Zoho Admission ERP MVP Architect

# Zoho Solution Architect & Developer — Education ERP / Admission MVP

## About Prayaas Education

Prayaas Education is a coaching institute in Pune, India. We are in the process of building a structured digital platform using the Zoho ecosystem to manage our student lifecycle and business operations.

Our immediate objective is **not to implement a complete ERP at once**. We want to start with a well-designed foundation and build the most critical process first:

> **Enquiry → Admission → Student Creation → Course/Batch Allocation → Fee/Payment → Receipt → Student Confirmation**

We are looking for an experienced **Zoho Solution Architect + Developer** who can help us design the right architecture and then implement the first working version.

---

# Phase 1 — Business Discovery & Zoho Architecture

The first part of the engagement will focus on understanding our existing admission process and designing the solution before significant development begins.

### You will be expected to:

- Understand our current enquiry and admission workflow
- Map the complete admission journey
- Identify required users, roles and permissions
- Define the required data entities and relationships
- Recommend which Zoho applications should be used
- Define what should be handled using configuration vs custom development
- Identify where Zoho Creator is required
- Design CRM Creator Books/invoicing/payment architecture
- Identify required integrations
- Define automation and notification requirements
- Identify opportunities for future scalability
- Prepare a clear implementation roadmap for subsequent phases

### Expected architecture areas

You should be comfortable evaluating and designing around:

- Zoho CRM
- Zoho Creator
- Zoho Books
- Zoho Analytics
- Zoho Forms
- Zoho Flow / APIs
- WhatsApp integration
- Payment gateway integration
- Deluge
- REST APIs
- Webhooks

We do **not** expect every component to necessarily be used. We expect you to recommend the right architecture based on our requirements.

### Deliverables for Phase 1

1. Current-state process map
2. Proposed future-state admission process
3. Zoho application architecture
4. Data model / entity relationship design
5. User roles and permissions design
6. Automation/workflow design
7. Integration requirements
8. Recommended implementation approach
9. Phase-wise roadmap
10. Development effort estimate for subsequent phases

---

# Phase 2 — Implement Admission MVP

Once the architecture is agreed, you will implement the first production-ready MVP.

### Target workflow

**Enquiry**

↓

**Interested / Follow-up**

↓

**Admission Confirmed**

↓

**Student Record Created**

↓

**Course / Program Selected**

↓

**Batch Assigned**

↓

**Fee Structure Applied**

↓

**Payment / Invoice**

↓

**Payment Confirmation**

↓

**Receipt Generated**

↓

**WhatsApp / Email Confirmation**

↓

**Student Onboarding**

The objective is to eliminate unnecessary duplicate data entry and make the admission process simple for both the student and Prayaas staff.

---

# Important Business Context

Unlike many educational institutions, our admission process does **not** involve an entrance examination or interview.

A student who is willing to join the program can be admitted.

Therefore, the system should focus on:

- Lead/enquiry capture
- Counselling/follow-up
- Admission confirmation
- Student registration
- Program/course selection
- Batch allocation
- Fee management
- Payment tracking
- Receipt generation
- Communication
- Student onboarding

We want the admission process to be **simple, fast and reliable**.

---

# Expected MVP Capabilities

The first version should ideally allow Prayaas staff to:

### 1. Capture enquiry

Capture information such as:

- Student name
- Parent/contact details
- Contact number
- Email
- Course/program interested in
- Lead source
- Counsellor
- Remarks
- Follow-up status

### 2. Convert enquiry to admission

Once the student decides to join:

- Convert/confirm admission
- Create student record
- Assign program
- Assign batch
- Capture admission date
- Capture fee structure
- Apply applicable discount if required

### 3. Handle payment

Depending on the final architecture:

- Generate invoice/payment request
- Record payment
- Support different payment modes
- Support instalments where applicable
- Maintain payment history
- Handle outstanding amount

### 4. Generate receipt

After successful payment:

- Automatically generate a proper payment receipt
- Store the receipt against the student
- Make it accessible to authorised staff
- Send receipt to the student/parent by email and/or WhatsApp

### 5. Student communication

Trigger appropriate confirmation messages such as:

> Admission confirmed
> Payment received
> Receipt available
> Batch assigned
> Welcome/onboarding information

---

# Technical Requirements

## Must Have

Strong hands-on experience with:

- Zoho CRM
- Zoho Creator
- Deluge
- Zoho Books
- Zoho APIs
- REST API integration
- Webhooks
- Workflow automation
- Data modelling
- Role/permission design

## Strongly Preferred

Experience with:

- Zoho WhatsApp integration
- WhatsApp Business API
- Payment gateway integration
- Zoho Analytics
- Zoho Flow
- Education/coaching institute ERP
- Student management systems
- CRM-to-finance workflows

---

# What We Are NOT Looking For

Please do not apply if your experience is primarily limited to:

- Basic Zoho CRM configuration
- Creating simple CRM fields
- Basic email workflows
- Data entry
- Generic website development

We need someone who can **think through the business process and design the solution**, not simply execute a list of configuration instructions.

---

# How We Will Work

We want this to become a long-term engagement if the first phase goes well.

The initial engagement will therefore be structured as:

### Contract 1
**Discovery + Solution Architecture**

### Contract 2
**Admission MVP Implementation**

Successful completion can lead to additional phases covering:

- Batch management
- Attendance
- Student lifecycle
- Faculty management
- Timetable
- Test/examination management
- Student/parent communication
- Marketing automation
- Analytics and dashboards
- Student portal
- Broader Prayaas ERP capabilities

---

# Ownership & Documentation

This is important.

The Zoho organisation, data, configuration and solution should remain under **Prayaas's ownership**.

The freelancer will be responsible for implementation and documentation.

We expect:

- Proper documentation
- Clean Deluge code
- Naming conventions
- No unnecessary customisation
- Maintainable architecture
- Knowledge transfer
- Admin access for Prayaas
- Documentation of APIs/integrations
- No dependency on the freelancer for basic administration

Any custom code/configuration developed as part of the project should be documented and handed over to Prayaas.

---

# Ideal Candidate

We are looking for someone who can demonstrate:

**Business understanding + Solution Architecture + Zoho expertise + Development ability**

rather than someone who is only a developer.

You should be comfortable challenging requirements when you believe there is a better way to design the system.

We value:

- Clean architecture
- Simplicity
- Scalability
- Good UX
- Automation
- Security
- Documentation
- Long-term maintainability

---

# To Apply

Please include the following in your proposal:

### 1. Your Zoho experience

Briefly explain your experience with:

- CRM
- Creator
- Books
- Deluge
- APIs/integrations

### 2. Similar projects

Provide **2–3 examples of Zoho implementations** you personally designed/developed, preferably involving:

- Education
- Admissions
- Student management
- CRM + Finance
- Payment + Receipt
- WhatsApp automation

Please clearly mention **what you personally implemented**.

### 3. Architecture question

Briefly explain how you would approach this workflow:

**Lead → Admission → Student → Program/Batch → Fee → Payment → Receipt → WhatsApp**

Which Zoho products would you consider, and why?

### 4. Discovery

Tell us what information you would want from Prayaas before starting development.

### 5. Availability

Please provide:

- Your weekly availability
- Expected timeline for Phase 1
- Expected timeline for Phase 2
- Your preferred engagement model (fixed price/hourly)

### 6. Location

Location is not a strict requirement. However, experience working with Indian businesses and Indian payment/WhatsApp workflows is a strong advantage.

---

# Engagement

**Initial scope:** Discovery + Architecture + Admission MVP

**Potential duration:** Approximately 4–8 weeks depending on the final scope.

We are open to either:

- Fixed-price milestones, or
- Hourly engagement

We prefer **milestone-based delivery with clearly defined deliverables**.

If the initial implementation is successful, we expect this to become a longer-term Zoho development/architecture engagement for Prayaas.