Shared mailbox
Questions from parents to the school office
Emails get a label and a suggested reply, with a link to the school rules where relevant. A staff member edits and sends it, by email or as a Smartschool message.
for schools and school groups
AI alongside Smartschool, with pupil files out of reach.
Your school office gets help with questions from parents and with requests. These start in your mailbox or forms, not in Smartschool: an application only gets limited access there. Anything that goes to parents or pupils is approved by a colleague first.
No obligation · 30 minutes · online, with someone who builds, tests and fine-tunes it
Ethic is new. The team behind it isn’t. Ethic is the AI studio of Zenjoy, the digital product studio from Leuven that has been building and maintaining platforms, apps and integrations for more than 400 organisations since 2011. See Zenjoy’s work
At a glance
- Works with
- Your mailbox and forms. From Smartschool, only sign-in, classes and groups (OneRoster) and sending messages.
- First
- What Smartschool can already do, and what your school group agreed with the DPO
- Data
- Smartschool stores your data in Belgium. Our part runs in the EU.
Honest advice
Smartschool itself, an extension or your own AI workflow?
Much of what a school needs is already in Smartschool. We’ll tell you honestly which of the three fits, even if it’s the cheapest.
| Smartschool itself | An extension you already have | Your own AI workflow | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good for | Absences and enrolments through Forms, school documents in Intradesk, overviews of results and pupil flows in Analytics. | Work that already happens in Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Smartschool offers an extension for both. | A task that spans Smartschool, the mailbox and your documents, with a review step and logging. |
| Watch out | You work within the modules and fields Smartschool provides. Check with Smartschool what’s been added in the meantime before you have anything built. | Microsoft Copilot shows what an employee is allowed to open. If folders are too widely open, that comes to the surface. | More work up front. The school grants access to Smartschool, and sending messages needs extra approval from Smartschool. |
| What we do | We’ll tell you if you don’t need us. Sometimes a better form is enough. | Review permissions, put agreements on paper and train your team. | Build with an AI fact sheet, test with real questions and maintain after launch. |
What you can do with it
Four uses alongside Smartschool
Knowledge assistant
Staff questions about rules and procedures
Teachers sign in with their Smartschool account. The assistant only searches agreed documents and always shows the source.
Forms and requests
Organising requests and enrolments
Free text from requests becomes a tidy list for the school office. If something is missing or the workflow is unsure, a colleague takes a look.
Reporting
Overviews for the school leadership and board
A first draft of an annual report or policy text is ready. The figures come from your own overviews, at school level and never per pupil. A colleague reads it through before it goes out.
How it works
A question from a parent, an answer from your own team
This is how the school office mailbox works. The workflow sets a label and prepares a draft on its own. Sending is always done by a colleague.
- 1
Receive email
A parent emails the school office about an absence, a certificate or a school trip.
- 2
Draft with source
The workflow reads the subject and body, not attachments. It adds a label and suggests a reply with its source.
- 3
Colleague decides
A staff member edits, approves and sends. Nothing goes to parents or pupils automatically.
- 4
Handle exceptions
For pupil support, complaints, discipline or uncertainty, the email goes straight to the right colleague, without a draft.
- 5
Keep a record
We record the incoming email, the suggestion, the edits and who sent it.
Measuring the pilot. These records let us measure the time per email and how often a colleague needs to make corrections.
AI fact sheet
One page your DPO can read straight away
Every integration comes with an AI fact sheet. It says in plain language what the workflow does, what it sees and who can stop it.
Example
School office mailbox, with replies through Smartschool
-
What it does
Labels emails to secretariaat@ and writes a suggested reply with a source. Never sends anything itself.
-
What data
Subject and body of emails in that one mailbox. No attachments. From Smartschool, only the classes and groups the school chooses itself, to get the question to the right colleague (OneRoster, read-only). No pupil monitoring system, no marks, no absences.
-
Model and location
A language model that runs in the EU. Under the contract with the provider, your data isn’t used to train models.
-
Who checks
On its own: setting a label and preparing a draft. Via a member of the school office: every reply, before it goes out. The school leadership decides which types of questions the workflow doesn’t handle.
-
What we keep
Suggestion, edits, who sent it and when. Kept for 90 days, then deleted.
-
Owner and stopping
The school decides on the processing and owns the workflow. If the school stops, we revoke the access to Smartschool and delete the logs. Each user can also disconnect their own account from the integration in their Smartschool profile.
Control
Agreements first, then AI
Some doors swing both ways, others only one. AI can do things on its own if they can be undone and stay inside your organisation. Anything that goes outside or decides about a person goes to a colleague first. So the workflow can label an email on its own. It can’t send a reply to a parent, and it never decides about pupils.
As little data as possible
In Smartschool, we only request the permissions the application needs. The pupil monitoring system, marks and absences stay out.
The school decides
The school chooses which classes and groups the integration sees and can stop at any time. Then we revoke the access.
Tested on what goes wrong
We test with real questions without names, with incomplete emails and with a Smartschool that briefly stops responding.
European hosting
Smartschool stores your data in Belgium. For our part, we choose European hosting, with the provider and country in the AI fact sheet.
Who builds it
A new brand, built on fifteen years of craftsmanship
Ethic is Zenjoy’s AI studio, based in Leuven. The same team builds and maintains your workflow, and everything is in your name.
15 years
building and maintaining software
400+
organisations
4 years
using AI daily in our own work
After the pilot
An integration that still works three years from now
Read how we maintain agents and workflows01
We notice when something stalls
Zenjoy has been maintaining platforms and integrations for years after launch. If Smartschool changes something in its API, we adapt the integration under the maintenance agreement.
02
Different model, same workflow
If a better or more efficient model comes along, we switch without rebuilding the workflow. We do test it again.
03
Everything in the school’s name
Code, prompts, documentation and access belong to you.
04
Maintenance under a fixed agreement
Updates, monitoring and small changes are covered by a monthly agreement. New workflows are planned separately.
After a first conversation, you get a proposal with a clear scope and a fixed price.
Frequently asked questions
What schools often ask us
Question not listed? Just ask us.
A data processing agreement and security overview are available on request.
Can the AI read our Smartschool messages?
No. Smartschool’s official API lets an application send messages and notifications, and even that only after Smartschool approves it. Reading incoming messages isn’t part of it. That works out well: we start from your school office’s mailbox or forms, and what’s in Smartschool stays there. If you still want to do something with messages in Smartschool, we’ll check with Smartschool together what’s possible.
Where is our pupils’ data stored?
What’s in Smartschool stays there. Smartschool stores its data in Belgium. Our workflow only sees what’s in the AI fact sheet, and the model runs in the EU. We choose a provider that contractually doesn’t use your data to train models. The school is responsible for the processing; we sign a data processing agreement. If your school group uses the model data processing agreement from privacyinonderwijs.be, we compare it with our agreements together with your DPO.
Can the AI make mistakes? Who checks?
Yes, AI can make mistakes. That’s why the workflow only suggests and a colleague sends. Questions about pupil support, complaints or discipline get no suggestion. In the pilot, we measure how often your team has to change something, and together we decide whether that’s good enough.
What if Smartschool changes its software or API?
We keep an eye on the integration, so we usually notice a change before your team runs into it. Adapting it is covered by the monthly maintenance agreement. Zenjoy has been maintaining platforms and integrations for years after launch; an API that changes is part of that.
What does the AI Act mean for our school?
The AI Act requires anyone deploying AI to work on the AI literacy of the people who use it. AI that decides on pupil admission, assesses their learning outcomes, determines their level of education or monitors them during tests counts as high-risk. We don’t build such systems. The AI fact sheet states who is the provider and who is the deployer, the two roles in the AI Act. Usually your school is the deployer. This isn’t legal advice: have it checked by your DPO or your umbrella organisation.
How much time does this take from our school office?
Not much, but it has to come from the right people. At the start, you need someone from the school office who knows the questions well, and your Smartschool administrator or ICT coordinator for access. During the pilot, the school office approves the suggestions as part of the work it already does today: reading, editing, sending. Every few weeks, we look at the figures together and adjust. What we need from the school is set out in the proposal.
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What should AI see alongside your Smartschool, and what shouldn’t it?
In a first conversation, we look at one task and at what Smartschool can already do. You get honest advice, even if that’s: do it with what you have.
No obligation · 30 minutes · online, with someone who builds, tests and fine-tunes it