Transcription
Alrighty. So, oh, let me share my Wait, what just happened? Did I stop sharing my screen? That's >> No, we got screen two now. Looks like >> we got it. >> Okay, cool.
All right, so um like all good implementations, when they begin, we should introduce ourselves. I'm Melissa. I'll be your implementation manager. Um the implementation that I'm running with you right now is for admission. And um in a minute here we're going to talk about the scope of what that entails. Um I'm I've been at Veraracross for um crossing over into four and a half I think now years. And I previously lived in the world of admission. Um and I also lived in the world of sales. And so I love talking about this module because to me it is your sales arm. Um it is your recruitment vessel. It is your marketing opportunity. All that fun stuff that I love to talk about. So, for me, it's um super fun.
>> Um >> I um also work in enrollment. And so, we're going to be talking about the difference when you're implementing admission versus when you're implementing enrollment. And I know that Carol, for you as the director, you're you live in those worlds, you know, combined. Admission, enrollment, it's all happening. It's all crisscrossing over. So I would say the biggest hurdle that you'll need to overcome is understanding that while we're not separating the reality of what you do every day, the system only works a certain way and there's certain things that are admission related and and then other things that are enrollment related. And so we're going to have to talk about those things as we go through. Okay. >> Okay. >>
So um Carol, if you could give me three bits of information, actually I'll I'll narrow it down. two two bits of information because I already know that you're the director. How long have you been at the school and how do you rate yourself as a user of our product uh Veraracross or Axiom? Uh so far >> sure >> um I've been at the school since before the school opened. Um I was a part of the um organization that started Windsor. So, um, there was another school, um, our founder had that my children went to. So, I've been a part of this community for 23 years. Um, and I've been at Windsor specifically since it opened doors in 2014. >> Fantastic. So, if there's anybody that knows the system, it's probably you. >> I hope so. Maybe Eric comes in pretty close. He's he's catching up fast. And and how do you rate yourself as a user of our tool? >> Uh I am a very beginner user at this point, but I feel like I will be a very very involved user. >> Great. Awesome. Thank you for that.
Eric, same two questions. >> Great. I started at the school last year, which is actually my first foray into education as well. >> Oh, nice. Oh, what did you do before? Uh, I worked in multitude of different small businesses, but for the past 15 years, I've been on the real estate brokerage side. >> Oh my gosh. Wow. >> Awesome. >> But I also have my hand in a lot of tech as well. I've done a lot of tax uh tech stacks across different industries and so that is why I am now tasked with helping us modernize as well. And >> yeah, modernizing is a good thing. Moving data is also a good thing, but it's a hard thing. Um, so how do you rate yourself as a user so far? >> On a scale of let's say four point scale, I I would say I'm about a two and a half. I'm >> Oh, on the cusp of being expelled. Okay. Well, >> I am navigating a very No, I wouldn't say expelled. I would say two two and a half is a C is about a C average right now. >> Okay. All right. Good. Yeah. >> Well, it'll be my goal to make sure that you're both straight A students by the end of this. How's that? Is that a good deal? >> Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. >>
Okay. Great. Great. Great. Great. Okay. So, um let's moving on to the um agenda in in terms of responsibilities. I I keep this on my agenda because I find that it is often a shock uh especially if admission is one of your first if not the first uh implementation module uh that you do. So it is my role to to give you resources and to teach you and to help you troubleshoot your own workflows so that we can build it out into our system. Um, and it's my job to keep you on task to your timeline, but it will largely be your role to configure this. Okay? It you will be getting in there and making this work the way that you want it to. And if I have to give you a number of hours per week that I would say set aside, like right now, you know, put it in your calendar for the next three months is a minimum of five hours a week. >> Okay, got it. understanding that you have a zillion billion other things to do and summer vacation happens and people get sick and you know all of those other things. Um, but in reality that's what I would tell you that it's going to cost is about 5 hours a week. So that one of those hours is us meeting. One of those hours is an instructor-led training where other schools that are implementing at the same time as you come together um and we work together as a group to learn a new topic and you have the opportunity to ask each other, oh well we never thought of that. What do you guys do? How do you guys handle that? What happens you know when when that goes on in your office? Right? So it's a nice collaborative thing. So that's two. Um there's a Friday office hour every week which doesn't have an agenda and it's just your opportunity to come and ask questions that arose whilst you were doing your homework during the rest of the week, right? So those are always on Friday afternoons. Um so that's three out of the five which gives you the two to do your own homework and I'm going to be giving you homework at the end of each one of our um calls that we have together. >> Awesome. >> Right. When you say Friday afternoon, is that in what time zone? >> Oh, sorry. Eastern. All of our times are Eastern. >> Great. >> Yeah. >> As are we? >> Good. >> Is there Can you by chance update that agenda doc as well to maybe have those times in there as well or is that later on? >> Yeah, I'm going to give you the resources that's going to show you all of it. >> Awesome. Cool. >> Yep. But I can also put it in here. That's not a that's not a heavy lift for me. I'm happy to do that. >> No, no worries.
Okay, let's turn our attention to the implementation tools. Um, and there are three which are critical for us during our uh project here. One is axiom and some of my schools are unfamiliar with that word when we begin. So, I always like to make sure that we're clear. Axiom is the name of your database. It is the student information system that you purchased. you purchased that from a company called Veraracross. That being said, many many many of my colleagues and even myself some from time to time we use the words interchangeably like did you log into Veraracross? Are you looking at Veraracross? What does it say in Veraracross? Veraracross is our company and we have many products under our umbrella. Axiom being the SIS. We also own Digistorm, Firefly, Magnus Health and a handful of others. Okay. So when I talk about Axiom, I'm talking about your database. >> Yep. >> Community is our support platform as well as our knowledge library. So when I start talking about oh uh let's put that in the case or let's submit a case or let's you know do that inside of the case or if I say things like we have documentation on that or I'll share an article with you that describes that. I'm referencing community when I'm saying those things. Awesome, man. And Melissa, can I just cut you off real quick? Um, just so you I don't know where if if you know where we're at sort of this is now I think we're working on I think this is maybe our fifth or sixth module that we're now implementing. >> Great. >> I'm not sure if you're aware of where we're at. Technically, we we are in the stabilization stage of core foundation as well. We've got all of our data in there for the most part. >> We're in um >> a little bit. >> It's all good. I I I know you have a a timeline and it's all good. Um, and I I apologize if this seems redundant or basic, but it's important that I know that I've communicated it to you um to to just be so that we're all clear and all on the same page. So, I I promise >> no worries. >> I'll be done in less than two minutes. Okay. >> Um, Baracross University, that is not our platform. It is a a third-party system, Litmos, and you do have to have a separate um user account and login over there and I do require that everybody's able to get there um because I will be pointing you there very very often. >> Awesome. >> Yeah, already logged in. >> Great. Great. Love it. Love it.
Okay. Project scope and schedule. Um I mentioned a little bit the the schedule a second ago, but weekly uh live sessions, those are our group lessons. uh they're they're basically like workshops and then those Friday office hours and then our consultation calls right and then your homework uh in addition to that in terms of the scope let's do a little bit of vocabulary here again in your world admissions and enrollment the the they go together all the time admission in Axiom has a hard stop and it comes after you make your decision to admit or wait pool or decline a candidate So, the admission module carries every step of the process from initial inquiry all the way through completing your admission process, what we refer to as the checklist, up until the time that you insert that admission decision. If you insert a decision of accepted, that will generate the enrollment record in Axiom. So, a kid doesn't even own an enrollment record until you put an accepted decision on that kid's record. Um, and then the enrollment are the steps that an accepted candidate will take in order to be considered enrolled. Um, and and basically to have their seat held, right, until until school begins for whatever year they're applying for, right? So, we're talking about inquiry through admission decision. Your uh enrollment module picks up right after admission decision with the family's choice to either accept your offer of admission and take the steps to enroll or to decline your offer and therefore not enroll. >> Okay. So, does that make sense? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Great.
Given what you just said about you have already been implementing modules, you're already familiar with the fact that our system is a single record system and that a person has different roles that relate them to your school, right? You have students. That's cuz they're already there. They already have classes. They get report cards, all that stuff. Their parents are called parents in the system and they have access to the parent portal and they can do parent things. For us in admission, we have candidates, not students. There's no such thing as a student in the admission space because it takes a completed enrollment in order to be a student. So, we have candidates and our parents are parents of candidates which in essence um gives them their gives them access to move through the admission process on behalf of their their kids. So this terminology will probably come up from time to time in our implementation because the word candidate is intentional and it's hardcoded in several places. And so the sooner you can kind of jump in to the lingo, the easier time you'll have because the word candidate includes three person roles. Admission lead, prospect, and applicant. Those are all covered with the umbrella of candidate and you can drill down into each of those, right? Show me all my admission leads. Show me all my prospects. Show me all my applicants. The difference or the move from prospect to applicant will be configured by us in the admission module. And the the trigger there is what does it take as far as the admission checklist for somebody who's just showing interest to to kind of put skin in the game, right? Like, okay, we're not just asking you questions. We really want to come to your school. Um, and then whatever those checklist items are, we will configure them so that the completion of those checklist item is what generates the application record and moves the the role from prospect to applicant. Any questions about that? >> No. And we already use candidates, so that's fine. >> Love it. That's easy peasy. >> It all sound good to me, too. By the way, I'm I'm sitting here. I'm just at a whiteboard making notes. >> No, no worries. I'm happy to have you do it.
Okay, good. Um, glad that we're completely clear on that. Uh, Carol, in your mind, what is the date, like calendar date that you would love to cut over and begin funneling all of your new inquiries through Axiom? >> Um, that is a really good question. Uh, Eric, what is our timeline on >> being live with? Uh so ideally our dream is to have this up and running by uh beginning of school year for next year. That's ideal. >> When does school start? >> Oh, it's 26. >> Oops. >> Oh, about me. I'm a terrible typist. Um, just so you know, >> what' you say? 26th. >> Yes. >> Okay, great. Okay, cool. Um, but I feel like but I feel like the admissions and the candidates, they wouldn't be for next year. It would be for the following year because we're already almost full with our enrollment for next year >> for 2526. >> Yeah. >> Do you offer rolling admission where if um somebody withdraws or a spot opens up, you can grab >> Absolutely. Yeah. especially with our our littlest candidates um because they can enter as soon as they turn 18 months old, which makes for a very interesting um class building. >> Yeah, because you want to get the right mix and the right balance and all that fun stuff. So, >> well, the right mix and the right balance and availability and then they move from one class to the next class in the same academic year. >> So, it's it's it's a very interesting puzzle that one. Yeah, I love those puzzles. Luckily, that's academic's issue, not mine.
Okay, so um great. Uh your project was assigned to me with an August one, uh drop deadad date, so I plan to have you finished and off my plate by then. So that gives you um plenty of time. Uh again, just as long as we stay on task and we're meeting regularly and going along this cadence, you will be fine. you'll uh we count testing as part of our project timeline. So, it's not um it's not going to be a case where I go, "Okay, great. We configured all this. Go have fun." We're going to test it. We're going to make sure that you're comfortable with what it's doing and that the expectation um that you have for your applying families is actually, you know, what they see and what they encounter. Um, so, all in all, August 1 seems agreeable to uh to all of us. Is there a third-party integration that you are expecting us to do in addition to the Axiom module? So, Revena, school admin, SAO. >> Okay, >> great. >> Nothing on well at least on the admissions side. There was one question I actually reached out. We are we want to integrate C uh a service called CPOMs, but that has nothing to do with admissions or enrollment. >> Then don't ask me. You thought? I thought so. I was just making a shirt. >> I don't even know what that is. Um, okay, cool.
Um, Carol, if there was one thing that bugs you to no end about how you have to do a certain piece of your process today, what is that? >> Oh, uh, just one. >> No, not just one. So the process today involves far too many spreadsheets. It's difficult to have our departments communicate with each other as far as math diagnostics, English diagnostics, getting all the admissions team on board and having easy access to all of those documents for the students. Um, it is also the forms that are required which is probably enrollment if I'm getting that right once they've passed through admissions and then they have to complete numerous forms as far as medical >> give me give me an example >> medical release um liability releases uh insurance information I can send you all of the forms if you'd like to take a look at them but there are a number of forms and then it's also So having to manually go into our online registration document and trigger teacher recommendations to be sent out to teachers and recommenders um and managing three different databases to do that. It's three three databases probably 10 or 12 um spreadsheets the different and then >> yeah there's more but I think there's the big I think that's >> so really I mean you know you're fine you're chugging along and you really don't need our tool is is what you're telling >> yeah I really love the chaos and the redundancy it just makes me so happy yeah >> awesome well I'm sorry, but we probably could improve all of this for you, but you'll have to come to grips with that as we go. Okay, very good. Uh, none of what you've said, first of all, none of this surprises me. And second of all, none of it is insurmountable. Um, we can dive deep into all those forms and really talk over what should be collected now during admission and what should wait until uh enrollment and and that's a very common conversation. Um, and there's a little bit more functionality on the admissions side than there is on the enrollment side in terms of parents filling out forms. So, we might there might just be some tweaking we could do to where we could include those things in admission where it's easy and not have to wait until later. But, like I said, we can talk about all that.
>> Um, quick question. Um, >> and you you may have said this before, I might have missed it. Um, admissions and then enrollment. Do you handle both of those? Is it all part of the same module? I know it's two different things. It's two modules. So, I haven't been assigned to your um enrollment module. I um typically we start assigning in the fall, but I didn't look at your timeline. So, whenever your enrollment module is scheduled to be implemented, you'll you'll get an implementation manager assigned. And you know, you you might decide you don't want it to be me. So, when that time comes, we'll we'll figure all that out, but it will be separate implementation. >> Okay. Awesome. >> Yeah.
Okay. Cool. Um, let's continue moving on. Um important resources section. So this um agenda document um that we have uh I gave you in the chat of our Zoom, but it's also linked in your case. So let me scroll down to this important resources section where I have your case linked. Um, and I've s I've already seen that you both have CISA admin security and you also are both community super users. So, you should both be able to access this case directly and easily and without issue. But if you have trouble, just let me know cuz I really need you in the case. Um, we will be doing our communication with each other through the case. In other words, I don't do it through email. I know some of my colleagues do, but I personally cannot stay organized using email. I need to use the case. So, I would ask you to just humor me there and uh ask me all your questions inside of the case. >> Sounds good. >> Great.
The first bullet point that's here under the important resources. And by the way, every single thing that I'm showing you here is also linked in your case. Uh, and this agenda is also linked in the case. So, it's it's like a a mad loop, right? you can't get away from my links and my uh documents. The first one here is your guide to admission core. So, if you're curious about what this entails and you want to kind of see it from beginning to end, there's your written version of what we're about to do and you're uh you can read through that when you're struggling with sleep later today. Um the registration link that you used already to schedule this meeting is here for you and this will be available to you through August. So if our go live date is August 1, I'll keep that link for another 30 days and at that point you'll be officially transitioned over to support and then you'll work with them and not me. But from now till then um you can use this link to um sorry uh scheduling link. I'm I'm discussing the scheduling link right now. Sorry. For our >> I'm sorry. Where where again is this document or where >> uh let me give it to you again in the um Zoom chat. It might have you might I might have shared it out or something. Let me just see. Oh, I know. >> It was on the phone probably. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. I forgot. I forgot. >> It's okay. >> Okay. There you go. Can you grab that one? >> Perfect. I can. >> Great. Great. Great. Okay. Cool. Cool. Cool. So the scheduling link is what I was just mentioning. Okay. This registration link on the other hand. Um this is for the ILTS. These are those weekly workshops where schools that are um implementing alongside of you. We all come together for these topics. So if you open up that link, you you do have to be logged into Veraracross University to have it open for you. So if you're getting an error, it's because you're not logged in at VU. Um, but that uh link is going to take you to the schedule and we have four topics that we just keep repeating and we're going to repeat them all the way through August. So, as long as you come to all four, I don't care if you come more than once. I don't care if you come out of order. Like, it doesn't matter to me, but I would love for you to come to all four so you have the chance to ask your colleagues questions about those topics. Okay? So don't forfeit the chance to talk to your colleagues is basically what I'm saying.
Okay, this instructional learning path and I'll even highlight this one because this is the the key, right? This is your if if I was an academic class, that's your syllabus. That's your textbook. That's the stuff that I need you to do. So yes, I'm going to be assigning you homework. And as we meet and we talk about things and we work stuff out, I'll put additional homework into this agenda. like I'll assign you specific homework but as we go through these topics there is homework outlined in this course. Okay. So like you go to the course and you start with the entry points phase. It's going to give you some instruction and then at the bottom of the page it's going to say okay now go build your inquiry form right and then it's going to take you to the registrant form. It's going to say great now go do your registrant form. So, it's going to take you through and then whatever questions you have while you're doing that, ask me in the case. Even if we haven't even if we're not meeting, ask me. Either get a meeting scheduled or just ask me in the case. I will always respond to you in the case. Always. If I happen to be out of the office, you'll get a notification that I'm out. But I am very, very good at responding to case questions. Okay. Uh, I will put this uh checklist workbook. You can see that it's not it doesn't link to anything right now. I'll put that in there next time. It's a little bit jumping the gun to give it to you now. I don't want to overwhelm you. Um, so that will become a link. And then, as you can see, I will plug in our recordings every time we meet. I'll plug them right in here on the agenda so you can always go back to whatever we spoke about and revisit. Okay. Any questions about those? No. >> Great. >> No. >>
In the homework section, then the CIS admin one must ensure that all team members have access to all tools. Check. Your admission team should register for those group live sessions using the link below. That's the registration link. And like I said, there are four of them. So, at least get registered for four of them, but you can come to them all. Complete phase one, the kickoff phase in the implementing admission core and portal learning path. That is the one that I just highlighted. At least get through the kickoff portion. I'm happy to have you work ahead. Come to entry points. Actually, I'm happy to have you work ahead and do all of this on your own if you want to. But I'm here to help you. So, don't feel like you should know something. Don't feel like you can't ask me or don't feel like you can't schedule a meeting. You can and you should, okay? But you're you're welcome to work ahead. Okay. Um Carol, you mentioned a moment ago uh and something I had put in your homework. If you'd like to give me all of your supporting documentation so I can take a look at what you used today, I'm happy to take a look. Put your recommendation forms in there. Put your questionnaire forms in there. Put your, you know, medical rel. >> Okay. And it says upload to the case link below. And >> and that is right here. config case. >> Yep. That you got >> admission page. Okay, >> that's you. Your purple your little purple self is right there. >> Okay. >> Uh this you could ignore this one. Um, admission checklist because I didn't give it to you yet. So um just ignore that. I will turn that green for now. Forget that.
Lastly, uh let's take a quick look at this and then I'm going to let you go. The instructional inquiry. What on earth is the instructional inquiry? We built for you for all of our schools a sample of what our inquiry form looks like and it describes itself to you. So this is where the description of the inquiry form displays. Like literally this describes itself to you. Okay. The paragraph element blah blah blah blah blah blah. Right? We can include an event signup if you want to. We can put a header here. This is candidate information. All these different name fields can be part of the candidates's name if you want them to. We can ask for gender, blah blah blah. Right? And this just goes through and it shows you all the things that you can collect. Not that you would, not that you have to, right? A lot of schools their inquiry is like short basic. Tell us who you are. Tell us what grade you're interested in. Tell us what year you want to come. And give us at least one parent. and then we'll go from there. Fine. This just describes for you all the types of data that you can collect. You if you don't collect it on the inquiry, we will collect it during the admission process through the checklist. >> So, this is kind of the equivalent of our schedule a tour request information. >> Absolutely. >> Form that we already have. >> You hit the nail on the head. Yep. We call it inquiry. It's just the mechanical name for it. You can put whatever description on it that you want to. Right. So if you if your form is called schedule a tour, we can call it that, >> right? >> Okay. >> So this is like basically like a lead capture almost. >> Um it will not capture a lead. It will specifically capture a prospect. But we'll talk about that as we go through. >> The homework portion of this is just read it. You don't have to take any action here. just read it so that you begin to become familiar with the kinds of data points that we can collect. Again, either now on the inquiry or later in the checklist, right? You're like, "Oh, yeah, we do require date of birth, but we don't get it on the inquiry. We need it as part of the checklist." Right? We want to know where mom and dad work, but we don't care on the inquiry. We need that when they're doing their checklist. Right? So, that kind of stuff. Um the when you keep scrolling down, I mentioned earlier that there's several places where the word candidate is hardcoded. This is just an example of one. It sounds like it's not going to be a problem for you, Carol, but our inquiry form allows that you can add multiple candidates on one inquiry. So, you know, this kid is going to come into sixth grade, this kid is going to come into blah blah. Okay, so that's just a feature of our inquiry. the parent one uh or any uh however you want to call this section, right? Parent or guardian number one. Our system doesn't care if the first parent is mom or dad. I know some systems you scroll through and you go mother's information and then you go father's information. We don't care. We need to know parent one and parent two and there ever when you query for them, one is going to be parent one and one is going to be parent two no matter who they are. Right? So, it's just a system value. And then our system allows the family to tell you how they're connected to one another, right? How are you related to this person? Are you their mother or father? Are you just their parent, genderneutral parent? Are you the stepfather, stepmother, or steparent? Right? And we can curate these lists so that they present your families the correct language that you want to present to them. Right? So we can curate all this stuff. Um the next >> and you can make whatever you want um required or not required. >> Yes. Yep. Absolutely. Yep. The next feature of our inquiry form is that the address that Whoops. Where did that just go? The address that gets collected on the inquiry is assumed to be the candidates's address. There will be opportunity to add multiple addresses, but we assume when we build the household record off of the submission of this that the candidate lives here together with parent number one. Okay, that's the assumption. Does that mean you need to collect the address on your inquiry? No, you don't have to. But the household record will be established with parent and kid in the house. They just won't have a physical street address if you don't collect that information. Okay. Another feature of our inquiry is that we ask, "Do you want to add a second parent?" And if they do not, that is great. They can carry on. But if they do, then that section populates and now they can do so. Okay. So, section parent 2 stays hidden until they say they want to add that person. The next feature is does this second parent live at the same address? And if they do, that is wonderful. And we will place them all together in that same household. If they do not, then our system will allow them to put the address for parent number two. Our system will create both household records with all the reciprocal relationships that they tell you, and the kids will be non-residents at parent 2's household address. >> Okay, make sense? >> Great. Um, additional info is just stuff that we give you just to give you some ideas like how did you hear about our school? Um, I'm interested in more information about right, you know, whatever kind of stuff you could add. And then at the bottom of this um demo document here describes for you all the different ways that you can collect data, right? So you can do a text box that looks half the page. You can do a text area that's the full page. You can do radio buttons that are select one. You could do checkboxes that are select all that apply. You can do date pickers. You can do bubble filling. Right? All it just describes this for you. Okay? >> So, just review it. start chewing on like as you go through this like for example with the name um the candidate like all we want on the inquiry is first and last but we want to make sure that we ask their preferred name during the checklist because we want their report card and their class roster and all that other stuff to use their preferred name right so if you want the data point we can grab it we don't have to grab it on the inquiry though all right >> awesome >> okay so you have your marching orders Uh it's here in the homework section. Like I said, I will put the meeting recording here. Uh weekly cadence is recommended. If you guys are working ahead and you want to meet and just get this done, I'm happy to do that. As the summer progresses, my schedule gets busier and busier. So, I'm happy to um expedite if you guys feel like you can do it. >> Okay. >> Anything else I can answer or help you with right now? >> Yes. real quick question on in order