Intand was recently mentioned by Ednetnews.com for our work with Microsoft to integrate Tandem for Schools with Microsoft’s Geneva Single Sign-On, which makes it easy for students and parents to be authenticated with the user data stored on the school’s servers.

Geneva Single Sign-On is especially useful for schools that use multiple cloud-based third party applications because it provides an easy way to manage user log in permissions across multiple applications while maintaining a high level of security of personal information.

The first implementation of this in a school setting was with the Lake Washington School District who uses Tandem for Schools to manage their calendars at all of their 48 schools.

In the future Geneva Single Sign-On will allow schools to grant full access to students, staff, and parents who have been authenticated by the school. In the past this was possible but would require a school administrator to painstakingly add data manually on each individual or import data into the application. If a school uses multiple third-party applications this may require administrators to manage a separate database on each application which can be very time consuming. Geneva single sign-on will make it much easier to manage user permissions by “talking” with applications and telling them if an individual should be granted access based on student and parent data that is centrally located on the school’s server (Active Directory). This will reduce redundancies and lessen the work load of busy school administrators.

Tandem school administration software helps schools simplify school event management by allowing central control of the school’s events calendar and transportation through an easy to use browser based user interface. This has many benefits for school administrators in charge of coordinating school events.

Communicate Event Scheduling More Effectively
The school administrator in charge of planning school events can enter all the events going on at a school from Drama Club meetings to friday night football games into the online school calendar. Any student, parent, teacher, or coach can easily access information through any web browser to learn about a specific event, or filter the calendar to their specific needs. When an event time is changed by an administrator, the change will be immediately updated to the online calender.

Avoid Schedule Conflicts
It is quick and easy for administrators to add events to the school calendar through a user friendly online interface. Multiple administrators can have access to add events to the calendar and Tandem will automatically alert you if there is a scheduling conflict. No more time wasted on back and fourth paper trails to get a schedule conflict resolved. Coaches can also request facilities and the administrator can easily grant them access with a click of the mouse.

Easy to Implement
Our school administration software is hosted externally on Intand’s secure servers. That means there is no complicated software to install. Our support team can get your calendar up and running in minutes and Tandem allows you to quickly import Excel data like school groups, staff members, and competing schools. If you ever have any questions, our friendly support team will always be happy to help you help you through them.

Manage Transportation
The transportation management functionality is available with the Plus version of Tandem for Schools. It helps administrators easily request and allocate transportation for school events. Tandem’s transportation module will prevent driver conflicts and manage fuel costs.

There are many more helpful benefits of Tandem for Schools. Schedule a free 1 on 1 demo on your own computer to learn more.

Photo by Gil Searcy

Hear what several school administrators have said about our online school calendar:

The Tandem calendar not only gave parents the ability to check on upcoming events, but also gave them driving direction to out of town games. It also allowed us to schedule both our events and make reservations to our high school facility on one one calendar, which streamlined the work done by my office.

-Jeff Lunt, Assistant Principal/Athletic Director, Port Angeles High School

We’ve been using the Tandem calendar since the beginning of the 2008-09 school year and it has been a great addition to our district’s online presence. We have been able to use the RSS feeds to automatically update our main webpage with district events and will soon be extending this to the individual school web pages. I would recommend Tandem to anyone looking for a school events calendar solution.

-Brad King, Manor ISD

We have been struggling for years in keeping our schools’ calendars current. As soon as it is printed it is out of date. I have looked at several on-line calendar solutions and this is the best I have found. We have been using Tandem for about 6 months now and it has been a great hit with both parents and employees. The support staff at Tandem has been extremely helpful in assisting me with some unique issues that some companies might consider out of the scope of their product.

-Kelly Murphy, Merrilville Schools

To find out for yourself, sign up for a free 30 day demo of Tandem for Schools.

Tandem for Schools is much more than an online school calendar, it can also be used to manage school transportation and share photos and news. With the photos and news function of the calendar, anyone registered with the calendar can submit photos or news at the individual events page.

To share a photo you can upload an image by clicking on the upload photos icon on the right side of an event page. This can be a great way to share photos from events throughout the school, without having to leave the calendar website. Before a photo is published to the calendar it must first be reviewed and approved a calendar administrator. Then the photo thumbnail will appear on the event page.

You can click on the thumbnail to see a larger version of the photo or you can click on the photo icon on the top of the calendar to see all the photos that have been uploaded from the school and even view school photos in a slide show format. This can be fun for students and parents, who can see school photos online and don’t have to wait until the end of the year when the school yearbook is finally published.

Additionally students, parents, and staff can upload text updates for each event. For example a parent can upload the result of a match or student achievements at a particular event. This can be helpful in communicating the outcome of an event to the school community or spreading important information that specific groups should know. To do this, you would click on the news icon on the right side of an event page and insert the text in the appropriate field. Once the calendar administrator reviews and approves it, the content will be published on that event’s specific page.

A school office can often serve the role of customer support for the school community. When parents have questions the first option that usually comes to mind is to call the school office and ask. However, is this really the most efficient option for both parents and the school? Sometimes the questions can be very simple, like “what time does school get out today” or “is the softball game rained out?”. Although this might seem like a convenient way to get information, what about the alternative like having a central information source for the school that is available to be viewed online. Instead of having to call the school, what if parents could view the online school calendar instead? They wouldn’t have to wait on hold, which can save them time and also reduce the number of calls to the office for simple questions. For many corporations that have call centers, each call is estimated to cost as much as $20 per call or more. By reducing calls to the office, this could save money for the school or free up the school administration to focus on other tasks.

Our school calendar application, Tandem for Schools, can help your school reduce calls to the office by centralizing information at your school’s calendar website. Tandem was designed to help schools communicate effectively with parents. The calendar can be updated with the latest information almost instantly. Parents can sync a Tandem school calendar with their personal calendars like Outlook, iCal, Cozy, or Google Calendar, which will update them whenever changes are made to the school calendar. Parents can also subscribe to RSS updates with any RSS reader like MyYahoo or Google Reader. Finally, the online school calendar is available 24/7, so parents can access information at any time from anywhere that has internet access.

You can try Tandem for Schools Plus free for 30 days or use the limited free version.

If you are a parent, check out SchoolCal.org to request Tandem for your school.

You can contact Intand at info@intand.com or 1-866-685-3449.

Photo by tome213

One way to schools can raise money is by renting out their school facilities to the community. They could rent out their school gym for local recreational sports leagues or the auditorium for company meetings in the summer. Many schools rent facilities to Boy or Girl Scouts or even weddings. However a paper-based sign up process could be too time consuming for both community members and school administrators.

Tandem for Schools provides a streamlined process for facilities requests that is completely online. A community member can fill out an online request form that is sent to the administrator in charge of facilities rentals. They can approve or deny the request and the requester will be notified via email. Once approved the rental time slot will be scheduled on the school calendar, to automatically prevent any double booking of that facility. A handful of event bookings can potentially pay for a year of Tandem for Schools and can start generating a positive cash flow that many schools desperately need right now.

Sign up for a free demo to learn more.

Photo by Heated Ground Photography

To Intand was on TechCrunch recently for their partnership with Cozi to launch the site SchoolCal.org which provides parents with information on online school calendars and lets them vote to encourage their school to consider implementing an online school calendar.

From TechCrunch:

It can be a struggle for parents to juggle their kids’ school events, games and conferences and it’s becoming increasingly common for parents to use web services to manage family calendars. But schools still remain stubbornly disconnected from parents online. While more and more schools are turning to the web as a platform, less than 5% of schools, both public and private, are offering parents internet school calendars.

While we don’t think schools are being stubborn, we do want to let schools and parents know about the tremendous benefits that an online school calendar provides. SchoolCal.org describes some of these benefits such as:

• Access to school calendar information anytime you need it.
• Parents can be immediately notified of schedule changes, like snow days or baseball rain outs.
• Parent can sync school events to their current web calendar like Outlook, Cozi, iCal, Google Calendar, etc.
• Plan vacations, after-school activities, and appointments more easily.
• Eliminate accidental double bookings on your calendar.

To learn more visit SchoolCal.org.

Schoolcal.org is a site for parents that does a good job at describing the benefits for parents of a good internet school calendar. It also answers frequently asked questions about internet school calendars and how they can help parents. Parents who want to show support for schools using an internet-based calendar can add their name to a list of parents to show interest to schools and encourage them to consider implementing an online school calendar. From the website:

Parents and schools both benefit when everyone uses an Internet calendar. You’ll love being able to:

• Add each child’s Internet school calendar to your personal digital calendar—Cozi, Google, Yahoo, iCal, Microsoft Outlook, or any digital calendar that supports the iCalendar standard.

• Receive any schedule changes or school closures automatically.

• Access the school calendar whenever and wherever you need it.

• Plan vacations, after-school activities, and appointments more easily.

• Save time and eliminate accidental double bookings on your calendar.

A good school calendar can be a great resource for parents, who like and need to have information about what is going on at the school. School calendars like Tandem can immediately update parents with important school information like snow closures or an event rescheduling using the power of the internet. Parents can either go to the calendar page on the internet or have the school calendar sync with many calendar programs that parents may already have such as Outlook, iCal, Google Calendar, or Cozi. This can make school parent communication more effective and less stressful for both sides.

Without a central information hub like a school calendar, finding important school information can be frustrating for parents who may have to call the school or just find out when they get there. With a good school calendar, parents can know exactly where to look to find out key dates or schedule changes.

For time sensitive information like a snow closure or a baseball game rain out, the need to spread information quickly is important. A good school calendar will allow administration to quickly and easily update the calendar so everyone that is affected can get the message.

Intand was recently featured on Channel 9, the Microsoft community site in which President Bryan Otis and CTO Scott Otis were interviewed about Tandem’s integration with Microsoft’s “Geneva” project. Instead of the school having to manually setup user accounts inside Tandem for students, teachers and parents, this integration allows Tandem to consume claims from the school’s “Geneva” server, which tells Tandem if the user is authenticated to the school’s database (Active Directory) and other details about the user (like name, email, position, groups, etc…).

In the interview Bryan Otis gave an overview of Tandem for Schools:

“If you think about a school as an entity, as an organization, it’s a very complex organization with
a lot of moving parts. There are many roles that run the school district and manage the schools. You also have parents outside that are really looking to connect with the events. Tandem manages all the facilities and the groups that are doing events in those facilities…Tandem does this online in a seamless way that allows parents to connect in. It also allows a school district to be conflict free with all the events they have going on across their district.”

“Before this project, we set up permissions on a directory we had inside Tandem. You (the person in charge of running the application)  would have to identify those the administrators that had the ability to add events. Also you would need to set up parents roles, which allows them to see a little more information than the general public. Other roles include students and you may also have community members who are interested in what’s going on in the school district. With all of those roles you have varying levels of permissions that are granted inside our application. Whether someone signed themselves up, or an administrator who has administrative privileges inside of Tandem signed them up, it took someone at the school district granting those permissions to that person on an individual basis.”

The significance of Tandem’s integration with Geneva Server for school tech directors who use online third party applications is that they can manage user permissions across multiple applications with Geneva Server, without having to export user information into all of the applications. This can save them considerable time and head aches. It also improves security because school’s do not have to give out individual’s personal information to third parties.

Tandem for Schools provides a free school calendar for schools to display online or print out. It allows you to add as many events you want to a yearly calendar for the 2008-2009 school year or the 2009-2010 school year. Tandem basic also includes several free features-

1. Customize calendar by adding your school logo.

2. School calendar can be synced with parent’s work or home online calendars such as Outlook, iCal, Google Calendars, Yahoo Calendars, or Cozi. When there is a cancellation or a change in the date of an event, everyone who has synced the calendar will receive automatic notifications.

3. You can add or edit the calendar at any time.

Any changes made by the calendar administrator will be immediately reflected on the online calendar that is seen by parents, staff, and students.

4. The calendar is hosted for free.

All you have to do is provide a link to the online calendar to staff, parents, and teachers.

5. Improved communication

Tandem’s free school calendar dramatically improves communication between staff, students, and parents about important school dates and events. No longer will parents have to call the main office to ask what time the football game starts.

You can sign up for the free annual school calendar at http://www.intand.com/basic.htm.

Once you finish the set up, which takes about 20 minutes, you will given a website address for your school’s free calendar, so that you can link to the online calendar from your school’s website or provide the web address to parents and students.