Dear Customer,

 

Welcome to the July issue of InTouch Online. It has been a busy month for all of us at CRS! From our Annual User Group Conference to the latest 5.6 Upgrade, things have been far from quiet around the office. So, let us fill you in on the latest CRS news. 

 

With that said, let’s get to the latest CRS news! Here are the featured articles in this month’s newsletter:

 

   

 

 

Well, you did it again! You, our amazing customers, managed to make this year’s SubFinder User Group Conference the best to date. We were pleased to welcome more than 150 attendees, from 103 school districts and educational service agencies, to sunny Charleston, SC.
The days were certainly busy with a number of great sessions including peer presentations from Nanette Naylor and Kristen Hilsabeck, product related training sessions, networking sessions, and scouting real estate. That’s right scouting real estate! Attendees were able to earn SubFinder dollars for demonstrating their SubFinder skills throughout the three day event, and in turn, take a chance at guessing where the 2008 User Group Conference will be held. We would like to congratulate everyone who selected the correct property, Las Vegas.
Be sure to visit the 2007 User Group Documentation Library on the Customer Support Center to review the conference documentation.
Do you want to attend SubFinder’s 2008 Annual User Group Conference in Las Vegas? Be sure to check our website soon for further information!
See what some of the 2007 attendees had to say:
 
v “I just wanted to take a moment to commend the management and staff of CRS for a dynamic, energetic, thought provoking User Conference. I enjoyed speaking with everyone from the top, down. The management and staff were open to ideas from customers which is beneficial for taking a company from “GOOD to GREAT”. I would name everyone except for the fear of missing someone.”

 
v “Best conference yet!”

 
v “I attend many conferences and this by far is the best one I go to.”

 
v “You are lucky! You have such a knowledgeable, helpful, and enthusiastic staff….that is NOT very common!”

 
v “I have helped put on a couple of conferences in a prior job. You guys thought of every little detail. You did a great job!”

 
v “I would like to take this opportunity to commend you and your staff on a job well-done! I found the 2007 Annual User Group Conference to be very informative and well-planned out. I appreciate all the hard work and effort that went into the planning of such an AWESOME and organized event. I also appreciate you allowing me to be a part of it. I thoroughly enjoyed the creativity that went along with the presentation of information. I look forward to next year in Las Vegas and only hope that I will be invited back. Again, my hats off to each of you and CONGRATULATIONS!”
 
 

 

Advice from Client Services

 

What is SubCast? And Some Helpful Tips!

 

SubCast is a module of SubFinder that keeps your sites informed with up-to-date absence and job status information by automatically emailing customized reports to specific sites. While setting up SubCast you can choose one of six reports to be emailed at scheduled times.
 
v Available Substitute Report
v Daily Absence Report (HTML format)
v Daily Absence Report (text format)
v Overall Substitute Jobs Summary (HTML format)
v Overall Substitute Jobs Summary (text format)
v SubPay Summary Report
 
Here are some tips from our Account Specialists to help your SubCast run effortlessly!
 
Common Mistakes - Simple Solutions:
 
 
v When setting up the email addresses in the SubCast information tab located in Site record, be sure not to skip a line between email addresses. SubCast will interpret the blank line as the end of the recipient list and not consider the remaining recipients when sending the email.

 
v When creating your SubCast profiles make certain you allow plenty of time for the reports to generate and send to all assigned recipients before sending out any additional profiles; overlapping report times could cause the system to skip profiles.

 
v In the event a recipient’s email address is invalid, you will receive an error message from your email Client stating that the address is invalid. This email will remain in your Outbox and your email Client will continually attempt to send the email until the email address is removed from the Site Record. Be sure to remove any unnecessary email addresses; i.e. if an administrator no longer works at the district.

 
v Did you know that you can prevent SubCast from sending reports over holiday breaks or summer vacation? By placing the SubCast application in standby, you can ensure that reports will not be sent to recipients over break periods. Additionally you can use the “Send Reports only on Calendar Workday” option in each SubCast report profile to prevent the system from sending emails on non-work days such as weekends and holidays. In choosing this option you will need to select the appropriate calendar track for that specific profile to follow.
*Remember, SubCast must be placed in Stand-by any time you create or modify a profile.
 
v As part of the routine SubCast maintenance, we suggest deleting Sent items from your email Client periodically. We recommend keeping up to two weeks of previously sent emails for troubleshooting purposes. Any emails sent prior to that time are most likely not needed and can be removed to help improve your system performance.
 
   
SubCast’s powerful ‘set it and forget it’ technology keeps your sites up-to-date and saves everyone in your district valuable time and effort. If you would like to receive more information and tips about your SubCast program, feel free to contact your Account Specialist at anytime!
 

What SubPay Can Do for Your District

SubPay offers a wide range of features, tools, and reports not found in most payroll applications. In addition to greatly extending your payroll options, SubPay will also save you hundreds of hours every year in manual calculation tasks.

 
SubPay- What a difference it made for Austin ISD!- Kristen Hilsabeck; Substitute Service Coordinator

 
Kristen recently presented a wonderful and very informative session at the Annual User Group Conference on how SubPay has improved their district’s payroll process. Before SubPay, Kristen told CRS that Austin ISD’s payroll office was as busy as a hound in flea season! (You know those good ol’ Texas sayings!)
Let’s find out what Kristen had to say about SubPay when speaking with us:
 
CRS:  What was Austin ISD’s purpose for purchasing the SubPay module?

 Kristen: Along with just finding something to automate the payroll process, Austin ISD was mainly looking to improve the accuracy of the substitute payroll process as a whole. Not to mention, it is a great compliment to the SubFinder system!
 
CRS: How has SubPay helped Austin ISD thus far?
 
Kristen: SubPay has given confidence in our substitutes that they are going to be paid in a more timely and accurate manner. Because the payroll process is automated, it has noticeably decreased the payroll workload, which our payroll is ecstatic about. All in all, the errors in the payroll process have diminished; our payroll staff is happy and confident with the pay process as a whole and our substitutes are happy due to less payroll inaccuracy.
 
CRS: How has SubPay met Austin ISD’s needs?
 
Kristen: SubPay has made it effortless to calculate incremental pay and incentive pay for our substitutes, which in turn has further increase our fill rates; especially for those non-desirable positions. SubPay data can also be easily exported to virtually any payroll system.
 
CRS: How did Austin ISD know that SubPay was right for the district?
 
Kristen: We knew that SubPay could meet our diverse needs in regards to payroll, and that we could count on the system to automatically perform most of the manual tasks that were taking us days and sometimes weeks to complete. SubPay has made a monumental difference in our substitute payroll process; we just don’t even know where we would be without it!
 
 
Is your district interested in obtaining further information about the SubPay software? If so contact Katy McCloskey at 800.782.3463 Ext. 6171 or go to the CRS website to request more information.
 
Kristen, CRS would like to extend a big thank you to both you and Austin ISD again for all your help at this years’ Annual User Group Conference!
 


Get Organized with CoursePlanner! 

 
Is your district frustrated with maintaining and organizing Professional Development for your teachers, administrators, and other staff? CoursePlanner, CRS’s Professional Development Management System, serves as a vital management tool providing knowledge to administrators and principals that will assist in the improvements and enhancements of teacher capabilities. The system also provides teachers with a platform for creating and managing their own individual professional development plans.
It has been reported that teacher quality is the number one most important factor influencing student achievement. Let CoursePlanner help your district! For additional information, contact Katy McCloskey at 800.782.3463 Ext. 6171.
 
 

 

QUICK LINKS
 

What's New

Additional Modules

Customer Support Center

CoursePlanner
 

Are you registered for the support center?

 

The Customer Support Center (CSC) is designed specifically for district level system operators and administrators. If you are a new district level system operator or administrator and have not yet registered, go to the Customer Support page located in the CRS website and click on register!
 
Have You Met SubFinder 5.6?
 
All customers should have been notified of our recent upgrade to SubFinder 5.6. If your district did not receive your upgrade information yet and are interested in upgrading, please contact your Account Specialist for more information.