FAQ
- EasyPTS™ will save my staff time but will it cost more in the long run?
- How do I implement EasyPTS?
- Are you saying we get free customizations and updates?
- Tell me more about this ASP license?
- What kind of training do you provide?
- What if we have a very specific customization that is a large change?
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EasyPTS™ will save my staff time but will it cost more in the long run?
From the example provided on the About EasyPTS™ page a district with approximately 1100 students in its high school spent approximately $4,000 just on administrative support. In addition there are cost of supplies for mailing confirmations and schedules to parents. The same district spent approximately $850 in postage, paper, and other supplies to complete the confirmation and scheduling part of this task. Teachers did not have easy access to calendars. Staff had an enormous amount of paper and information to manage. And what about the costs for junior high/middle school and elementary school parent-teacher conferences?
The EasyPTS™ parent-teacher conference product saves money for the district as well as improving the experience of parents. The typical high school outlined above saves $1000-$2000 per year over a 3 year period for just their high school building. That is just the tip of the iceburg because the product can be purchased for enterprise use so all buildings in a single district can leverage this tool. It can also be leased in an Application Service Provider model so you do not even have the maintenance costs associated with running a new application or web servers,
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How do I implement EasyPTS?
In general, we expect implementation will take place over a period of 15-20 days. As the new customer we will provide you with a demo site to test the functionality, and implement the system on your web sever or on our server after you approve the demo site functionality. We will make any approved updates to the system in one week. After we are in production mode for two weeks we suggest one phone meeting to review any items that you would like tweaked. We will make those fixes and update the system immediately. Additional functionality requests and enhancements will be an additional cost to be quoted based on the complexity of the requested improvement.
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Are you saying we get free customizations and updates?
With installation we do provide the option to make minor adjustments and enhancements to the system. While we reserve the right to approve any free enhancements, we want our product to be the best solution for you!
When you run the EasyPTS™ application on your own server you receive an enterprise license to use the product at any school in the district, a software manual, and implementation assistance. Training, minor enhancements, change requests, and upgrades to new versions are an additional cost.
When we host the EasyPTS™ application you receive an enterprise ASP license which includes regular updates and minor enhancements at no additional cost, a software manual, and implementation assistance. Training for staff is an additional cost.
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Tell me more about this ASP license?
We host the application on one of our secure servers. You can upload data directly from your system over an encrypted connection to our server. We provide you with a link to the application (http://www.easypts.com/yourdistrictname) and you put the link in any communication to parents, teachers or staff. That is it. No additional hardware that you need to purchase, maintain, or learn how to use. This version includes regular updates and minor enhancements at no additional cost as well as a very minimal implementation process for your staff!
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What kind of training do you provide?
We recommend that a trained, key staff member be in each school building that will be using the system. We will provide training at our location to allow a customer to integrate the system into their process faster. Customers may use the manual to train their own staff as well. The training will be broken into 2 tracks, the district wide administrators and building or location administrators. Location administrators will need about 2 hours of training with a 3rd hour of exercises using the system. The district wide administrators will complete the same training plus and additional hour to learn district wide tasks. Food and lodging suggestions are available. On-site training is available at an additional cost.
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What if we have a very specific customization that is a large change?
While the core code base will be managed centrally, individual districts may have special requirements and functionality needed for a proper implementation. We will gather requirements on change requests, outline an implementation plan and quote the customer based on our hourly rate.