parent payment app

[Schoolcomms]

There's lots of stuff in the press today about paying with mobile phone - but we got there before the big banks

 

You can now make payments using our School Gateway smartphone app! It's been live for about a week and we have seen a lot of transactions go through already and some great feedack.

 

Looking at the early behaviour it seems very popular for dinner money top up - probably due to our automatic links to SIMS Dinner Money and the cashless caterers.

 

If you have a Schoolcomms payments licence then it's included free - you don't need to do anything other than let your parents know it's now available.

 

So parents can now see their messages, attendance, behaviour, timetables student details AND make payments all in one place on School Gateway smartphone app or School Gateway

 

Edited April 29, 2014 by Schoolcomms

[GREED]

Fantastic news guys!!

[GREED]

So here is the question: If you can display all this great stuff to parents, how about creating or extending the app to give a mobile platform for SIMS that teachers can use???

[matt40k]

They dedicated to parent engagement, which they do really well. They would be more likely to integrate with another MIS then to start entering the teacher market.

[GREED]

Indeed... but if their app is 90% of the way there.... They can diversify! I'm not saying it is yet, but it is dangerous to be held back by ones own branding and image

[matt40k]

Mmm, not sure I agree, the path your speaking kinda leads to creating a new MIS - like Teacher2Parent has created SchoolPod. Thing is, it's better to be a master of something then a jack of all trade. The company is in a pretty health state, it's better off then some of the MIS suppliers! They've got a good customer base - about 2,000 schools at last count, in Suffolk I know they have a nice wide spread across the types (Primary, Middle, Special, Secondaries) and they've still got good room for growth - 20,000 schools!

 

Clearly a focused business plan works!!

[GREED]

I'm not sure I agree either. I'm not talking about creating an MIS I'm suggesting they let the MIS be the MIS and create a suite of apps that extends what they do well and give the market what it wants. They have room for growth, however there is approaching a saturation point where Sims schools all have what they want or need. Unable currently to move into facility or integris markets where there could be heavy demand the chaps will need to analyse where they go next as they begin to see the growth curve begin to level out.

[matt40k]

I'm sure some sort of fork will occur at some point, either with some of their innovative staff leaving to start up a new company or some sort of partnership. They are pretty much already doing a similar thing with Room Booking System\Parents Evening System and to be honest I suspect if you turned up at a event, you'll find them cross selling with Capita (and by proxy GroupCall Emerge).

 

Not sure the time is right to start looking at other MIS systems really - still a lot of growth room and until the integration problem gets solved at a DfE level it's pretty much a pig.

[vikpaw]

congrats on teh development @Schoolcomms

don't let these boys steal the thunder, they're always bickering about something - i must say i'm on greed's side of the fence, only because i think adding some simple functions like taking a register would be great, and should be simple enough to do with existing infrastructure. Next, showing the same student data that goes to parents, but for all students to any staff would also be useful. it's a new tool to throw in there for existing customers and new as well, plus it's independently available right away, whilst capita are having to sell SLG to push their app out there!

[matt40k]

teh

 

I think we need the EduSpell app creating first

 

... right after the EduSoap dispenser for cleaning ones self after using dirty words like... S...L...G...

[Schoolcomms]

We’re very flattered by your interest in what we might get up to next and the nice things you have to say about us. We think it is less frustrating for Schools to only discuss future developments when we can commit to a delivery date. No vapourware. But we will keep investing in both our existing and new products.

 

I'm sure some sort of fork will occur at some point, either with some of their innovative staff leaving to start up a new company or some sort of partnership. They are pretty much already doing a similar thing with Room Booking System\Parents Evening System and to be honest I suspect if you turned up at a event, you'll find them cross selling with Capita

 

Most of the innovation comes customers - we listen to our customers (all of them, not just people on Edugeek!) and do that. We don't employ brainy people to gaze into crystal balls.

 

Regarding our relationships with RBS and Capita:

 

We have a commercial and technical relationship with RBS. If you buy Parents Evening System from us you can message parents directly from Parents Evening System using Schoolcomms (these will all show up in Schoolcomms sent items, can be logged back to SIMS Comms Log from there etc. as per any other Schoolcomms message).

 

We are a SIMS Technical Partner, and do lots of integration (Contact details, Groups, Attendance, Behaviour, Achievements, Exam timetables, Curriculum timetables, Profile reports, Assessment Manager reports, SIMS Dinner Money (and probably some more I have forgotten) and Write Attendance, Comms Log, SIMS Dinner Money).

We don’t actively sell SIMS – typically we spend our time talking to schools who already have SIMS. As far as I am aware Capita don’t actively sell Schoolcomms.