---
title: "A grading engine an awarding body can stake its reputation on | Fluff Software case study"
description: "EAL needed final grades for a brand-new qualification calculated correctly, for every candidate, every time."
url: https://www.fluff.software/work/grading-engine/
updated: 2026-10-23
publisher: Fluff Software
---

# A grading engine an awarding body can stake its reputation on

EAL needed final grades for a brand-new qualification calculated correctly, for every candidate, every time. We designed it so the engine stays right even when everything around it changes.

Grading thousands of candidates

_Image: EAL_

- **Client:** EAL, awarding organisation for technical qualifications

- **Built:** Grading engine, admin interface, reporting, SAP integration

- **Key call:** A one-way boundary between the engine and everything else

- **Result:** On time, within budget, grading thousands of candidates

## The situation

EAL was launching a qualification with a grading model unlike anything it had run before. Final grades had to be calculated from unit scores for every candidate, and one wrong result would land on a real person and on EAL’s reputation. The engine also had to work alongside SAP, which holds all qualification and candidate data, and SAP wasn’t going to stand still.

## What we questioned first

- **What happens when the systems around it change?** Rather than wiring the engine into SAP, we proposed keeping it independent behind its own API with a one-way boundary. SAP can push and pull data, but changes to SAP, or anything else, can’t break the grading.
- **What if the data coming in is wrong?** A hardened validation layer rejects anything that breaks the business rules before it ever reaches a calculation.
- **How will anyone know it’s right?** Test-driven development from day one: a full suite of tests proving the engine meets every grading rule, so the team could see it worked.
- **Who has to use it?** Non-technical staff configure each qualification, so the admin interface went through wireframes and prototypes until it worked without extensive training.

## What we built

A secure grading engine with a React admin interface, a technology-agnostic API for SAP, reporting built around the data points administrators use, anomaly alerts, and audit tracking on every interaction with sensitive data.

_Image: EAL project image 1_

_Image: EAL project image 2_

## What changed

Delivered on time and within budget. The engine now grades thousands of candidates, and because it sits behind its own boundary, EAL can change the systems around it without rebuilding the part that matters most.

> As with all projects that Fluff helped us with, they were instrumental in getting us successfully launched on time, and to budget.

**David Ivell**, CIO/CTO, Enginuity

**How we’d work on this today.** Platforms like this don’t stop at launch: new qualifications, changing rules, systems moving around them. On our fractional product team, each of those changes is a request in the queue, reviewed by a senior developer before it ships. [For the platform that runs the business](https://www.fluff.software/for/platforms-that-run-the-business/)

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