A private cloud for every teacher and every student. Same login. Separate space.
Stop losing worksheets to old emails and WhatsApp groups. Inkwelly gives every teacher and every student their own private file storage — built into the same login they use for attendance, fees and report cards. Lesson plans on Monday, students' homework photos on Friday, ID-card files in admission week — all in one safe place that the school owns.
It's 9.42 on a Wednesday. Sangeeta ma'am is hunting for last March's Class 4 EVS unit-test paper. She had typed it on her laptop, mailed it to herself, then forwarded it to her own WhatsApp during a parent-teacher meeting. Today the email is buried somewhere, the WhatsApp 'view once' has expired, and the office computer she sometimes uses was formatted over the summer. Twenty minutes of searching later, she gives up and starts typing the paper again — for the third time in three years.
This is how Indian schools quietly lose teacher work, year after year. Worksheets sit in personal Gmail. Students share homework on WhatsApp at 11 pm. The accountant keeps 'just in case' copies of the salary sheet on a personal Google Drive the school doesn't pay for. The art teacher uploads exhibition photos to her own Dropbox and shares a link the principal can't revoke. Each one is a school file living outside school control — outside any audit, outside any backup, and now outside DPDP Act compliance the management committee has signed off on.
Inkwelly fixes this with the simplest possible idea. Every staff member, every student gets their own private cloud — one click away from the same login they already use for fees and attendance. Auto-created on first login. Completely private to that user. Counted against the school's one-line storage bill. This page walks through how it works, what stays private, what the principal can see, and the everyday school moments it replaces.
How a private cloud works inside Inkwelly
Personal Cloud isn't a separate app to download. It's a private folder that sits inside every employee and every student profile, opened from the same Inkwelly menu as attendance and fees. The first time a teacher clicks 'My Files', her personal cloud is created automatically — no permission request, no IT setup, no waiting. From that moment, anything she uploads stays in her space only.
Files inside My Files are completely invisible to the school's shared media library. Even the principal can't browse a teacher's personal folder from the admin side. The privacy is built into Inkwelly itself — it isn't a setting someone can flip off by mistake. The reverse is also true: a teacher's personal cloud can't reach into shared 'Marksheets' or 'School Photos' folders. Two different boxes, never mixed.
What the school does see is the total — one storage usage number that adds up the shared library, every teacher's My Files and every student's My Files. The principal looks at one storage screen, signs off on one upgrade if needed, and never has to argue with each teacher about how much space they 'deserve.' It's the same simple idea as Google Workspace's pooled storage — sized for an Indian school's economics, hosted in India, owned by the school.
What every teacher and student gets, on day one
- A private cloud auto-created on first login — no setup, no IT request, no waiting for approval
- Folders the way you want them — Class 4 EVS, Unit Tests, ID Card Photos, Worksheets — fully under your control
- Drag-and-drop upload from desktop or one-tap upload from phone — works on every Inkwelly app
- Search inside your own files — finds last term's worksheet in seconds, even if you don't remember the folder
- A storage screen that shows your usage by folder — only you can see it, never another teacher
- Soft-delete safety net — deleted by mistake at 11 pm? Restore it Monday morning
- Self-service from the first day — works the moment the school adds you, no admin permission needed
- Counted in the school's one storage bill — simple for the principal, no per-teacher quota fights
- Stored on Inkwelly's India servers — compliant with DPDP Act 2023 by design
- Travels with your account if you switch to another Inkwelly school — your portfolio comes with you
- Works on the parent app and student app — students can upload homework photos in 3 taps from the school bus
- Gone with you, owned by the school — when you leave, the principal decides what stays and what archives
What teachers and students actually see
Ready the moment a new teacher joins
There's no welcome email to remember, no checkbox to tick, no IT person to call. The first time a teacher who joined yesterday opens the Files tab on her Inkwelly dashboard, her cloud is already there — empty, waiting for her first upload. The same is true for students. A Class 1 admission this morning, a transferred Class 9 student last week — both have a working personal cloud the moment their profile is active. Indian schools rarely have IT staff to remember small admin tasks, so we removed the small admin task.
Folders that match how a teacher actually thinks
A Class 6 maths teacher doesn't think in 'recent files'. She thinks 'Class 6 → Algebra → Unit Tests' and 'Class 6 → Geometry → Worksheets'. Personal Cloud lets her build that tree exactly the way she wants it — sub-folders inside sub-folders, drag-and-drop reorganise, rename anytime. The folder structure is hers. The principal can't see it, the IT person can't rearrange it, and next year's teacher can't accidentally write into it. It's hers in the same way her physical cupboard at school is hers.
A storage screen only you can see
The storage screen tells each user exactly how much space they're using — broken down by folder. A teacher who has uploaded 4 GB of unit-test PDFs sees that, sorted by folder size. A student who has filled their homework folder with photos sees the same view scoped to themselves. Nobody else sees these numbers. The principal sees only the school's total, never who consumed it. If the school is approaching its quota, the principal can ask a class teacher politely to clean up — but it's a human conversation, not an automated email that scares teachers. We never auto-delete teacher work.
Search that only sees your own files
The search bar inside Personal Cloud only looks through your own files and folders — never another teacher's, never the school-shared library. Type 'unit-test-march' and your March unit-test paper appears in seconds, even if it's deep inside 'Class 6 → Algebra → Old → Sets'. Students get the same search inside their My Files — perfect for finding the Hindi handwriting homework photo before a parent meeting. Capital letters, small letters, partial words — all handled. Three letters and you're usually there.
“Pehle main worksheets apne Gmail pe bhejti thi. School badli to teen saal ka kaam Gmail mein hi reh gaya — naye school ne IT migrate nahi kiya. Ab Inkwelly ke My Files mein sab safe hai, aur agar kisi din school change karu to mera kaam mere saath chalega.”
Five everyday school moments Personal Cloud replaces
1. The teacher who emails worksheets to herself. Class 4 maths teacher Pooja used to type a worksheet on her laptop, mail it to her own Gmail at midnight, then on Monday morning find herself searching her inbox at the staff room. With Personal Cloud she uploads it once to 'Class 4 → Maths → Worksheets'. Searchable forever. No 'storage full' email from Google.
2. The student who shares assignments on WhatsApp. A Class 9 student uploads photos of his physics journal to his My Files folder from the Inkwelly app. The teacher reviews directly inside Inkwelly — no scrolling through a 60-student WhatsApp group looking for the right child's submission, no compressed unreadable images.
3. The accountant with a personal copy of the salary sheet. Historically the accountant kept a salary Excel file in his personal Google Drive 'just in case'. Under DPDP Act, that's a compliance violation the school is liable for. Personal Cloud lets him keep working drafts in a private Inkwelly folder — same convenience, but inside the school's audit boundary.
4. The art teacher with exhibition photos in personal Dropbox. When the art teacher resigned, the school lost two years of student exhibition photos because they were on her personal Dropbox. Personal Cloud keeps that work inside the school environment — when she leaves, the offboarding flow archives it correctly.
5. Class teachers during admission week. In March-April, class teachers receive ID-card photos, birth certificates and Aadhaar copies from parents over WhatsApp. They drop them into a 'New Admissions 2025-26' folder in their My Files first, verify each one, then move only the verified ones to the school-shared student profile. Two-stage handling that respects parent privacy at every step.
When your school will use Personal Cloud most
- March-April admission week — class teachers stage new-student documents privately before promoting to school records
- Monthly unit-test prep — teachers keep working drafts personal, share only the final PDF with the office
- Annual function, sports day, science fair — staff collect raw photos and videos in one private folder before publishing
- Quarterly parent-teacher meetings — teachers prepare per-student feedback notes nobody else needs to see
- Year-end report cards — accountants and clerks keep working spreadsheets private until the principal signs off
- Board / CBSE / ICSE submissions — examination in-charge stages forms privately, then promotes the approved set
- Student projects — Class 9-12 students upload research drafts, references and final submissions in My Files
- Teacher portfolio — every teacher accumulates 3-5 years of best lesson plans that travel with their account
- New joiners mid-session — auto-creation means a teacher who joined this morning has working storage by lunch
- Leavers — exit workflow archives My Files cleanly, no last-day scramble
See Personal Cloud live in your school's Inkwelly setup
20-minute walkthrough — we open My Files in a real teacher account, upload, search, and show what stays private and what the principal sees. No sales pitch, just the product.
What every principal asks before saying yes
The first question is always: 'Can I see what's inside a teacher's My Files?' The honest answer is no — not by default, by design. Personal Cloud is private at the database level, not at the click level. The principal sees the school's total storage usage, never one teacher's content. If a genuinely serious situation needs access to a specific user's files — a parent complaint, a regulatory request, an HR issue — the super-admin can run a documented manual override that's fully logged and notifies the user. It's a deliberate, paper-trail process, not a routine click.
The second question: 'Does this count toward my storage bill?' Yes — and that's the point. Inkwelly bills the school on one storage line whether the bytes live in the shared library, a teacher's My Files or a student's homework folder. The principal pays one predictable bill, never has to negotiate per-teacher allocations, and gets one upgrade decision when usage climbs. Most schools we've worked with run for 18-24 months on the standard plan before any upgrade conversation, and personal usage typically stays under 30% of the total.
The third question: 'What happens when a teacher leaves?' The offboarding flow walks the principal through three options — reassign specific files to the shared library, export everything as a ZIP for the leaving teacher, or let the bundle be archived under the school's data retention policy. Inkwelly never auto-deletes teacher work, regardless of how the relationship ends. The school always retains the option to keep what matters. For the teacher, the same work follows them if they move to another Inkwelly school — their portfolio is portable, the way it should have been for the last twenty years.
Belongs to
1 moduleFrequently asked
6 questionsCan the principal see what's inside a teacher's My Files?
No — Personal Cloud is private by design. The principal sees only the school's total storage usage, never the contents of any one teacher's or student's files. If a genuine HR, regulatory or parent-complaint situation needs access to a specific user's My Files, the super-admin can run a documented manual override that is fully logged and notifies the user. It's a deliberate, paper-trail process. The day-to-day reality is that personal folders stay private — which is what makes teachers actually use them instead of going back to personal Gmail.
Does Personal Cloud count toward our school's storage quota?
Yes, and that's the simple part of the bill. Inkwelly charges the school on one storage line — whether the files live in the shared library, a teacher's My Files or a student's homework folder. The principal pays one predictable amount, never has to argue per-teacher quotas, and gets one upgrade decision when usage climbs. Teachers and students see only their own usage; the principal sees only the total. Most schools run 18-24 months on the standard plan before any upgrade conversation.
What happens to a teacher's My Files when she leaves the school?
The offboarding flow gives the principal three options at the moment of exit — reassign specific files to the school's shared library, export everything as a ZIP for the leaving teacher, or let the bundle be archived under the school's data retention policy. Inkwelly never automatically deletes teacher work, regardless of how the relationship ends. The school always retains the option to keep what matters. The teacher keeps her portfolio if she moves to another Inkwelly school.
Can students upload from their phone or only from a desktop?
Both. Students with their own student-app login can upload from any phone in 3 taps — same camera-roll picker as WhatsApp. Parents accessing through the parent app can also upload to their child's My Files for younger children who don't have their own login yet. The same student account works across devices, so a homework photo taken on the school bus and a project file uploaded from the home laptop both land in the same place.
Is this DPDP Act 2023 compliant?
Yes. All Personal Cloud files are stored on India servers (Mumbai region) — Indian data residency is built in, not added later. Every download link is signed and expires in one hour by default. Every upload, rename, move, delete and restore is logged. Personal files stay isolated from school-shared queries by design. For schools that need a one-page compliance summary for management committee meetings, Inkwelly provides one on request — useful for board affiliation reviews and DPDP audits.
What if a teacher uploads inappropriate content?
Personal Cloud is private to the user, but the school always retains policy authority over the platform. The super-admin can suspend a user's media access if a complaint is filed — without exposing the content itself to other staff. We deliberately don't auto-scan personal files because that would defeat the purpose of a private workspace, but the audit log and offboarding flow ensure the school keeps control when something genuinely needs to be addressed.
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