Mobile and Online School Directory App Helps Parents in a time crunch
Why did we build this mobile and online school directory app?
Parent Teacher Organizations build a school directory for the parents in their school using simple tools – Microsoft Excel and Word mostly. Some of them use a directory software tool which needs knowledge of some programming/building macros and still requires several hundreds of hours of work massaging the data. At the end of this time consuming exercise, the print directory is out of date almost immediately, as some new families have joined the school, some of the parents have changed their phone numbers or address. Mobile and Online School Directory Apps can solve all of these issues.
My PTA goes through the same process each year. They collect addresses/phone numbers/get permission slips from parents, all of which can be automated on the web. I developed a mobile school directory app, MobileArq, to solve this issue for PTAs/PTOs/HSAs.
To solve this issue we developed an online and web based directory (a mobile school directory application) that is updated at all times. In fact, parents can update their information themselves. In addition, they can search and access all the information easily. They can send group messages to their class groups without having to compile and maintain individual mailing lists.
Parents, face various issues using a print directory – the school directory gets lost, misplaced, pages fall out, needs to be carried everywhere and is inconvenient to use on the road. Here is a typical scenario:
Allison car pools with another Mother whose daughter is on the same soccer team as her own daughter. One day she could not get away from her work to take the two girls to their soccer game. With the game time one hour away, Allison needed to inform the other Mother of her situation and arrange for an alternative. But, she does not have the printed school directory with her at work. Time is running out and she is frantically calling other Mothers in the area to find the number she needs. All the Mothers she calls are out for various activities or don’t know the number of the Mother that she is trying to contact. The school is closed as it is past 4pm in the evening.
Allison can access the computer at work and always carries her smartphone with her. If her school had a mobile school directory app to access a number, then Allison can always find the parent contact she needs whenever and wherever.
