C&K and NumeroPro are proud to announce they are working
together to deliver the future in childcare management software -
Kidsoft, to all C&K branch childcare, kindergarten and family
day care services. In an agreement signed on the 5 April
2013. Both organisations have committed to transitioning to the
Kidsoft solution over the next eighteen months.
C&K Chief Finance Officer Alex Allen says "C&K want to
provide a childcare management software solution to our services
that is intuitive and forward thinking. We see an opportunity
to streamline administration performed by staff and
NumeroPro’s Kidsoft solution supports this vision. This
is an exciting opportunity to partner with NumeroPro to also
deliver an online waiting list solution and portal for parents and
guardians to access information when and where they want
to.”
“We also believe our affiliated kindergarten services will
be interested to see the Kidsoft program in action and how it can
support Volunteer Parent Management Committees and educators every
day,” Ms Allen said.
NumeroPro Chief Information Officer, Shane Speering says
"NumeroPro is excited at partnering with C&K. Both
organisations bring great synergies and NumeroPro is excited to
provide the Kidsoft solution to C&K to further enhance their
high quality childcare service offerings. C&K brings over
100 years of experience to the table. Working together to
leverage that experience will help refine our Kidsoft solution,
providing benefits to customers of both organisations.”
C&K and NumeroPro are looking forward to a long and mutually
beneficial partnership, delivering value to NumeroPro’s and
C&K services, educators and families.
On February 21, 2013, Zendesk announced that their cloud-based customer
service software system had been hacked. The breach compromised
user data associated with Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest. Details
were not provided. Zendesk posted an apology on its website to customers
expressing their disappoint, correction of the vulnerability and
elimination of the hacker access.
As the premier single-source CCMS solution provider catering
specifically to Australia’s Child Care Industry, Kidsoft
customers can be reassured by Kidsoft’s integrated in-house
solutions that do not require third-party contractors such as
Zendesk.
According to Shane Speering, Chief Information Officer of
Kidsoft, this type of breach reflects the risks associated with
using a third-party service provider and software-as-a-service
(SaaS) vendors. “Reducing risks is one of Kidsoft’s key
objectives as a single-source provider of innovative software and
service solutions within the Australian Child Care Industry. All
Kidsoft design and software development takes place in-house,
without sourcing to subcontractors. This alleviates failure of
Kidsoft to successfully deliver its services and the possibility of
security breaches such as hacker attacks that third-party service
providers incur.”
In the next couple of weeks we have a large update coming that
includes some major new features for the Kidsoft User Interface.
This feature is something our customers have requested ever since
we launched Kidsoft.
Running a Childcare business well means having the diligence and
strength to consistently deliver quality supervision and education,
but the right people and principles aren't the only requirements.
Cash flow is also an important issue, and too often, Childcare
centres are left juggling complex cash flow problems because of
late-paying parents and complex, frustrating payment-processing
services. As the availability of funds can have a profound impact
on a centre's ability to operate, ensuring that bills are paid in
full and on time and that payments are accessible as quickly as
possible should be a major priority for Childcare Centres.
At NumeroPro we understand whats needed to run a successful
Childcare service. We own and operate centres and therefore have
hands on experience. When we built Kidsoft we wanted to ensure that
we provided all the tools needed to be able to run a
centre successfully.
Kidsoft has a whole raft of tools that will allow you
to keep your finger on the pulse when it comes to your Centres
Cashflow and the state it is in. The video below is a quick 10
minute demonstration of all of the following tools in action.
All of these tool must work in harmony to be able to provide a
meaningful snapshot at any given time the state of your centres
cashflow. This
video demonstrates how all of these tools come together to in
Kidsoft making it the best CCMS Certified solution for cashflow
management.
There's no question that today's Childcare
providers can find a wide selection of software solutions for
making their businesses run better, but it's also true that in the
sea of choices, finding a solution that offers everything needed to
get work done while also staying affordable and convenient can be a
task in itself. A common problem faced by centres is poor
integration among solution service and software providers. A CCMS
provider might look attractive at the outset, but in most cases,
users will find over time that being charged extra fees for
third-party payment processors, support departments, and other
add-ons is simply too much of a hassle.
At the recent Childcare NSW Conference we went down and showed
off Kidsoft. Our highlight feature was to show off our Early Years
Learning Framework (EYLF) integration into Kidsoft.
This proved to be a very popular feature. Seeing as we
were demonstrating Kidsoft on an iPad it became
very apparent to many Directors and Licensees that having
a mobile CCMS solution with EYLF integrated has a very attractive
value proposition.
When we decided to build Kidsoft we set one of the development
goals to build a solution that can take the extra step and become
CCMS Certified. We can now comfortably tick this off the list as
Kidsoft is now CCMS Certified for 1.4
This means that Kidsoft is not only Registered, we have also
gone the extra testing to be Certified. The following link explains the extra testing a
CCMS Registered solution needs to complete to become Certified.
When we decided to write Kidsoft we wanted to provide a number
of innovations that other software solutions had not considered or
couldn't implement due to their architecture. Today we take the
wraps off what we think is a very innovative and often forgotten
component to any application. That is the Help Documentation and
Support.
In Kidsoft we have built a Help Desk solution that allows us to
craft Help Documents for each and every panel inside of Kidsoft.
This publishing system we have designed and implemented provides a
number of innovations. The first being that each help document is a
living document that can be reviewed, edited and marked for review
before publishing. This allows us to maintain each document
individually to each panel in Kidsoft and as Kidsoft evolves and
the panels get updates, it is very simple for us to update that
panels Help Document.
As Kidsoft continually evolves, we have to go back and redo our
videos as they become dated. So last week we kicked off a new
effort to update all of the Kidsoft help videos and add more that
were required. The fruits of that effort have provided updates to
the following videos:
Kidsoft Overview
Kidsoft Getting Started
Kidsoft Help Manual
Kidsoft Adding Guardians
Kidsoft Adding Children
Kidsoft Creating Enrolments
Kidsoft Creating bookings
This means we have also updated the Video menu in an effort to
better logically lay out the menu. So now the first three videos
that you should watch are ordered from top down on the menu,
followed by the Families sub menu.
These are just the first videos off the rank, watch out for more
to come next week.
We have released another patch that introduces some new systems
and enhancements to Kidsoft. This weeks release has the following
items:
Banking System. Under Service Provider->Payments you will
now see a Banking TAB. The Banking system tracks all cash payments
and when you are ready to bank them you can close them off in this
TAB. This will then allow you to produce a banking report based on
funds you collect and manage through Kidsoft.
Immunisations. The old Vaccinations system has had a overhaul
to enhance it so that it can be better used to track and manage
Vaccinations/Immunisations. The old Vaccinations are still in the
system and when you convert your children over to the new system
you can remove the old Vaccinations through the Service
Provider->Configuration->Types and then removing the old
Types under Vaccinations. All old Vaccinations are grouped under
Legacy when viewing the Immunisation Management Panel.
Medicare Number has been added to Health Details.
Confidential Comments. We have added the ability to also add
Confidential Comments to the Guardians and Children. The same as
Confidential Documents, the creator and anyone with the
Confidential attribute enabled on their role can see these
comments.
When making payments or charges against a Guardians account the
alert dialog now also includes the Guardians full name.
Languages for Guardians and Children. You can now record the
languages spoken for Guardians and Children and the whether they
are fluent or not. Also the order of priority in regards to the
language they naturally speak/understand.
Bond Transactions now appear on the Customer Account
Statement.
When re-logging into Kidsoft you could sometime get a error
message. This has been resolved and will no longer happen.
QLD Kindy Discount. We have added the ability to apply the QLD
Kindergarten Discount. If you are a Kindergarten in QLD and wish to
use this features, send a support ticket asking for us to enable
this for you.
As you can see we have another release packed full of great
features and enhancements. Many of these are the result of requests
from our users. Please keep your feedback coming as it
continually is used to help shape the future of Kidsoft.
Sending a email to: feedback@kidsoft.com.au will allow us to capture
your feedback.
Last night we released another patch that introduces some new
features and enhancements to Kidsoft. The features and fixes added
in last nights patch are:
Customer Fields. You can now create customer fields for
Guardians, Children and Service Provider. At the moment you can not
use these fields to generate reports, however will be able to
soon.
You can now add you own Payment Reasons. Under Service
Provider/Configuration you will see Payment Reasons. Here you can
manage the Payment Reasons.
DebetPro Scheduler Payment Reason. You can now set the Payment
Reason that the DebitPro Payment Scheduler uses. By default this is
set to Gap Fee, however if you wish to change this you can. Adding
your own Payment Reason to the Payment Reasons setting and then go
to Service Provider/Configuration and look at DebitPro Default
Payment Reason. Changing this will change the Payment Reason the
Payment Scheduler uses
General Ledger Codes can be added to payment reasons and will
then export in the Financial Reports.
Documents can be marked Confidential. Confidential Documents
can only be viewed and deleted by the person who uploaded the
document and any person that has the Role to View Confidential
Documents. By default only the Approved Provider has View
Confidential set.
Role update: View Confidential is a attribute of your role and
by default is set to No. This goes in hand with the Confidential
setting that can be applied to documents.
Vacancy Panel version 2 has been released. Based on feedback we
have updated the Vacancy Panel to be more user friendly and to
cater for two different view points.
Payments Report now has a Agregation option.
As you can see we have been busy and with this release we
will start closed testing of Kidsoft Enterprise. Should this
testing go well, we will release Kidsoft Enterprise in the next
month.
Please keep your feedback coming as it continually is used to
help shape the future of Kidsoft. Sending a email
to: feedback@kidsoft.com.au will allow us to capture
your feedback.
Today's update inches us closer to the release of Kidsoft
Enterprise. For those that are not aware what Kidsoft Enterprise
is, here is a sneak peak. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uviVjXSoqms&hd=1
We are looking to release Kidsoft Enterprise Lite in the next
couple weeks. The features, fixes and updates in todays release
are:
You can now search by Email Address and BPay Numbers in the
Universal Search
The Service Provider Details panel has been updated to allow
you to record: Provider Approval Name, Provider Approval Number and
Service Approval Number
Additional Audit Log Entries when adjusting Service
Settings
Service Provider Data Lock. Under the settings for the Service
Provider you are able to set a data lockout date. Which when set
means everyone without permission can not change bookings and
attendances before and including this date. See below for more
details
The Payment Report now has a "Payment Reason" filter
Enterprise Group Management features
The new Data Lockout feature has been requested for a while, is
the ability to lock users from changing data from a date period
backwards. Here are some uses for this:
I dont want people changing data in
the last financial year: In this case I would then
set the Data Lock Date to the 30-JUN-2012. This then means that no
one but the Group Admin can change any bookings and attendances
before the 1st-JUL-2012
I want to lock users out from changing
data at the end of the month: In this case I would
set the Data Lock Date for the 30-MAY-2013. This would mean no one
but the Group Admin could change data before this date. Once you
have finished your end of month you could then either remove the
Data Lock Date or set in to some time in the past were you dont
want data changed, such as the last financial year.
Currently if you would like to use this feature you will need to
raise a Support Ticket requesting the nominated Supervisor have
this enabled for them. In the next release this will be an
attribute for Roles and therefore you will be able to more easily
manage who can have the permission to set and make changes.
We are hoping to have one more release before we are ready to
roll out Enterprise Lite, if you watched the video you will see
pricing at the end of the Video, which I think most people will
find reasonable.
Today we have released another update to Kidsoft. This update
has a change long overdue and that was to reorganise the Kidsoft
Menus. We need to do this to allow for future development and to
ensure we have features organised appropriately.
I apologise in advance as I know people get used to where things
are. Below I have mapped where things have moved too.
Today we have released our first update to Kidsoft for 2013 and
we think it is full of great features. The highlight of this
publish are the User Interface enhancements and are a nod to the
now retired ChildcarePro.
The second part of our Parent Portal patch is to provide the
ability for Services to opt in to use the Parent Portal. The Parent
Portal is free and costs the service nothing to use. The idea
behind the parent portal is to provide you with the ability to
share more information with your Guardians online.
We see the ability to build a community around your service as a
key to future customer loyalty and satisfaction. Therefore the
Parent Portal provides a set of features that allow you to better
service your customers by being able to share information that they
can review online at their leisure.
It also provides the ability for services to share Customer
Account Statements and Learning stories with the Parents
electronically. You can save significant printing costs if you
start to exploit the features of the Parent Portal.
In this weeks patch we released the ability for services to be
able to post messages into the News channel section in Kidsoft for
their staff to see. With this also comes the ability to post news
items or messages to Guardians via the Parent Portal.
By default anyone with the Authorised Provider role wil have
access to the News Posting feature and can assign any other role to
have this permission as well. On the users role will be an
attribute called News, updated this attribute to
Yes and then anyone with that role will be able to post into the
News channel.
I have recorded two videos to demonstrate the News channel and
how to post a News item. Please spend 10 minutes to review these
videos. The power to post items to the Parent Portal, individual
Guardians and to all staff within your service or all of the
services you manage is quite a powerful feature.
Today we are releasing the Parent Portal in two stages. So today
we have released all of the inner working's for the Parent
Portal and tonight we will release the last components. Tomorrow I
will post an update about how to turn on the Parent Portal and how
to start using it.
This initial release brings in the basic foundations and
introduces a number of features of the Kidsoft Parent Portal. One
feature to note is that Services can now upload their Services logo
and have it appear on the Parent Portal and the Customer Account
Statements. The features the Parent Portal brings to Kidsoft allows
Services to become a lot more environmentally friendly by
significantly reducing their printing costs and therefore the Ink
Cartridges that the printing racks up.
I will post more detailed posts in regards to how some of the
more complex features operate and also we will add videos talking
through all of the new features. Here is a high level overview of
the new features and systems added into Kidsoft with this
release:
A new Role Attribute called News has been
added to the Roles. This feature allows you to publish news items
to the News feed on the home panel when you log in.
News Posting. Services will have the ability to post News items
to the Services News feed, to the Parent Portal News feed, should
it be enabled and to individual Guardians, if those Guardians have
had the Parent Portal enabled for them.
The ability to upload a logo for the Service and have that logo
appear on the Parent Portal and the Customer Account
Statements.
The ability to add a default comment (via Template) to the
Customer Account Statement.
Add Email Templates and CAS Comment Templates.
Phone Numbers and Addresses no longer need to have a priority
set.
The Child Allergies Report allows you to now filter by Active,
InActive or Both.
Action Plans in Medical Conditions are now optional.
Today we have applied another patch to Kidsoft. Some long sort
after features are in this patch.
Todays patch contains the following:
A Vacination Report
* Medical Conditions
A Medical Conditions Report
** Show blank weeks in bookings
Delete Guardians
Store Vacancey Reporting Messages in the CCMS Messages
panel
Removed the System Messages flag from User Profiles as its no
longer required
Updated the Kindergarten Report to allow users to select date
ranges for terms
* We have added Medical Conditions to the Child Medical panel.
When adding a medical condition you will also need to upload a
action plan as well. This will tie the action plan to the medical
condition. The action plan will be stored in the childs document
repository.
** On the bookings screen we have added a feature that will show
weeks that have no bookings when weeks either side of the no
bookings week do have bookings. This will make it obvious when
there are gaps in a block of bookings.
We have also added the ability to delete Guardians. If they do
not have enrolments or payment details attached to them then you
should be able to delete them without issue. If they do have either
of those two pieces of information attached then you will get a
notice that you can not delete them for this reason.
Please keep providing feedback. Even if you think we havent done
something you wanted, its on our development list and will
potentially be added at some stage. If you dont tell us, we dont
know and therefore it may potentially never be developed.
Sincerely
The Kidsoft Team
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Kidsoft Videos
Below are videos that show you how Kidsoft works and the many features found within Kidsoft. When you launch the video we recommend you watch them in High Definition. To change the resolution to HD, click the little icon that looks like this in the bottom right hand corner. Select 780P if its available or 480P.
in the bottom right hand corner. Select 780P if its available or 480P.
