You’re invited, come; take a look inside Winston
Salem Forsyth County’s Substitute Program. Their
primary goal is to prepare the students for a
successful day while their teachers are away. In
addition, they strive toward excellence in
providing the teachers with the most qualified
subs and placing those subs the first time
around. They also remain steadfast on raising
the fill rates and providing better customer
support for all.
Winston Salem Forsyth County Schools Substitute
Department consists of two people; the
Substitute Coordinator and the Help Desk
Operator. SubFinder has been helping Winston
Salem Forsyth fill their classrooms since 1999;
where this past year together Winston
Salem Forsyth and SubFinder exceeded their goal
to a 97% fill-rate. Most un-filled jobs were
last minute absences, flu season, and those less
desirable job positions.
Two years ago, the Substitute Department
developed a Substitute Website because of the
high number of phone calls they were receiving
during the day requesting general substitute
information. Feeling the pressure of getting
everyone’s questions answered and providing
information about substitute teaching available,
the website was developed and the Substitute
Program took a big step forward in communicating
with and assisting their substitutes. It
combines all the districts information regarding
‘How to Apply’, ‘Requirements’, and ‘Salary
Information’; as well as information about ‘How
to Use the SubFinder system’.
We recently spoke with Nanette Naylor,
Substitute Coordinator, who also was a Peer
Advisor at the 2007 Annual User Group Conference
and taught Substitute Management.
CRS: What was
your main goal behind the Substitute Website?
Nanette:
The goal was to filter the most frequently asked
questions through a system that could handle the
volume and the requests for general information.
Creating the website has opened a door for the
sub office to better handle priorities without
spending a lot of time on general information.
Since 2006-2007 we have doubled the amount of
hits to the school website to well over 250,000
hits per school year. This demonstrates the need
for the general information to be available to
possible applicants and the public.
CRS: How has the
Substitute Website helped the most?
Nanette:
We have been able to better manage the calls
coming into the help desk, which results in
better overall customer service for the schools,
the teachers, the substitutes, and the public;
thus serving our students, the main goal of the
educational system.
CRS: How has the
SubFinder system benefit Winston Salem Forsyth
School District?
Nanette:
Now with our Substitute Website, using SubFinder
goes hand-in-hand. All of the information about
SubFinder is on the website, along with access
to the WebConnect, the Internet portion.
Together all a teacher or substitute has to do
is to point and click their way through the
absence/job process; everything is all right
there.
SubFinder is a user friendly program which
continues to help us exceed our fill-rate goals.
It attracts substitutes to your district, thus
allowing more jobs to be filled with better
qualified and informed substitutes. It’s a great
system, very user friendly at any level. I would
highly recommend the SubFinder system to any
district; it serves the needs of any sized
district.
*We
want to thank-you again Nanette and Winston
Salem Forsyth School District for presenting at
this past User Group Conference! We look forward
to working with you for many more years!
A Message from Our National Account Analyst- Lee
Dawson
Is your district thinking about integrating
SubFinder with payroll? I am sure you are thinking,
“What’s the best way to do this and where do we
begin?”
School districts across the country face these
questions each day as they try to move toward a
“paperless” process. What do we mean when we say
paperless process? Ideally it is a reduction or
elimination in the manual entry that you do each day
involving running reports from SubFinder and
manually typing that information into your payroll
system (e.g. MUNIS, Skyward, Pentamation, CIMS,
etc…). An actual integration not only involves
eliminating the printing of SubFinder reports but
incorporates the creation of a file (s) that can be
electronically uploaded into the payroll system.
That’s not to say that you’ll never run another
SubFinder report; some districts still run reports
parallel to their automated process as a cross
check. However, this eventually stops as their
confidence grows in the automated process.
One of the first things you must do is to
identify what payroll system you’re using (e.g.
MUNIS, Skyward, Pentamation, CIMS, etc…). CRS
currently provides 40+ layouts that match the
most popular payroll systems but it will be
beneficial to hold a conference call between
your district, your payroll vendor and CRS to
discuss the specifics as to what type of
information they need from SubFinder. Once the
proper layout has been determined we then
discuss how to get that information to the
payroll system for check printing.
Typically, the process will work like this;
absences will be entered into SubFinder, that
information will be exported from SubFinder in a
file (comma delimited or fixed field/length),
the file may be cleaned or modified by adding or
eliminating information via a third party
program (e.g. excel), and finally the file is
uploaded to payroll.
Your SubFinder software suite includes a module
called Data Exchange Pro; this particular module
allows CRS to do our part in exporting the
absence information from SubFinder. This
module costs no additional money and is already
installed within your system.
Integration with payroll can vary slightly from
district to district, but for the most part it
remains the same. The hardest part is starting
and getting connected to the right people. If
you are interested in assistance with the
integration process and Data Exchange Pro,
contact your Account Specialist and they will
help get you moving in the right direction.
