Higher education is shifting toward shared technology infrastructures that drive consistency, security, and efficiency across multiple institutions. Statewide systems and consortium models are becoming more common, with system offices looking for a governed platform capable of serving many colleges while preserving each institution’s autonomy. As these models expand, the need for centralized data governance, flexible access controls, and cost-effective scalability continues to grow.
At Entrinsik, we’ve spent the last several years working closely with system leaders, including the North Carolina Community College System Office, to address these needs directly. Informer is designed from the ground up to support complex environments where multiple institutions, roles, and data domains coexist within a single deployment. Multi-tenancy isn’t an added component for us—it’s an architectural approach that ensures each institution can operate independently while benefiting from shared infrastructure and system-wide innovation.
Why Multi-Tenancy Matters for Statewide Systems
Statewide organizations face a distinct set of challenges:
- Different institutions, shared standards. Each college has unique reporting needs, data structures, and workflows, but the system office requires cohesive oversight, consistent definitions, and reliable auditability.
- Growing demand for AI and real-time insights. Colleges want to leverage advanced analytics, AI-driven automation, and self-service reporting capabilities while maintaining strict data security and privacy boundaries.
- Rising expectations for performance and security. Systems need SOC 2-aligned protections, consistent row-level security, and a deployment model that prevents data leakage across institutions.
Multi-tenancy directly addresses these operational realities. Informer allows system-level IT teams to manage a single, scalable platform while ensuring every college can work within its own governed workspace, with its own Datasources, Datasets, Reports, Templates, Dashboards, and Jobs.
How Informer Supports Multi-Tenant Deployments
- Clear Data Boundaries with Independent Workspaces
Each institution operates within a dedicated tenant that isolates their Datasource connections, Fields, Reports, Ad hoc Queries, and AI Assistants. This separation ensures colleges maintain control over their own data, schedules, and governance policies while benefiting from shared system-level support.
- Centralized Oversight for the System Office
System administrators can establish shared Data Governance standards, Security models, and access controls that apply consistently across all colleges. This includes row-based filtering in datasets and the ability to restrict visibility of specific data elements (such as columns) based on user roles and metadata. This creates a unified framework that still honors institutional independence.
- Shared Assets Without Compromising Autonomy
Statewide systems can publish highly customizable reporting options that individual colleges may adopt or extend. This reduces duplicated effort and accelerates time to value across the network.
- Scalable AI Across Institutions
With Informer AI Assistants across all Workspaces can access governed Data Views, Web Queries, API calls and Google Drive content, while always respecting each institution’s permissions. System offices can introduce AI innovation once and make it available everywhere.
- Cost-Effective Deployment and Maintenance
A single Informer Cloud environment supports multiple institutions, lowering total cost of ownership while improving consistency. Updates, Security patches, and new features are rolled out centrally, which helps statewide teams stay current without burdensome upgrades at each location.
A System Approach That Works in Practice
Our work with statewide organizations continues to validate this model. By providing a unified Informer environment with strong access controls, colleges can collaborate more effectively, share reporting logic, and adopt best practices developed by the system office.
At the same time, each institution maintains control of its own data, Users, Roles, and governance policies. This balance—shared innovation with independent control—is what makes Informer uniquely suited for statewide ecosystems.
Preparing for the Next Phase of System-Level Intelligence
Statewide systems are expanding their use of AI, mobile access, and cloud-based integrations. With the addition of Informer GO, AI Assistants, and deeper integration with external content systems, institutions will see even greater gains in efficiency and student support.
We’re committed to strengthening this foundation and continuing to evolve Informer so that system offices and their institutions have the tools they need to operate with clarity, speed, and confidence.
For statewide systems looking to modernize how they manage data, reporting, and AI across many institutions, Informer provides an architecture designed for today’s realities and tomorrow’s scale.
