The Tandem Facebook Application received an update today that allows it to utilize the Facebook RSVP system. With this update, users are now able to RSVP for events within the Tandem Facebook App. For schools and universities, thsi gives them the ability to create events in Tandem and easily be able to track attendees via the Dashboard in Tandem. Just another great feature we are giving are user to help grow strong communities!

There are many alternatives for integrating your Tandem for School Calendar with your school website. Today, we would like to highlight how you can use the embed feature to place your Tandem calendar within your existing website. This option allows users to stay on your website while viewing the calendar as well maintain the look of your website when viewing your online school calendar. Here is a step-by-step guide:

1. Log into your calendar and select “Configuration” on the top right.

2. On the Configuration page select “Add to a Website”

3. Here you will find many different ways to integrate your online school calendar with your website. Scroll down to Iframe and copy the code that is in the box. This code is specifically for your calendar and is automatically provided by the Tandem calendar.

4. Next, you will need to paste the code you copied in the previous step into your website. How you manage your website will determine how easy this step is for you. In this case, I am using WordPress, so it is fairly easy.

5. You are now finished! If you need help with this process, feel free to contact us. In the meantime, view how these other customers have embed their school calendar into their website:

Kings Local, Kings Mill, OH: http://www.kingslocal.net/sites/kings/calendar/Pages/kec.aspx

Valley Catholic School, Beaverton, OR: http://valleycatholic.org/high-school/athletics/calendar.php

Concordia Lutheran High School, Fort Wayne, IN: http://www.clhscadets.com/index.php?option=com_jevents&view=month&task=month.calendar&Itemid=147

Many schools that switch to Tandem have been trying to use a personal calendar like Google Calendar to manage school events. When doing this, it quickly becomes evident why personal calendars are not well suited as an online school calendar. Here are just a few reasons to use a event calendar instead of a personal calendar.

Groups – An event calendar is designed to be used by many people at once instead of a single person. Thus, it has predefined groups that make it easy to schedule events and activities.

One Calendar – While a school may have multiple personal calendars, they should only have one group calendar. I say should because that don’t always but that is a matter of best practice. By doing this, a school is able prevent double-booking of facilities and groups.

Filter Function – An actual event calendar will give you the ability to filter the events on the calendar to just the relevant events. This is a feature the a personal calendar would lack.

It is important to consider these differences when selecting an online calendaring system. These few differences can make a huge difference with how happy your staff, parents, and communities are with your selection of an online calendaring system.

Here is a quick overview of where your new features in Tandem are now located with the new UI. We hope that you find that these improvements are beneficial.

There was a bittersweet moment at the office this past month as Darin Hanson had his last day as part of the Tandem Team. While we congratulate Darin on his new position elsewhere, it is difficult to see him go. He has been a key member of the support team here at Intand for the past 3 years, and his presence will surely be missed. We wish him the best of luck at his new position and hope he can find time to visit the office on Pizza Thursdays.

For reference, you can still contact us at support@intand.com as we are still dedicated to providing excellent customer service. If Darin was your main contact here at Intand, you will now be provided excellent customer support by our newest team member, Mitsu Kubo. If you have not had a chance to talk to him, feel free to call and introduce yourself. He is a friendly guy. You can email him at Mitsu.Kubo@intand.com.