Some time ago we implements a social event and excursion feature that users could select to have as part of Elsieapp.
We’re now happy to let you know this is now part of the core product and available for you to start using immediately.
Working with the very best!
By now you will all have seen this year’s El Gazette - UK Language Centre Rankings
https://www.elgazette.com/top-language-centres/
But did you know Elsieapp work with 3 of the top 4 schools that have been ranking as ‘Perfect’, receiving a score of 10/10 - an incredible achievement.
Ready for Brexit?
When or even If it does happen - will your school be ready for Brexit?
There’s been some great sessions run recently by English UK and they’ve pulled together some of the recent presentations and slides into Brexit Ready resources - included are features on VAT and Regulation, funding, ELT trends and business development, with a view to how they may all be affected by Brexit and the possibility of a No-deal.
ElsieApp downtime issues - June 2019
We're usually very proud of ElsieApp's reputation for minimal downtime, but towards the end of June we ran into issues in two consecutive weeks that caused a general outage for all ElsieApp clients.
In both instances the problems were due to a 3rd party hosting service that's used internationally bythousands of clients and supporting hundreds of thousands of end users, Cloudflare.
Cloudflare was down only briefly and the resulting issues both fully restored within 20minutes - not long, but too long when your business depends fully on a service.
Welcoming Ed to the ElsieApp team
Quality English partnership
We are delighted to announce that ElsieApp has now joined Quality English as a corporate partner.
Quality English represents over 60 of the best independent schools and colleges from right across the English speaking world.
Quality English carry out comprehensive assessments to ensure that all their schools, agents and members meet their high standards, so we’re very pleased to be held in such high esteem.
Fiona Dunlop of Wimbledon School of English publishes new book for Language Schools
Fiona Dunlop (an ElsieApp client at Wimbledon school of English) is one of three authors that have recently published a new title aimed at English Language school managers.
‘ETpedia Management’ brings together 500 tips, ideas, and concepts to help you run an English language school. It covers everything from the basic principles of running a language school, department or organisation to problem solving and growth management.
In each of the 50 list based units you’ll find inspiration whether you’re managing for the first time or an experienced manager looking to further develop your skill set.
Laracon EU – Madrid, May 2019
New feature - Helping you meet your data protection obligations
We know that you will all have your own unique privacy policies in place, particularly if you’re in the EU and need to meet GDPR regulations and care about Privacy Data.
We’ve been developing features in ElsieApp that will support you in meeting those critical obligations.
Now available to all clients is the ability to have ElsieApp auto-delete sensitive student data after they have graduated or ceased to learn with you.
Manage your social events with ElsieApp
You can use ElsieApp to easily manage any of your student’s excursions or trips out.
The Social Event planning features allow you to create paid and free events within ElsieApp. You can then add students and their guests to the events, update their key contact details, track payment for the event or excursion.
New Feature - File attachment!
We know that many of you will be very happy to hear that we’ve been working on file attachment within ElsieApp - It’s a feature that you’ve been asking about for a little while.
No more storing files locally or on Google Docs and SharePoint! Instead you’ll be able to attach documents directly to the student, host or ETO (Education Tour Operator) record - ensuring documents instantly available and accessible to all your administration users.
Growing the team and improving our service
We’ve taken on-board your feedback about the time it can sometimes take to get new features implemented in your ElsieApp instance. Our commitment is always to deliver a best in class product, backed up by excellent service.
It’s a delicate balance between updating individual features and continuing to refine and develop the core structure of ElsieApp ‘behind the scenes’, but we appreciate having to wait can be frustrating.
Over the past months we’ve been working very hard on our internal processes and have put in place a much more robust system for receiving and tracking your feature and change requests - Our regular person to person meetings was just the start of this process, and we hope that makes our clients feel more involved and better informed.
Integration with Guided e-Learning
We know that many of you work closely with Guided e-Learning to deliver excellent learning online resources to your students.
ElsieApp has partnered with GEL so that it’s now possible for new and existing GEL customers to automate their student registrations directly from ElsieApp - ensuring your students GEL accounts will be all set up ready for when they start learning with you...and even before if necessary. in order to automate to support new and existing GEL users it’s now possible.
If you’re an existing GEL customer and would like to make use of this feature then please contact us on support@elsieapp.com and if you’re new to Guided e-Learning and would like to know more you can visit their website at http://www.guidedelearning.com/ or contact them directly at info@guidedelearning.com
Completing your English UK reports
If you’re a member of English UK then you will already know about the compulsory annual data that all members are required to submit and you may also know about the optional quarterly statistics scheme called QUIC.
The Quarterly Intelligence Cohort (QUIC) is open to all English UK members on an annual rolling basis - Participants submit detailed student data and in turn benefit from comprehensive, robust and timely statistical reports produced by Bonard (formerly StudentMarketing).
The reports represent a true picture of the UK ELT sector - one that is valuable to all English UK member centres, whether a seasonal junior provider, FE college or HE institution.
Homestay Management Made Easy
Checking and tracking the validity of all your accommodation gas certificates and fire risk assessments can be very time consuming.
In Elsieapp, reminding your host that they must send you a copy of their new gas certificate or fire risk assessment is pretty straightforward:
1. Go to the "Accom." Menu, then "Mailing"
2. Select hosts with "Gas Cert. due in upcoming month"
3. Write your email content
4. Send
Help is at hand!
It is crucial that students can easily find assistance in this new part of the country they are visiting, especially outside of business hours.
Use the back of the student card to list all the recommended places and phone numbers students should use if they ever need help.
This feature is being used by a couple of our clients and we believe that it will greatly benefit your students and is a great way for a school to improve safety levels.
To find out more about this feature please get in touch!
Who's playing truant?
A lack of motivation, distractions and struggling with studies can all affect student attendance and it can be difficult to spot behaviour change before it’s too late.
With student numbers increasing in the summer you need to be able to quickly identify those students who need a little help. Elsieapp allows you to closely monitor each student’s attendance and notifies you of students with an attendance rate below 90%.
The notification message also shows you the student’s attendance during the three previous weeks, to add context.
Instead of spending time calculating student attendance rates, let Elsieapp do the maths and inform you which students are not showing up to class.
Attendance Notifications
Keeping your students safe
No one wants to scare students with safety issues (and after all the UK is largely a very safe place to live) but at the same time, it’s important to address the issues of personal safety and greater awareness of the potential dangers.
Here are our top 10 tips.
Contact - ensure your students have stored your numbers, and the UK’s emergency numbers on their mobile phones. Sounds obvious but not all countries use 999. Elsieapp also provide a student card service - you can read more about this here - http://bit.ly/2dbYw4b
Be aware - Walking the streets at any time is more hazardous when wearing headphones - whether playing games or listening to music. Encourage your students to take them out and be aware of the people and traffic around them.
Be informed - We’re all aware of small pockets in our neighbourhoods which are perceived to be less safe than others. Tell your students about these places and safe routes to take to avoid them.
Alcohol - Many young people gravitate towards alcohol in their teens (the legal drinking age, of 18 in the UK, may vary from their home country). Make them aware that they must know their limits and that everyone is more vulnerable when under the influence.
Personal alarms - In the event of an attack or incident personal alarms can be a great way to attract help. They’re available for just a few pounds and even as mobile phone apps. You can find personal alarms on Amazon or as apps on iTunes or Google Play.
Public transport - If students find themselves alone at night advise them to try to sit by the driver on a quiet bus and only ever take registered taxis.
Keep possessions hidden - walking around alone with a new mobile phone in hand, or sitting in the open with an expensive laptop, can attract unwanted attention. If alone keep your valuables covered up and inconspicuous.
Plan ahead - Ensure your students always tell someone where they’re going and what time they’re expected.
Caring for friends - If out in a group of an evening remind your students to look out for the other members of the group - and they will look out for them.
In the event that a bag or purse is lost encourage your students to keep an emergency phone card or £1 in their pocket so they can call for help.
Keep abreast of your bookings
When handling bookings it's crucial to know the stage of each of them.
To assist your enrolment team a detailed list of booking statuses is readily available.
This list will prove invaluable when analysing upcoming bookings with a similar status and will allow the enrolment team to process bookings in bulk. The list will also help the academic team to know how many bookings are confirmed and how many more to expect.
Monitoring ETO performance
It's always good to keep an eye on your ETOs' performance year on year so you can see who's excelling and who might need a little TLC. With Elsieapp this information is always at your fingertips.
Access the ETO report under the ‘Stats’ menu and click on ‘Provider performance’. This will tell you which ETOs you need to congratulate and those you may need to contact to remind them how great your school is!
If you would like a demo of this feature, please get in touch!