Recently, me and my good friend, Marie sat down to talk about recent enhancement releases here at Jackrabbit Class for our first-ever Virtual Release Notes. Well, what in the world are virtual release notes? So glad you asked!

A lot of software companies use release notes to communicate new product enhancements and how they can be used. And since everything is going virtual, we decided it would put a fun spin on release notes so we can do what we love most – connect with our clients and Jackrabbit fans everywhere!

Jackrabbit’s Product and Engineering teams worked together late last year to create a plan of features to be released in 2020, also known as the 20/20 Vision.

Despite some adjustments for enhancements not originally planned (but highly needed) and changes in timelines, our teams have done a great job of continuing to innovate and create carefully designed features for all of you!

In this month’s edition of virtual release notes, Marie did a great job of highlighting how some of the latest enhancements that can save you and your staff time. And now, time is more valuable than ever!

September’s fan-favorite enhancement: Scheduling absences and makeups

Allowing parents to schedule absences and makeups from the Parent Portal has been one of the biggest time-saving enhancements to hit the Jackrabbit application all year.

Our clients needed a way to lighten the administrative work that goes into scheduling makeups, especially. What better way to do that than to let the parents schedule through their portal, a tool they are already used to using to engage with you!

This was one of the highest voted requests in our Idea Portal because so many of our clients needed this feature to give them time back in their day.

For our clients that have implemented this new enhancement at their youth activity center, they are loving it! The office staff has more time to focus on other tasks that need their attention. If you haven’t explored the feature yet, Marie and I walked through some tips during our Q&A that will help you with your journey of rolling this out to your customers.

Q&A on scheduling absences & makeups from the Parent Portal 

Is this something that our clients can choose to turn on?

There are also some clients who aren’t quite ready to put this responsibility into the hands of their parents. And that’s fair. No one knows your customers better than you!

However, the most important thing to note here is you can set the rules for what parents can schedule and when. So, you can allow them to schedule absences but not makeups or vice versa. There are a lot of options and settings when it comes to opening this up to your families so you can ensure it’s really saving you time and not something you have to go back and constantly double-check.

Pretty amazing stuff, right?

What was recently added to this enhancement to make it more powerful?

The initial release of this feature was unfortunately affected by COVID-19. Beta testing came at a time when not all clients were open. Our product and engineering teams released this enhancement and took in feedback after the release to make some highly requested changes recently.

• Makeup Date Lead Time: allows you to select the amount of lead time you require when makeups are scheduled in the Parent Portal.
• Makeup Success Message: a custom message that you can create to display in the Parent Portal when a makeup is successfully scheduled.
• Email notifications: when a makeup class is scheduled in the Parent Portal, an automated email is sent to the class instructor, primary family contact, and the Parent Portal user.

While beta testing was anything but traditional this time around, it shows how important client feedback is to us at any time!

Where can the settings for scheduling makeups and absences from the Parent Portal be found?

This sounds like the game-changer you have been waiting for. But, you gotta set it up! (—> Parent Portal Absence & Makeup Settings walk-through)

This feature is very user-friendly for both you and your customers. If you looked at this enhancement when it first came out, I encourage you to give it another look. Thanks to client feedback, we have implemented more settings that allow you to customize the experience for your families more!

How do Jackrabbit clients give feedback?

One thing I love most about Jackrabbit is how our team listens to our clients. Everyone has what I call a ‘Santa wish list’ of all the things they wish for. It can be hard to choose which ones are implemented and which ones aren’t but the Product team does a great job of really diving deep into use case scenarios, feature benefits, and how it can change our clients’ lives for the better.

The Idea Portal is available from any page within Jackrabbit and is the best way to give your feedback, ideas, and requests. The more information you can share with us, the better. Our Product team constantly monitors new ideas coming in, updates statuses for existing ideas, and uses these ideas for future planning. Did you know there have been 72 ideas shipped and there are 16 more marked as planned?

It’s about that time where our team is deciding what will make it to the 2021 plan of enhancements so make sure you are sharing those ideas. And don’t forget, you will get status updates if your idea already exists, is planned for the future, scheduled for an upcoming release, or has been released. #winning

We are already getting ready for next month’s Virtual Release Notes. It’s going to be a pretty epic episode as we dive into some small but awesome enhancements as well as one of the biggest product updates in Jackrabbit history!

Register for the next episode of Virtual Release Notes!