What's new with PT Conference Maker v8?
Note from John Kirn, lead developer at Graphtech for PT Conference Maker...
This is PT Conference Maker's eighth year in development- Happy birthday PTCM!
Every year I implement dozens of changes to PTCM, making it more intuitive and easier to use. In most cases these new features were requests from the schools already using PTCM. We welcome this feedback, as it has helped grow PTCM into the robust solution that it is today.
As usual, I have made numerous major changes and feature enhancements to PTCM this year. Below are my notes on what's new with PT Conference Maker v8, with those that I feel are more significant listed first.
-John Kirn
-Graphtech Systems
Option to require parents to identify themselves
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PTCM v8 adds a new feature where schools can optionally require parents to enter their full name when creating conferences. If this feature is turned on, the full name that parents enter will be displayed when viewing schedules through the Admin Module, or printing out schedules in the Teacher Schedule Printout Generator. |
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Removed processing page
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With older versions of PTCM, after the parents selected yes/no to meet with their student's teachers, a processing page would be displayed while the system generated their conference schedule.
Although this processing page worked with 99% of web browsers, there were a handful that would fail to continue to the resulting conference schedule. This sometimes happened with AOL, and other older/non-standard web browsers.
PTCM v8 removes the processing page, and instead changes the behavior of the Continue button listed after the parents select yes/no to meet with the teachers. The Continue button now becomes disabled when clicked, and changes to read "Processing… please wait".
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Control over "schedule conferences no earlier than" list
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With older versions of PTCM, the "schedule conferences no earlier than" list was automatically generated, and the choices where created on the hour increment.
PTCM v8 adds a new feature in step 5 of the Implementation process, allowing you to set the minute increment you want given to the parents for this "schedule conferences no earlier than" list. You have the choice of selecting either 15, 20, 30, or 60 for the minute increment, allowing you to give more control parents will have when selecting when they want their conferences to begin
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Intelligent pre-selections/recommendations in Implementation Module
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On step 2 of the Implementation process, a new question is asked "What length of conferences will your school be offering?"
On step 4 of the Implementation process, choices for the "minimum time between conferences" question will be intelligently pre-selected as recommended based on the answer of this "What length of conferences will your school be offering?" question in step 2.
On step 5 of the Implementation process, intelligent recommendations are provided regarding what to select for your "schedule conference no earlier than" list based on the answer of this "What length of conferences will your school be offering?" question in step 2.
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More choices for registration begin/end times
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PTCM v8 now allows you to set your registration begin and end times on the 15 minute mark (older versions were restricted to the 30 minute mark). |
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Ability to look up student login information
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A new feature has been added to the PTCM v8 Admin Module, allowing administrators to look up student login information. This can be very handy if the school is providing their own helpdesk support, and are getting calls from parents who don't know their student's login. This feature also displays if a conference has already been scheduled for the student, which can help identify non-custodial parent problems (where a cloned student ID needs to be created). |
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Export email addresses captured
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A new feature has been added to the PTCM v8 Admin Module, allowing administrators to export all the emails addressed captured when parents email their conference schedule to themselves. This exported CSV file can be opened in Excel, and contains the student's information associated with the email address, plus the parent's name if you have turned on the feature to require them to identify themselves. |
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Send bulk email reminder
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A new feature has been added to the PTCM v8 Admin Module, allowing administrator to send out an email reminder to all the emails addressed captured when parents email their conference schedule to themselves. This feature also has the option to include a copy of the student's confirmed scheduled in this email. |
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New teacher access for the admin module
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With older versions of PTCM, teachers had the following three access levels into the Admin Module: No access, view/print schedules only, or view/print schedules plus set breaks and unavailable times.
PTCM v8 add a fourth access level for view/print schedules plus set breaks. This was a request from schools not wanting teachers to be able to set unavailable times.
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Improved Parent Letter uploading and referencing
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If you selected that Graphtech is providing your PTCM helpdesk support on step 2 of the Implementation process, you will be prompted to upload a preliminary sample of your Parent Letter for review after step 5. You will also be prompted to upload a finalized sample of your Parent Letter after completing your Implementation, which may be referenced by the Graphtech helpdesk staff to answer questions from confused parents.
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