No blog posts since January?

What happens when a technology company goes silent for a few months? A lot can happen. Some good, some not so good.

So, what’s happening here at Tandem? A lot.

Over the past year, our team at Tandem has taken a really hard look at what the world of schools, school districts and universities need when it comes to a scheduling application.  We’ve proactively reached out to over 1000 schools to find out what’s working, what’s not working and what they need next from Tandem.

And then, we got to work.

The long haul is almost over. We have some awesome announcements, features and updates to send your way soon.

We congratulate every school and university on the close of another year. Just know that when the next year starts in Sept, you are going to love Tandem that much more.

More updates soon!

We recently talked with faculty at Lake Washington School District a 50 school district in Washington state and asked them what they thought about Tandem. Watch the full video.

Kathryn Reith, Communications Director Lake Washington School District
We had a specific situation one spring where there was an end of the school year concert at Redmond Junior High that conflicted with one of the graduation activities at Redmond High School at the same time. That was just sort of my aha, oh my gosh, we really need to find some way of getting a hold of what’s going on at the schools.

Laurie Pelham, Technology Program Manager Lake Washington School District
When we started interviewing schools about their needs for having a good communication from their website, one of their biggest needs was that they needed to have a place to have calendaring available online for their parents.

Kathryn Reith
I’m Communications Director for Lake Washington School District, I have been with the district for about five years now. Last year, we were faced with some very difficult budget cuts and one of the items we looked at was the printed wall calendar that we have sent to parents every year for I don’t know how long. It’s a very traditional thing to do. People put it up in their kitchens and write on it, etc. But what we discovered was, this is something that we could do without now that we have an electronic online calendar and many more parents are relying on electronic calendaring. So they can either go directly to the Tandem calendar or if they have imported it into another electronic calendaring system that they use, they have access to all those dates without having to get a paper printed calendar that was costing us a lot of money. Once we decided that we wanted to look for a calendaring tool, we just went out and looked at what other districts, other schools were using, really just went out and did a search and discovered that there was this wonderful company right in our backyard that was doing a great calendaring program.

Laurie Pelham
My name is Laurie Pelham, I have been a Technical Project Manager for the district for the past 15 years. The project we were working at the time was to build out 15 school websites for each one of our schools. A secondary problem that we were trying to solve was to consolidate them so they communicate to the public or to their community about the events that are happening in their school. In the project that we were doing, it was definitely secondary but it turned out to be something that we could train in Tandem, no pun intended. Because the two worked together so well, it’s that school to home communication that we needed to really improve and I think we did with both. We were implementing on the SharePoint platform and so SharePoint comes with a calendaring program built in out of the box. Our question was should we use that or should we buy something else? And upon looking at what it would cost us to customize the SharePoint calendar and when I say cost us, I mean because we are hiring outside developers to write dot net programming to alter the look and feel of this SharePoint calendar. In order to make this SharePoint calendar do what Tandem already did out of the box, we figured it would cost us more in development than it would be for us to implement a product that was already in place. So, it was a no-brainer for us to go with Tandem.

Shannon Parthemer, Community Relations & Communications Coordinator Lake Washington School District
Before Lake Washington School District used the Tandem calendar, each school was responsible for their own calendar so some may have kept paper and pencil, some may have done newsletters, others just didn’t keep any consistent calendar. That didn’t lead to a whole lot of understanding about what’s happening at feeder schools or nearby elementary schools, junior highs high schools. The complication that I would have if I didn’t have the Tandem calendar is I wouldn’t know what’s happening at all of our schools and we wouldn’t have a good way of displaying the information to parents and community members. The majority of parents that are using the Tandem calendar and using the My Tandem section of the calendar really do appreciate the features and getting notifications when events are added, canceled, changed in any way. We have started training opportunities that we offer about once a month to different staff members or parents depending on who from the school is going to add events. People understand and say, wow, this is easier than I thought it was. So, I would describe the Tandem calendar as intuitive and very easy to use.

Kathryn Reith
How I would describe Tandem is it allows many schools within the same school district or a single school alone to really keep track of what’s going on, have it available in a way that’s accessible to parents and teachers. If you are talking from a district administration standpoint, it makes it much easier for us to be able to schedule district wide events that don’t conflict with some really important event to the school that’s been on the calendar for a year. We don’t always hear about those things, we have 50 schools so keeping track of what’s going on 50 schools from a central standpoint is pretty difficult. Now it’s very easy to just open up a Tandem calendar and see all the things that are going on at those schools on a particular day at a particular time. One of the the things that happened after the Tandem calendar was put in that we didn’t even realize it was going to be a benefit. It was our front desk receptionist at our Resource Center is often the place for parents to go to when they have forgotten what time an event is. They try and call the school, the school was already closed or front desk to staff have left so if they are making that last minute phone call, when they call, Shelley at our front desk has a place to find out where all the school events are and what time they are. She has a reference for all 50 schools, that sometimes means she can get the information to a parent who has forgotten so they can get access on the computer or if they don’t have a computer nearby at the time. Feedback from administrators has been very positive. They are very happy to see all of their items in one place to make it very simple. The office managers and secretaries are the ones that usually would be getting all those phone calls when is this meeting or that event and are not getting so many phone calls anymore and not having to answer the phone over and over again about the time the PTSA meeting and those kinds of things. Parents love it. It’s very simple for them to keep track of what’s going on.

Jenna Robertson, Parent
My name is Jenna Robertson, I have been a parent in the district since 2000 for ten years. Our PTSA brings together the bulletin and I’m pasting a calendar into our bulletin and then our school has a way of sending it out to their database. Having an online calendar that can be up-to-date to the minute, it’s live as soon as you input it and that’s even better. I thought it was really easy to learn and I like the look of it. It looks clean, professional and a PTSA mom can make the calendar look pretty cool. I like how I can choose the different views because when I’m doing our electronic bulletin, I can just choose the list, I can copy and paste that and Tandem looks much more polished than some of the others and to me that’s important because from a standpoint that this is important information, it looks important, I know as a parent I’m really feeling the benefit of having this great tool.

Laurie Pelham
Tandem is a comprehensive event calendar that many different groups or departments across a large organization can use and share and it was tested with a small group of people that gave lots of feedback. So, you are already equipped with the tool that you need to answer the need for schools. The features are for what exactly what we need, a place for parents to be able to subscribe, staff members also, a place for them to interact with their own personal calendars. Those were two of the requirements that were really high for us. We didn’t want to just have an online calendar and not have people be able to interact with it. We needed people to interact with it because that’s the expectation in today’s world. Now on our school sites, we have a space reserved on our homepage for an RSS feed that comes from the Tandem calendar. The district events were on this calendar and so whether the school participated in the use of the Tandem calendar or not, they still had some events that were populating that space on their homepage and those were the district events. Upon seeing that and knowing how easy it was for people to refer people to that space and/or to keep up on what’s actually happening in their building, we started to see more and more schools coming on board. We built a relationship with the company upon implementation partially because they are in our hometown but also because we feel we have a lot of needs in our school district that are universal and might improve the product. So we felt very comfortable giving suggestions to the development team at Tandem, on improvements that we thought might be good for all of their customers. The response was overwhelming. The company is responsive, they are interested in knowing the needs of their customers, they are willing to make changes that everyone can benefit from and we really appreciate that.

Intand CIO, Scott Otis was interviewed by Channel 9 to demo Tandem for School’s integration with Microsoft code name Geneva Server and Windows CardSpace by using the Zend Framework for information card support. This allows Tandem to consume claims from the school’s “Geneva” server, to authenticate users with the school’s database (Active Directory).

See the video that explains how it was done here.

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.

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.

We have all been hearing the latest news of financial disasters, tightening budgets, and families that are keep a much closer eye on their spending.  The latest money news hits all of us.  And it hits your school. What the future holds is uncertain.

Will lower home pricess drive lower assessments and thus les money from bond levies, if they pass as people think more about where their money is going?  It’s hard to say, but we have solutions that inform, update, and build your school community, even during the potentially tough times ahead.

Tandem for Schools is a comprehensive calendar tool for schools and districts that offers the following benefits:

• Very simple event and calendar management with less paper.
• Easy, and FREE, school master calendar creation with flexible electronic distribution options.
• Registered users (parents, students, etc.) get updates when events get changed or cancelled, potentially saving wasted trips and gas.
• Very low cost system that will cost no more than $499 per school.  No per user license costs.
• Low cost of ownership.  We host Tandem on our servers and maintain all the technicalities.  All you do is get started entering and managing your events.
• No additional costly and complicated training necessary.

Tandem for Schools will save you:

• Time
• Paper
• Money
• Gas
• and Grief!

Check out Tandem for Schools today to see our easy, inexpensive and green solution that will help you make the most our of your school or district budget while strengthening your school community.  Get started with our FREE version, Tandem Basic, with absolutely no cost or obligation by clicking the button:

Or try a FREE, 30-day trial of our complete calendar system by clicking here…

Or fill out this demo request form to have one of our experts walk you through Tandem for Schools with a live web demo.

Tandem for Schools is a powerful way to manage calendar events,
and communicatethem as well.  Tandem provides a variety of ways
to distribute your calendar to your
school community:

1. On your school web site
2. As a PDF file
3. As a Calendar Link for iCal, Google Calendar, and Outlook
4. As an RSS feed

We have provided a new support link to provide more in-depth information on RSS and XML within Tandem for Schools.  This information will help you supercharge your calendar distribution in all the ways Tandem has to offer.

Find our more about RSS and XML in Tandem for Schools…

And click on links to the left if you need more information about our products.

Hello all, my name is Darin and I’m a part of the Intand Sales Team.  Prior to joining Intand, I was on staff at the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), also known as the governing body for high school sports and activities in Washington.  One of the major areas that the WIAA office emphasized was the member schools sending in their athletic schedules and scores.  Often this was a time-consuming task because most of that information had to be collected and organized by an already-busy athletic administrator or secretary.  This is where Tandem can help you.

With Tandem you can create “Schedules” that essentially search your database of information for any area you want.  You can search for groups, teams, facilities and schools in less than 15 seconds.

Plus the schedules automatically update themselves when you make a change or edit to your main Tandem calendar.  OK, so this is related to my WIAA story because, in less than 15 seconds, you can create your 2008 Varsity Volleyball schedule and export that data to a .CSV file (which is readable by Microsoft Excel).  Now all you have to do is email your 2008 Varsity Volleyball schedule to your state activities office.  It’s that quick.

And, what’s more, you can create an unlimited amount of schedules in your Tandem calendar.  So just imagine that you have all your sports teams schedules, band practice schedule and gymnasium schedule all ready at the click of a mouse!

Best of all, extensive technological knowledge is not required to use Tandem.  Our tool was created by school administrators and they know what it takes to make navigating the system a breeze.

For more quick tips and Tandem product information, let me or any of my co-workers know if we can be of more assistance.  You can reach us at 866-685-3449.   And be sure to check out our support area too.  You’ll find tutorials, videos and other posts there that you will find helpful.

Enjoy your summer!

As you consider any calendar product, you’ll likely want an in-depth walk through of the product to get a solid idea of how it can serve your school’s needs.  That’s why we offer you the opportunity to get on the phone with one of our Tandem experts (who, by the way, are very familiar with the administrative environment at schools and districts just like yours) and take a personal tour of Tandem for Schools.

Using GoToMeeting, we’ll guide you through two key features:

• One centralized calendar – Take away the confusion of multiple calendar points.
• Conflict checking – Avoid event conflicts before they create grief for you.

And you’ll experience a host of other ways that Tandem will make your job managing your school calendar much easier.

Set up a demo today to find out how Tandem for Schools can help you – Click here…