Electronic Data Collection

[SouthCoastSaint]

How do you validate when someone types 885 instead of 886 in a neighbour's phone number?

[GREED]

Send an SMS to the number with a code to enter on the website

[SouthCoastSaint]

Seriously? 350 students, with 2+ emergency contacts as well as 2 parental ones in most cases... The best I do is email and text those numbers/emails for anyone with parental responsibility at the same time as a check to ensure both are received.

[matt40k]

@SouthCoastSaint like @GREED said - this is exactly what groupcall etc do already - solved problem.

@GREED my point was that the school cant code this, its a complex task that companies have built business upon. Same time, its not financially viable to reinvent the wheel. Just sticking bits of validation code together will cost more then buying a product - if you've ever done address validation you know you can select the wrong source and give yourself all sorts of problems. This is before you get into the whole is it secure stuff. For this the economy of scale always win, there are rumours that the central gov will do something that will filter down for school use - still its only a distance dream at the moment

@Marshall_IT i would say they are getting better, but then i went to the docs a while back and the doc changed the label desc, which pharmacy changed to something completely different, so what hope do we have when three medical professionals can't agree on the label basic instructions on an inhaler !!

[SouthCoastSaint]

How does Groupcall cope with contacts that have no parental responsibility? For us as Schoolcomms users, these contacts have no place in Schoolcomms at all, is Groupcall slightly different?

[matt40k]

How does Groupcall cope with contacts that have no parental responsibility? For us as Schoolcomms users, these contacts have no place in Schoolcomms at all, is Groupcall slightly different?

 

If schoolcomms did data collection forms, they would. Same/similar process

 

Seriously? 350 students, with 2+ emergency contacts as well as 2 parental ones in most cases... The best I do is email and text those numbers/emails for anyone with parental responsibility at the same time as a check to ensure both are received.

 

You dont do that manually, when they enter it in the web form it would trigger the workflow

[vikpaw]

I'm pretty sure we don't import them either. The PR tick is vital. Even over other things such as priority.

[SouthCoastSaint]

How does it check home telephone numbers, lots of grandparents only have these, not mobiles. And work numbers?

[vikpaw]

Email seems to be easier to manage. We could mail merge their data to them and ask them to hit Yes if it's all correct.

 

However, all the fields and contacts may not be available as fields to put in an email.

 

Groupcall has a nice closed content data capture option you can use as a form or for voting. Have been thinking of ways to use this, e.g. Are you coming to parents evening tonight despite the rain..?

 

Our email data is pretty clean now.

[GREED]

@matt40k we only use PR too. Edited November 24, 2015 by vikpaw
unauthorised promotion

[GREED]

How does it check home telephone numbers, lots of grandparents only have these, not mobiles. And work numbers?

 

It can't. But then few systems actually can in the world. Best you can do is validate on the formation (number of numbers, starting with a 0, area codes even). Think how online shops collect the data, and mimic their validation such as repeating email lines for example, validating by emailing or SMS.

[SouthCoastSaint]

Ok - so what we are doing already. My original point was just that people are much more sloppy with their typing than with their writing!

[GREED]

It is a trade off, how much time does it take your staff (who could also make mistakes) to enter the details from paper, not to mention the collective postage and printing costs etc, aginst them doing it. With them doing it, this conversation has described how to minimise the errors with technonogy

[vikpaw]

I had forgotten, but thanks to @GREED for reminding me - when i log into Groupcall Messenger one of the notices, helpfully informs me that there are new features for doing data collection by forms:

Forms and surveys from ParentPaperwork: Also newly available is the ability to create, manage and send forms and surveys to parents electronically and collate the responses. Groupcall have partnered with ParentPaperwork to embed this service directly into Messenger and will drastically cut printing and postage costs for school trip authorisation, meal choice forms, parental contact detail forms and more, as well as increase coverage and response rates. ParentPaperwork forms and durveys is available in preview only initially and will support all MIS

 

Very interesting, it won't update the MIS yet, but it's a good step forward. Unfortunately doesn't help the OP.

Edited November 24, 2015 by vikpaw

[matt40k]

How does it check home telephone numbers, lots of grandparents only have these, not mobiles. And work numbers?

 

The way Azure AD Premium works - the fancy multi-factor version - it will ring your landline and you press # to approve your connection. If you've ever phoned the activation line, it can also spits out some random code. For landlines you can check phone directories to additional validation. Again, its a solved problem.

 

Added bonus is you could get the grandparent to approve being added - for example I could add my mum, but I doubt she'd want me to - a 3 hr drive to pick my son from school wouldn't go down well when we've got friends a lot nearer.

 

Like I said, its not a problem a school can solve. If someone like Microsoft or Google went and solved it, there is a lot of tech out there that could solve a lot of the problems, bring a lot of improvements and not require a lot of human involvement.