safe and easy solution for accessing all digital resources in one place.

Challenges

Founded in 1998, ClassLink has a long history of building relationships with educators and administrators from thousands of school districts in the US. This network was key to acquiring new clients.

The mobile app versions needed to adhere to mobile-specific UI/UX guidelines, as the need for mobile apps arose as US schools increasingly adopted iPads for students.

Over the past 10 years we worked together with ClassLink on the LaunchPad app, there was a need for us to:

  • identify new ways of doing things

  • constantly improving the apps and

  • dropping some of the functionalities that proved to be less used by the students and teachers.

Security has also become a growing focus, requiring us to navigate the complexities of integrating Single Sign-on (SSO) technologies and ensuring seamless functionality for over 6,000 vendor app connections within the mobile apps.

This also meant that the project needed a "personalized portal of apps from anywhere while protecting sensitive data with secure Multi-Factor Authentication".

Solutions

The Launchpad app leverages a mix of technologies including Java, Kotlin, Objective-C, Swift, SwiftUI, JavaScript and Firebase.

Primarily used in the US, Launchpad is also seeing adoption in European and Asian countries, while also offering:

  1. Centralized Access: Access to all your apps, files, and classes from anywhere, on any device. This makes it ideal for Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives and 1-to-1 programs in schools.

  2. Seamless Login: Single Sign-On (SSO) integration allows users to sign in once on a website and gain automatic access to the app.

  3. Remote Desktop: Run existing Windows applications directly from Launchpad using Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) technology.

  4. Unified Cloud Storage: The My Files section integrates with popular cloud storage services like Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. You can access, upload, delete, and copy files across all your enabled cloud services in one place.

Downloads grew from a few hundred in the initial months to thousands within the first year, reaching hundreds of thousands currently. The app boasts 2 million monthly logins, reflecting the significant increase in school districts using Launchpad – from a few hundred to a few thousand worldwide.