When you run an effective educational or training institution, you’ll recognize the value of great school scheduling software. It can make all the difference in streamlining business practices.
After all, the main goal of your institution is to provide students with a top-class education and ensure they get great results. It takes away from this goal and wastes valuable lesson time when administrators have to sift through emails and messages to arrange teacher schedules and appointments.
What Is School Scheduling Software?
School scheduling software allows teachers to schedule class times, set capacities, and assign courses, students, and rooms to instructors. It also lets students book and update their own meetings or class slots.
Through the software, business becomes more efficient. The tools give you more time for teaching while automatically optimizing your students’ and instructors’ schedules based on their needs and available resources.
If you’ve been tasked with selecting scheduling software for your school, you may be unsure of where to start. In a nutshell, your platform should improve scheduling and time management, as well as provide integrations, customer service, affordable pricing, and more.
To help you figure out what will work best, we’ve made a list of top questions to ask yourself when selecting a vendor.
Eight Questions To Ask Yourself When Choosing School Scheduling Software
1. What Kind Of Scheduling Do I Need It To Do?
There is a wide range of scheduling activities in a school that you may need your appointment platform to handle.
Your admin or department may need scheduling to manage different campus venues.
Management may need to manage their internal team communications.
Educators and other staff may need a system to oversee their appointments with students and their parents.
Your institution may also need software that can do all or just some of these tasks.
With this in mind, the first and most important thing to do is identify your school’s needs. This will help guide you as to what kind of features to look for in your software. It will also help you narrow down the list of solutions you can choose from.
2. Can I Tailor The Booking Functionality To Suit My Team’s Schedules?
The scheduling platform you choose should allow you to tailor the booking parameters to meet your teaching team’s needs.
You should be able to fully customize available booking slots and class schedules, as well as add padding around appointment times and collect student information.
It’s also helpful if you can display information such as course details, class numbers, and appointment times on your booking page so that appointments are never scheduled erroneously.
3. Can I Customize It To Match My School’s Brand?
Great school scheduling software will give you access to customized and professional-looking booking pages that are an extension of your brand.
Typically, a top platform will let you add custom designs and details like images, videos, reviews, quotes, and more to give your students and business partners a feel for who you are as an institution.
4. Is The Platform Easy To Use?
There’s no point in having a platform that requires a Ph.D. in tech to navigate.
When you create a booking page for the first time, it’s helpful to have software that guides you through the setup steps. A sleek interface with easy system management, tracking, and integration goes a long way to simplify the process and help your team feel at ease using it.
Students and parents also need to be able to figure it out without much effort. Otherwise, they may be discouraged from scheduling online, leaving you to answer phone calls or email requests instead.
5. Is It Accessible?
A big bonus of using school scheduling software to manage bookings is that your website, social media pages, or email can function as a 24-hour booking machine. Parents and students can reserve classes at any time of the day and receive automatic notifications to keep them updated on their booking. There is no longer this nine to five red tape as the platform automatically handles scheduling for you at any time of day.
Multi-device is another accessibility feature to look out for. It means you can access the software from your phone, laptop, and other devices, without hassle.
6. Does It Support Team Collaboration?
Your software will probably be used or accessed by more than one person at your educational institution, such as administrators, the headmaster, teachers, instructors, and department heads.
Does the platform you are interested in provide accessibility to teams? Or is it single-use only? Are there different admin-level privileges to maintain integrity, and is there syncing across the board to ensure everyone is on the right page?
7. Can I Integrate All My Important Platforms?
Your software should be 100% compatible with tools like Zapier, Outlook, Office365, and MailChimp. These are just a few solutions that will allow for a better user experience. If you’re not able to integrate platforms, that is one of the first red flags of a solution you shouldn’t choose.
Look for software with a range of school-friendly integrations like video conferencing, email marketing, accounting functions, payment portals, and more.
8. Will It Suit My Budget?
The very last thing to think about when investing in scheduling software is your budget. How much does the software cost? Is it budget-friendly?
Finding a platform that’s easy on your institution’s funds is a must! Be on the lookout for hidden fees, free platforms that offer limited functionality, and basic apps that don’t provide any oomph.
Our Recommendation: Book Like A Boss
You might have guessed it; we’re going to end this with a recommendation that you try out Book Like A Boss for your school’s scheduling needs.
BLAB is the scheduling software of your dreams. You can create beautiful booking pages in a few simple steps, and you can add your institution’s branding. It’s easy to use, accessible, and teams can work together on it to optimize the flow of work.
Naturally, great integrations and affordable pricing are great kickers to mention too. Don’t believe us? Sign up today for a 14-day free trial to see how BLAB can optimize scheduling for your school.
