This month, we are combining two of my favorite Jackrabbit things for an awesome mashup – the Friday Five and Virtual Release Notes.
If you haven’t heard the buzz about our monthly Virtual Release Notes, it is a monthly webinar hosted by myself and Marie, Jackrabbit’s training specialist. To make the news of recent enhancements more exciting, we decided to go live with our release notes in a conversational format so you can join a quick, informative chat then explore the enhancements in more detail that you want to implement at your youth activity center.
5 exciting takeaways from May’s Virtual Release Notes
When Marie and I got together to host May’s Virtual Release Notes, we could hardly contain ourselves when reviewing what has been released over the last month and what is coming up next. In case you couldn’t join us live, I thought what better way to spend the Friday Five than to recap an exciting Virtual Release Notes!
Watch the full webinar
The new and improved simplified menu
In Fall 2020, our Product and Engineering team released the first version of the Simplified Menu, an important initiative needed to really catapult Jackrabbit into the most requested and highly sought-out features with upgraded technology and better-organized menus that are intuitive to clients, new and old. For at least 6 months, our team allowed users to use the new menu when they wanted and provide feedback on what changes would help them better adjust to this new setup.
And that’s when Jackrabbit did what it does best – we listened and we delivered. We know that change is hard but y’all have truly risen to the occasion. So many of you have jumped into the new menu with help from the support team and the resource center made with you in mind! My favorite quote I’ve seen on our Facebook group more than once was that spending as little as 10 minutes with support had them feeling confident and loving the new menu by the end. (—> Check out the ultimate guide to the new menu)
Record of sent emails extended
Traditionally, Jackrabbit stored copies of emails sent to a family for up to 180 days. We heard from a lot of our clients that they need saved communication for longer than 6 months.
Well, you asked and you have received! Jackrabbit now saves a record of all emails sent to a family from the previous year – yes, a full 365 days of emails are now saved. (—> Follow the help docs)
Closed dates displayed in the Parent Portal
Closed dates are a great way to help your staff steamline attendance so it’s only recorded when your facility is open, as well as allow you to automatically prorate tuition when your facility is closed.
Closed dates are also important for your families and parents to be aware of. With this latest enhancement, parents will see a closed date notice pop-up when logging in to the portal on a day you have set up as a closed date.
This continues to build on that positive parent experience your families have with your youth activity center by keeping them in the loop at all times!
Require payment for portal enrollments
This might be my favorite enhancement of 2021 so far. If you currently have your Parent Portal set up to automatically post tuition (with discounts and prorations if applicable), this feature takes it a step further so parents are required to submit payment when enrolling in classes through the portal.
The benefits to both you and the parents are worth implementing this feature right away if you haven’t already. In a world where everything is done online, finalizing enrollment with payment is not an unfamiliar concept.
New upcoming features
The work doesn’t stop here and one thing is for sure – our team is working hard to deliver what we know will be a game-changing set of features for your gym, dance studio, and swim school.
Currently, the first phase of Set It and Forget It that allows you to schedule your tuition posting to recur on a weekly or monthly basis is going through beta testing. Beta is going well, feedback has been very positive, and if you are already using the Post Tuition Fees function in Jackrabbit, you will be that much closer to automating your tuition posting when this feature is released this summer.
Fortunately for you, that’s not it. Once the first phase is released, the second phase isn’t too far behind and you will be able to schedule your ePayments on a certain date so this too happens on a recurring cycle.
In addition to these powerful automation features, you will be able to customize your policies for different classes and or programs at your youth activity center. What’s not to love about that?!
I don’t know about you but I am already doing the happy dance thinking about what is coming soon!
If you are as pumped as me (and Chandler), check out what else is coming to the Jackrabbit application in 2021 and stay tuned for more Virtual Release Notes!
Take me to Jackrabbit’s 2021 Product Roadmap
