Features and Benefits / News and Announcements / Orchestra Master Scheduler

2023 Year in Review

Azroy KandanLeave a comment

I can’t believe that the last time I wrote a “Year in Review” was for 2020 for QuickSchools – a whole 3 years ago. How time flies! Azreen wrote one for 2021 – Bringing 2021 to a close. So I guess we only skipped a year.

Orchestra Master Scheduler

The big focus for 2023 has been the Orchestra Master Scheduler. We made several improvements to the module, and beefed up its overall performance, robustness and usability.

Some of the new features to highlight include:

  • Course Load (i.e. Caseload by Teacher and Course)
  • Room Assignment and Room Conflicts
  • Section Assignment by Tags (Course Request Tags, Student Tags and Teacher Tags)
  • Improved Email Notifications to Students and Teachers
  • Expanded Functionality for Add/Drop History
  • Support for Duplicate Course Requests

Payment Plan App

We introduced a new Payment Plan App that allows schools to schedule automatic charges to credit cards.

Features include automatic retries and notifications for upcoming and failed payments.

Engage CRM

Our new Engage CRM was launched this year. The functionality greatly mirrors our existing Admissions module, but there are several improvements that make it a great standalone Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for school prospects. If you’re interested in checking it out, please contact our support team.

Improved Modules / Apps

In addition to the apps above, we’ve made several improvements to our existing modules and functions. Some highlights below:

We’ve also introduced a few beta apps that can be installed on request. These include:

  • Learn LMS App – A lightweight LMS that is fully integrated with the QuickSchools LMS, allows teachers to navigate their class by course (instead of module).
  • Online Tests App – Can be installed separately, or as part of the Learn LMS offering.
  • Test Assessments App – We have a new version of the app with more features
  • Expanded Pre-Enrollment – We have a new app that expands on the existing functionality for pre-enrolled students, making it even easier to organize your upcoming students.
  • Finally, we have a new screen for the “Summary Reports”, just to update its look-and-feel.

Integration with External Systems

This past year, we spent a fair amount of time expanding on our integration capabilities. Here are some highlights:

  • OneRoster (v1.1) API – We now have API Resources that are compliant with the OneRoster v1.1 specification.
  • Clever (SFTP) Integration – We have a new app that allows schools to send files to Clever via SFTP
  • Zapier Integration – Our Zapier App is being updated to allow real-time updates via WebHooks.
  • Google Drive Integration is now 2-way. This means that in addition to backing up files from QuickSchools to Google Drive, you can also upload files from Google Drive directly into QuickSchools.
  • At long last, Google Classroom Integration now supports the Grading Categories from Google Classroom

Mobile Apps on iOS and Android

Both the “Home by QuickSchools” mobile app for Students/Parents as well as the “Class by QuickSchools” mobile app for Teachers have been updated this year. Both apps now support foreign languages with improved Push Notifications. There is also a new option to disable Private Messaging from the mobile App.

The following modules have been improved for the “Class by QuickSchools” mobile app:

  • Students listing now supports custom fields
  • Section Attendance has been improved
  • Reports from the Report Creator can be accessed

Still on our immediate roadmap are (1) Class Discussion and (2) Student ID Card for (for the “Home by QuickSchools” mobile app). We hope to get these done in the first half of 2024.

Email Deliverability

We’ve been steadily improving our email deliverability over the past several months. This effort will continue well into 2024. As part of this initiative, schools will no longer be able to override the email Sender address, unless the school has arranged for our mail services to use the schools Domain (via the DMARC policy). By default, schools without a custom domain will have their emails from QuickSchools marked with QuickSchools.com in the Sender address. Users can still set the “Reply-To” address, so that recipients can respond to the actual sender. More info on this will be provided soon, as the feature gets rolled out.

Several other improvements are also in the works, including the ability for users to unsubscribe from specific emails from schools. We’ll announce details to these new improvements as they get rolled out.

Support and Customer Success

In addition to all the product improvements mentioned above, QuickSchools continues to provide schools and users with all the support they need to be successful. Thank you for the glowing testimonials on our Online Reviews (Please submit an online review, if you haven’t already).

In addition to Live Chat / Email Support, we continue to host monthly webinars on various topics. Be sure to attend those, to stay abreast of the latest improvements. Get your questions answered LIVE on-screen at one of these webinars.

In our effort to collect continuous feedback from schools, we’ll be posting an NPS survey soon. Please let us know how likely you are to recommend us to another school, and if there any specific improvements you’d like to see in our product or services.

Plan for 2024

2024 is just around the corner. You can expect more improvements in our various products and services. We’ve really excited to see schools grow as we grow. And we look forward to working with you again next year.

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