Accudemia is a cloud-based academic center management system with many powerful features, including effective tracking of students and staff, automation of daily operations, and robust reporting. In this article, we will go over some tips that will help you use Accudemia to its full potential.
Simplify by Using Grouping
For institutions with a large number of centers, it is very beneficial to use Location Groups as a grouping method for your campus. This way, it is easier to search for and find a specific center. When creating reports, you can pull data by group as well as by individual center. Even more importantly, this feature can keep student’s sensitive information hidden from administrators of other centers. Using Location Groups allows you to set the scope of individuals. You can assign an administrator to the particular Location Group they are in charge of so that they don’t have administrative access to other centers. The administrator will only be able to view reports and data for those particular centers. For example, maybe you have a group for your advising centers, and you do not want tutoring and other center administrators to be able to view the advising centers’ session notes. You would use the Location Group feature to set the scope of the other location group administrators limiting access to this sensitive data.
Remember Less is More
To simplify and speed up the appointment scheduling process for your students, consider making the selection paths as short as possible. In both the Appointment and Walk-ins sections of the Accudemia Control Panel, select “Optional” or “Do not show” on unnecessary parameters. In this small way, you give your students a more streamlined and more straightforward process. In places like gyms and labs where you only want to track student attendance, you might consider selecting “Do not show” so the students will only have to swipe their card or type their ID to access your services quickly. For services where no staff interaction is required, such as a computer lab, consider configuring those services so students “Skip Waiting Lines.” With these settings, students using these services will not need to go through the queue with the rest of the students waiting for tutor-centric services.
Excel In Resource Utilization
Using the “Waiting Line” feature for walk-in services allows you to maximize your tutors’ time. Instead of matching a tutor per student, consider filtering students according to their needs to place them into “study groups”; then associate that student group with a single tutor. Study groups not only allow for better use of your available tutors but will enable the center to be able to serve more students. Additionally, the use of study groups allows the student to learn in a more participatory way. Study groups can create a sense of comradery between students, encouraging them to keep up with their studies.
Minimize No-shows, Rescheduling, and Cancellations
Every time there is an appointment no-show, not only is a student failing to get valuable information, but a tutor’s time is wasted. Sometimes no-shows are unavoidable, but there are ways to minimize the number of no-shows using Accudemia.
1. Automated e-mail reminders: Have Accudemia send email reminders to your students X hours before the appointment time.
2. Automated text notifications: Have Accudemia send an SMS reminder to your students’ phones X hours before the appointment time.
3. iCalendar invitations: You can include an iCalendar invitation with the appointment confirmation. This allows students and tutors to receive an iCal appointment reminder that is compatible with MS Outlook, Google Calendar, and other popular calendar applications.
4. Limit short-notice changes: Editing, canceling, and rescheduling appointments can be prevented on too short notice by using the option that disables the feature “X minutes before the start time of the Appointments.”
5. Limit excessive changes: Rescheduling appointments can be restricted to a set maximum number of times. This option will help prevent students from abusing the rescheduling feature and from pushing off their appointments indefinitely.
Use Teamwork and Communication
Those who have used Accudemia know that it facilitates teamwork. From the tutors who assist students, to instructors sending centers their referrals, as well as administrative personnel who track the students’ performance and provide solutions to their unique needs, teamwork is required to keep a university functioning.
In keeping with this concept, you too can adjust your Accudemia account to be versatile and reach every single component in your institution by using:
- Instructor Referrals to provide a way for them to send over students having issues in their classes. You can create a set of actions and follow-up routines for your center staff to help the students and improve your student retention.
- The Accudemia messaging system for communication with all your staff and students; helps students get the most from your services and empowers them to ask questions.
- Surveys to gain insight about your tutors’ performance and your students’ commitments to their courses and activities. Survey reports are a key factor in unveiling the characteristics of your centers’ and classrooms’ successes and failures. No other research method can provide this broad capability. Accudemia surveys provide a more accurate sample to gather results and draw conclusions to make important decisions for your institution.
Accudemia is a powerful resource that can improve your center operations, help identify successful initiatives as well as areas for improvement, and can simplify steps for students, and get them to resources faster and more often. By taking these steps you’ll be able to get more from this valuable system.
