Electronic Permission Slips and Documents

[Ben_Stanton]

Hi guys,

 

Our lovely Marketing manager has decided to look at electronic permission slips (as in, she wants it to happen so I have to make it happen).

 

We currently send out forms as a PDF via our school messaging system. We then rely on the parents printing the forms off and returning them. Things like trip permission slips etc..

 

I have been tasked with finding a solution. As in, parent clicks the link in an email (or direct via website) and fills the form in 'online' and submits it. That then goes to the relevent person (school secretary or whoever).

 

Are other schools employing this? If so, how are you doing it? Words docs as templates? Third party solution? If you are, are the forms easy enough for the secretary etc. to create and implement (ie. I don't want to be doing it)

 

Thanks in advance

 

Ben

[clareq]

I believe you can do this with Adobe Acrobat Pro - create a form and put a submit button on it to return to an e-mail address. We do it for in school student surveys. create fillable PDF forms, interactive PDF forms | Acrobat X Pro - features

[GREED]

Workflows in SharePoint will route to the correct people.

 

Schoolcomms, if you have multi-site logins, allows you to send emails out and the replys can be routed to the sender.

[localzuk]

You'd have to have whatever solution you go through via an authentication method, to ensure you're getting a response from that specific person.

 

I'd look at doing this in Sharepoint myself.

[GREED]

For something as large as this, both in volume and staff usage, you need a platform that works well and can be set up and left to be used, both suggestions above are good starters.

[plexer]

Google docs.

 

Ben

[Jamman960]

We've been looking at SchoolPost on and off for a while, its basically a content managment system that notifies parents via email when theres a new message within their "inbox" they then login(similar to webmail) and can then reply if the message is setup to allow it- also includes form design etc.

[Ben_Stanton]

Super. I was already looking at Adobe so that will be the best option here. The pdf is already going out by email, so it's a simple fill in and return to sender jobby.

 

I just wiped a reinstalled the sharepoint server to use as a file server. No sharepoint for us anymore!

 

Cheers

 

Ben

[wesleyw]

second for schoolpost!

 

Wes

[jdoyle]

I use SurveyMonkey for surveys and would use it for this type of job too.

[jeanpi78]

Ben,

 

I just read your request after doing some research where we are trying to offer a solution for this sector. You can try a 3rd party service that captures legal binding e-signatures through esigtek platform. With this you can customize your permission slip and send it through the system via email so then the parent can verify and validate this information and only clicking to sign and voila. The cost is inexpensive specially if you compare it to the amount of time and money you will be saving from this.

 

let me know if you are interested

[glennda]

I've been thinking about this. Some sort of mail merge with 2 hyperlinks. One say yes fine. 2nd saying no.

 

When you click on the url it goes to say http://response.domain.co.uk/accept.php?email=passedfrommailmergeresponse=ok for if the parent has accepted and then they are prompted for date of birth for there son/daughter which if correct then inputs the info into a db.

 

Obviously you would be able to say no by.clicking a second link.

 

People reckon that would be secure enough?

[dave.81]

This is something i've been wondering too, i was recently asked about doing our AUP digitally but time meant didn't get any further than the question. Nice couple of options on here though.

[sonofsanta]

I believe you can do this with Adobe Acrobat Pro - create a form and put a submit button on it to return to an e-mail address. We do it for in school student surveys. create fillable PDF forms, interactive PDF forms | Acrobat X Pro - features

 

Huh - never knew about that - could be pretty handy. Tah!

[glennda]

Having discussed this with our admin manager we've come up with a plan.

 

Have a simple permission form on our website (with student name form details etc) and then require parents to pay online using parentpay and the form on the website only accept permission onces they have inputted the receipt number from the parentpay site?

 

with a warning at the bottom saying that filling this form in and paying in Parentpay is legally binding similar to the info on the Letters published?

 

what do people think?

[john]

Having discussed this with our admin manager we've come up with a plan.

 

Have a simple permission form on our website (with student name form details etc) and then require parents to pay online using parentpay and the form on the website only accept permission onces they have inputted the receipt number from the parentpay site?

 

with a warning at the bottom saying that filling this form in and paying in Parentpay is legally binding similar to the info on the Letters published?

 

what do people think?

 

Are you meaning for trips? If so you can use the ParentPay Requires Payers Consent box option, they need to tick a box to confirm, our LA H&S / Trips people said that we just put in our letter about the trip (saying pay online) that by ticking that box you confirm that all existing medical data / alergys and contact details we hold on teh MIS is still valid and we will take that with us and use it as a trip form. The LA are happy with that, and we provide the notes box on the trip payment to allow additional info like Phone Gran not Dad etc... Anything we are unsure about we phone home or send a paper consent form home with a note saying need to just check X etc

[glennda]

Are you meaning for trips? If so you can use the ParentPay Requires Payers Consent box option, they need to tick a box to confirm, our LA H&S / Trips people said that we just put in our letter about the trip (saying pay online) that by ticking that box you confirm that all existing medical data / alergys and contact details we hold on teh MIS is still valid and we will take that with us and use it as a trip form. The LA are happy with that, and we provide the notes box on the trip payment to allow additional info like Phone Gran not Dad etc... Anything we are unsure about we phone home or send a paper consent form home with a note saying need to just check X etc

 

I'll find out about that - but its another thing reliant on PP and we all know how reliable it is