Re-enrollment Web Services debuted to rave reviews.
Saint Andrew Catholic School in Fort Worth, Texas decided upon a bold agenda: give current families two days in which to re-enroll their students, and then open the doors to prospective students for two additional days of registration. Manage the entire process online, with computer stations set up in the school for the convenience of parents. And be the first adopter of a new solution by inRESONANCE.
Some in the school were skeptical, but Database Manager Mary Gillilan was not worried. She has a solid track record with inRESONANCE (an iR client since 2003), and knew her relationships with current and prospective families were in good hands. Mary was confident that the school’s move to online re-enrollment with iR would be a positive experience.
On the third day after implementing RWS, Mary shared her thoughts with iR.
“This has been wonderful," she said, adding, “Parents had nothing but praises. One long-time supporter of our school, who is now raising his grandchild, came in to see me when he was done. He found me, gave me a hug and a kiss, and said, ‘This made an amazing first impression.’ PWS and RWS are GREAT!
“What we used to do before RWS was we would 'find' all the returning students and print out the application forms with all the data from KEYSTONE and PORTAL. Then we’d send it home and say make all your changes, sign them, return them—and they would come back and I would check them all manually, one-by-one, and then make the data correct in the database.
“This time, we had at least 25 or 30 calls from parents who said, ‘I must have done something wrong, it was way too easy and way too quick!’
“One mother told me, ‘I did three children in 45 seconds! In the forms for the first child, I had to change my email and phone number. When I got to the second child, and the third child, it was already changed, all I had to do was click the button. Three kids in 45 seconds! I was sure we had missed something.’"
Then Mary repeated it: “It’s been wonderful for me. You saved me so much work!"
Oh, and while we’re sharing: we heard from Mary again, later in the day. She wanted to tell one more story...this one, a comment made during a break in the action by Academic Technology faculty member Bruce Shields, who was helping parents with the enrollment process. He was reflecting upon iR’s support to help him troubleshoot a technical glitch he had had due to some settings on the school’s computers.
"Where else in the world do you get this kind of technical support?" Bruce said to Mary, "Where they know it's a big event for you and they care that it goes well?"
Mary added this comment: “Thank you and all the folks at iR, this has been a great experience.”
Read more about Mary, and Saint Andrew Catholic School, in our iR client story, “I want my Cadillac back.”