New SchoolReach 3.0 Delivers Increased Parent Notification and Management Features

Widely Used School Notification Service Unveils New Features, New Look

ST. LOUIS, MO, August 2, 2010-Parent notification capabilities for thousands of schools have been increased by SchoolReach with the release of Version 3.0 of its popular parent notification and emergency messaging system. SchoolReach 3.0 represents a complete redesign of the SchoolReach user interface and reorganization of new and existing functionality resulting in a more streamlined process and greater parent notification capabilities. SchoolReach 3.0 now includes greater message targeting capabilities, enhanced reporting, improved absentee notification, enhanced parent survey capabilities and a new icon-driven dashboard which offers instant access to training, user forums and account settings.

Schools are increasingly asked to do more with less; the new features and services offered under SchoolReach 3.0 help them work under such conditions. "The release of SchoolReach 3.0 represents nearly 18 months of planning, preparation, development and testing," said Joe Moore, SchoolReach CIO. "Instead of just adding new features, we called 'time-out' and took a critical look at our system and restructured it from the ground up." SchoolReach 3.0 is designed to streamline the broadcast launch process making it easier for busy administrators to select a list, record their message and launch the broadcast. "Our system has always been easy to use." said Moore. "By listening to our customers and watching how they were actually using our system, we found that we could strip away much of the old system and present a cleaner look and process. For the majority of broadcast events, users simply wanted to select an existing list, record a new message and launch it; now they can do that with even greater ease."

Industry leading notification and management features have been added to SchoolReach. Enhancements to the service include:

more granular message targeting
new survey creation, editing and reporting tools
graphical reporting tools
data manipulation utilities
ethnic language translations and increased ethnic text-to-speech

Schools are increasingly using the SchoolReach parent notification system to bolster regular communications with parents. Emergency announcements and school cancellation notices are now the least of the calls and text-based messages processed by SchoolReach each day. Meeting reminders, automated absentee notices, volunteer requests, fundraisers, and payment reminder notices are the bulk of the messages processed.