We are excited to announce the launch of our new and improved website.   Here’s what you can expect:

• All in the information  you need to choose and purchase Tandem for Schools
• More videos to clearly explain how Tandem can work for you
• Improved readability
• Cleaner design

Be sure to check out the site today.  Let us know how we can help you decide on Tandem for Schools as the most complete and easy way to manage your school calendars.

Webster County Schools in Providence, KY are taking a long, hard look at their fuel costs. A recent article in the Journal Enterprise highlights what may be increasingly to come for many school districts: budget cuts for because of vastly higher fuel prices.

In this case, the district is increasing per mile costs for transportation. This will effect everyone: students, families and staff. And some educational opportunities will fall by wayside. Schools and families alike are feeling the squeeze as fuel costs cut into food budgets, etc.

Passing on higher costs to staff and parents is one answer, and it might be inevitable. But creating more efficiency at the administrative level can likely help significantly.

Tandem for Schools provides tools that may loosen the pinch on higher fuel costs at your school/district.

To help you manage costs and create efficiencies, Tandem offers:

• Sophisticated transportation allocation
• Full-featured budget management
• Pre-trip costing to help you plan field trips and sports away trips

Also, Tandem will vastly improve your ability manage the big picture of your calendar planning, helping you plan more efficient trips and consolidate travel.

We can personally show you the great features of Tandem for Schools. All it takes is 15-20 minutes of your time, and a strong desire to make your trip and calendar planning easier for your school or district.

Or call us at 1.866.685.3449. We’d be happy to help you learn how Tandem can really help save fuel costs… and make your job easier.

It’s already mid-summer and in no time, kids will be coming back to school. Events and activities will again fill the schedule.  Do the tools you currently have make it easy to manage your event and calendar planning?  If not, Tandem for Schools may be just what you are looking for.

Here are some clear benefits:

– Organize – Tandem will help you keep all of your activities and events straight from a central calendar using any web-browser.

– Communicate – Tandem will help your entire school community stay informed.  Parents that are registered users of the calendar can choose the events they want to keep update on.  If events change or get cancelled, they receive immediate notification.  No more onslaught of phone calls into your office when a game gets cancelled.

– Streamline – Because all your events get entered into one database, there is no more need to keep multiple calendars.  And when you add events, Tandem’s conflict checking features will give you the peace of mind that there won’t double-booking of facilities or events.

We’d like to help make your job easier.  Find out how by contacting us for a in-depth walk-through of Tandem for Schools.  One of our representatives will spend 15-20 minutes reviewing all the main features over the web with you.

Click here to scheule a demo now…

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!

In a new survey (PDF) by the National Governors Association, budget cuts are ahead for many school districts throughout the nation.  That means cutbacks in many areas for schools, and the need for more efficient spending in the budgets that remain.  You can read a summary here of how these cuts will be felt by everyone, not only schools.

How can Tandem for Schools help when budgets get tight?

For one, it can offer technology that won’t break your bank with software license fees or expensive ongoing training needs.  Plus, it will enable efficient and easy calendar planning that will free up your valuable staff to manage other key needs.

And if you opt for trying out our Tandem Premium tools, you will be able to manage transportation and its budgets with great ease and financial efficiency.

Tandem can definitely help your school or district, but it will help parents too.  What if that baseball game gets cancelled, or the PTA meeting moved to another day?  Tandem is great at keeping your staff and parents informed so they don’t go driving to events that aren’t even happening.  Plus, you will avoid getting slammed by a bunch of phone calls in your office by parents wondering what’s going on.

All in all, Tandem can help make life easier, all the while saving your school or district money and time. What a better way to help manage your school in these times of tight finances.

We’d love to personally show you how Tandem can help your school enhance it’s limited resources.  Schedule a personal demo now, using the form, and we’ll get with you right away to show you Tandem benefits.  Or call us.

Scholastic.com has a great article about some things to consider when planning for new school technology.  Some key points:

• Think open – Does the technology tool you are considering implementing play well with the other tools you already have in place?
• Keep and eye on total cost of ownership – What is the entire picture of costs incurred to get up and running, train and maintain the system?  Oh, and don’t forget the hidden costs not many seem to mention: What is the cost in lost productivity and morale as a result of frustration with the tool?
  
• Share the risk – Are you taking on the entire load of the technology, it’s weak spots, potential obsolescence, etc?

Here at Intand, we are passionate about providing great technology tools that empower rather than frustrate.  And we are keen on giving you technology that is a tool that does not distract you from getting your job done, with effectiveness and ease.  Here’s how Tandem for Schools, our web-based, database-driven calendar system can meet the above concerns:

Tandem for Schools integrates easily into your current system, without fuss.  All you need to do is set up the calendar with your facilities, events, etc.

Tandem for Schools costs very little to own. We host it in one of the best data centers on the West Coast, so you don’t have to manage hardware.  It takes little time to get users up to speed and does not require weeks of training.  Licenses are per school, not per user.  When we upgrade the system, you are automatically part of the upgrade.  Easy.  High value for minimal investment.

Tandem for Schools takes on risk for you. You can try before you buy for 30 days.  Support is free.  We maintain the hardware. You don’t have to invest thousands of your scarce school dollars into technology that just may end up going unused.

In this day and age of over-engineered technology tools, Tandem for Schools will take the pain out of your calendaring and event planning processes.

Jon Udell made some interesting points in his blog about the importance of calendars and data feeds. He call syndication of data feeds “transformative technology”. Syndication? Data feeds? Gobbelygook?

He is right. These two technologies are important, but what do they mean? Syndication allows internet users to grab information (usually in the form of RSS, or Really Simple Syndication) and consolidate it in one place rather than going to multiple web sites to gather their daily info dose.

Simply put, at many web sites, you can subscribe to a feed, and read all of your subscribed feeds from one place using a reader tool (Google Reader is a good and simple one). And Viola! Every time new posts are added, or information is updated, it shows up as new in your reader. Easy, and cool!

You will be interested to know that Tandem for Schools provides RSS feeds of calendar events. Users can filter events by group to track events and updates. So there is nothing for users to do except review their feeds on a regular basis. If events are updated in the system, everyone has the updates immediately, easing communication and office logistics.

So, the PDF you may be posting may be working for you for now. But what happens if the staff member that updates it is out? How do change requests get communicated? Tandem for Schools gets around all this. Your entire staff can be empowered to manage the calendar. And your parents and students will be drawn in to higher involvement. That’s the goal anyway.

Tandem for Schools can be a big help when school or district events get changed or canceled.  Parents can sign up to have updates sent to them via email (and through other means like SMS, etc. in the future).  So if they have kids in soccer, they can be notified if a game gets canceled due to weather.  No more taking 100’s of calls in your school office when there is a schedule change in question.  Once a staff member updates the calendar, everyone who has signed up for the updates knows about the change.  And you can breathe a sigh of relief.

A recent post at Weblogg-ed exposes a problem: technology for technology’s sake. It seems that a Alexandria, VA school spent $98 million on new facilities and tech, only to find that faculty morale was still low and cynicism ran high.

It’s a shame, because technology can empower everyone in the school ecosystem — from parents to students to faculty and staff. It’s clear that there are a lot of bloated technology solutions out there that give minimal empowerment for the costs incurred.

Some questions might be in order which may help determining if the tech you need is actually the tech that will help your school or district:

• Will this save you and other staff time?
• How long is the learning curve? Remember that most technology has two main competitors: pen/paper and the old way of doing things. If the learning curve is perceived to be higher than these two “competitors”, your cause is lost.
• Does the tech you are looking at implementing build your school community and drive higher involvement, or not?
• What is the total cost of ownership (TCOA)? What is the cost per student?
• How long does it take to implement the new tech, and once it is up and running, how long before it actually drives efficiency and community?

There are other criteria of course, but it seems that the above questions are forgotten rather quickly.

How many times have you scheduled something on your school calendar, only to find later that the facility or time you specified was double-booked?  This is a frustrating scenario, both for staff and outside users of your calendar.

Tandem for Schools overcomes this problem with built-in conflict checking.  When you enter an event, you’ll know right away if you are double-booking.  And your job will be easier because of it.