Nonprofit needs scheduling software for kids classes
December 7, 2015 3:46 PM Subscribe
I work for a local non-profit that provides classes in engineering for kids. We have classes available after school and during school holiday and over the summer.
We would like something that allows us to move classes around and change dates easily like by dragging and dropping on a weekly schedule and that can handle 8 different classrooms with two different class periods per day.
We recently expanded our space so we have 8 classrooms, 15-20 instructors and 30 or so classes we regularly schedule.
So far we are using Active for online registration and using google docs for mapping it all out. As we are grow, this is getting increasingly time consuming.
Anyone have any suggestions? My husband uses Jobber for his arborist business so something like that interface is what I am envisioning but that is not a great fit for our needs.
We are willing to purchase this outright but BONUS POINTS if we can get it donated!
We recently expanded our space so we have 8 classrooms, 15-20 instructors and 30 or so classes we regularly schedule.
So far we are using Active for online registration and using google docs for mapping it all out. As we are grow, this is getting increasingly time consuming.
Anyone have any suggestions? My husband uses Jobber for his arborist business so something like that interface is what I am envisioning but that is not a great fit for our needs.
We are willing to purchase this outright but BONUS POINTS if we can get it donated!
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Do you guys use a CMS or CRM? If you've got a broader platform, recommendations should start with that (there are a ton of options for pretty much every CRM/CMS).
If you guys don't use either a CRM or CMS, and you plan on growing, I would encourage looking into one. There are a ton of packages that can be pretty easily built. Active integrates with a ton of CRM/CMS systems too. Is there a reason you're not wanting to use any of their integrated options? They even have what looks (from a brief glance) like a decent API, so I'm curious about why you aren't going with them to do the calendar.
If you guys have a webhost, there are often also a fair number of tools for this on the back end of many hosts — you may have something you could install from your cpanel that you wouldn't have to pay anything more for.
How many users would need access? Do you see this as something that instructors or students would be able to edit, or just something for, say, one admin? How tech savvy are you? Like, there are Drupal modules you could use for free to do this.
Basically, there are a ton of options, and most of 'em are as good as any other, dependent upon your orgs' requirements. If you don't get any other answers that have clear best choices from a similar setup, I can do a little research and see if I can figure out if there's one that would fit you better.
(I used to work non-profit communications and part of my job was to every year plan for a shift off of our terrible old CRM/CMS to a new one, so I ended up reviewing a ton of stuff like this for volunteer scheduling. Now I'm doing some consulting for educational c3s, doing things like helping them choose digital infrastructure. So while I don't have a specific answer for you now, if no one else gives one, I can probably rustle one up.)
posted by klangklangston at 5:40 PM on December 7, 2015 [1 favorite]