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elyale
16th January 2004, 00:11
I’d like to take a minute of your time to ask a few opinion questions of you.

I started trying to find some software a few months back to organize my records for my school and was severely disappointed. So I decided to write one of my own to do what I wanted it to. Over the course of time the software has really grown in size and I’ve been considering publishing it.

How ever, before I do I wanted to ask a few questions and find out a few things.

I’m only asking for a moment of your time to answer the following questions and e-mail them to me if you would.

1 – What, if any, software do you currently use for school administration?

2 – What do you like most about the software you use?

3 – What do you like least about it?

4 – What features would you like to see in a school administration package?

5 – Do you think software that will print awards, certificates, and letters for you a good feature?

6 – Would it make a difference in any purchasing decisions if the publisher of the software offered customized versions of the software at little or no extra cost?

7 – What would you be willing to pay for software that does EXACTLY what you want?

8 – Is there any other comments or suggestions you would like to add?

Anyone who submits ideas that I use, or if anyone submits copies of certificates, awards, or letters for me to use for templates will receive a free copy of the software once it is complete. I will also be giving away copies to anyone who becomes a beta tester for this project.

Thank you for allowing me to take a moment of your time.

Sincerely,
Eric L. Yale
elyale@alltel.net

Robert Cheshire
19th January 2004, 06:19
Greetings!

I will answer your questions in order then add any comments.

1) We use a program that a student in another dojo within our organization wrote using Excel.

2) It keeps up with attendance and hours trained at a glance.

3) It is limited in how you can manipulate student names and is limited to only tracking hours trained and dates attended.

4) I would like to see dates trained, total hours trained, monthly fees paid, testing fees paid, dates of promotions, clinic attendance, birthdates, student contact information, a flag that notifies you if a student misses "x" amount of times (so you can contact them to see if anything is wrong); perhaps a letter can be generated if this occurs.

5) I think this is a good ideal. There are numerous certificates that you can use with kids classes; perfect attendance for "x" amount of time, good grades, best effort. Letter that mention a wide variety of things can be useful too; welcome to the dojo, thanks for visiting, monthly fees due/past due, testing to be conducted on mm/dd/yy, clinic to be held on mm/dd/yy, etc.

6) This would be great! You could probably offer to put in a dojo or organization logo for certificates & letters as well as custom it to the dojo needs.

7) I really have no clue at this one. I would suggest looking at the prices of other dojo software and determine how it compares to yours than price up or down depending on how yours compares.

8) I think the more you can do for making it fun and interesting for kids (letters and certificates) the better. I also think anything to show students (letters or a flag to show birthdays or several missed classes) that you values them is a great tool. Of course tech support is also very important.

Good Luck!

elyale
19th January 2004, 23:58
well, I started putting together a new set of data files to use and so far here is an outline of them so far. If anyone has any ideas they would be greatly appriciated.

Data Outline (http://www.compsoftcs.com/sf.htm)

Eric Yale
elyale@alltel.net

elyale
20th January 2004, 00:03
lmao ... talk about one of those days .. in the process of posting the list, I inadvertantly trashed my website .. .ugh ... think it's time for a beer...