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Release Spotlight - June 14, 2023
On June 14, 2023, Child Care Seer® will release our latest upgrade. You’ll find many exciting new features and updates including a new parent mobile experience, staff certifications tracking, and much more! Keep reading for more information on everything that is included.
Redesigned Parent Mobile Experience
Over the past several months, we’ve been actively gathering feedback from parents about their experience with Child Care Seer, especially in using our mobile app. When reviewing this feedback, we came to a rather alarming realization—we’ve been focused on the needs of owners and directors, and we’ve never truly designed an experience from the parent perspective. Until NOW!!! We gathered all the right parties in a (virtual) room, and started with a simple question: What does the parent of a young child want and need from Child Care Seer? We’re pretty sure your parents are going to LOVE our answers!
Daily Journal becomes Adult Home
The Child Care Seer daily journal lets your center update parents throughout the day with photos, activities, notes, meals, and more. Now parents see all the action, updated live throughout the day, right on their app home screen! Easily switch between children by swiping left or right at the top.
Simplified Menu
Parents can easily find most-used items within a thumb’s reach using our simplified menu at the bottom of every screen. Need to send a message to the center or make a tuition payment? Simply click the + button. We’ve kept all previous parent portal functionality (and even added more), but made it much simpler to get to the most-used parent necessities.
Photo Gallery Shows All
Check out our new photo gallery view! See previews of all photos at a glance, simply click on a photo to download or share to social media!
Money on Mobile
We’ve (finally!) added the Money tab to our mobile app! Easily view all previous payments, pay for upcoming services, download payment receipts, and manage automatic payments and payment methods from your phone!
Parents Choose
Because our new parent portal is a completely new experience, we will be rolling it out slowly and gathering feedback from early users to make sure we’ve got it right! When we turn on this feature for your center, parents will be able to decide for themselves when to “upgrade” to the new experience and may elect to “go back to the old” if they prefer.
Orientation Tour
We’ve created an orientation tour to help your parents navigate their upgraded experience. This tour, along with our help button and link to the Knowledge Base, “lives” inside the + button at the bottom of the app.
Staff Certifications Tracking
In the last release, we brought you immunizations tracking for children. Now, we’ve used some of the same ideas to take on one of the most common licensing violations: certifications tracking for staff. From first aid training to background checks to professional development to new hire orientation, you can track everything your staff needs to successfully start at your center and remain license compliant throughout their career!
To get started, visit the My Center Certifications page. We’ve preloaded some of the most common staff licensing requirements used in most states. You may edit or delete those we’ve added, and you can add your own to make a complete list for your center. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page and specify whether you would like Child Care Seer to warn you about expiring certifications – we recommend 30 days notice.
Like child immunizations, expiring certifications will automatically attach a system tag to staff members and appear in the Expirations tile on your dashboard. You’ll also find a new Staff Certificate Expirations report which details all staff with certifications up for renewal.
Initial expirations will be based on the staff member’s Hire Date, so be sure to specify this on their profile page. Visit Certifications on the staff profile page to enter the effective date of certification, then Seer will take care of tracking the required renewal date for you. Maybe you do have time for that second cup of coffee this morning!
View As...
If you’ve contacted our amazing customer success team, you likely know that part of the reason we’re able to help you so quickly is that we have a bit of “magic” and we can see what you are seeing in Child Care Seer. With this release, we’ve decided to share some of our magic with you! Visit your updated Avatar menu in the top right to View As… any adult, staff, kiosk, or class device in your center!
This feature is also available on adult and staff profile pages on the menu near the edit button. Please note, while in View As mode, you will not be able to make any changes to the other person’s account. Next time a parent asks for help with the app, we know a little magic will help your center have amazing success as well!
Enrollment Changes Report
You’ll find a new report in this release. The Enrollment Changes Report is now in available in the Attendance section of your Reports menu. Easily see how many children enrolled or disenrolled in any given period, both past and future! Please note, this report uses the Start Date and End Date on the Child Profile page, so be sure to complete those fields for more accurate reporting. Thanks to Casey in LA for requesting this report, we know many customers will be excited to use it!
Other things you’ll notice...
Report Improvements (Unpaid/Aging/Expirations)
We’re saving you a few more clicks on the Unpaid reports and Expirations reports! Simply hover over a parent avatar to instantly see email, phone, or start a New Discussion in the Inbox. To send out notices to several parents at once, now you can multi-select several children and then use the menu at the bottom to start a New Discussion or Copy Emails to use in a separate email solution.
Manage Payment Method Changes
We’ve updated Manage Payment Methods on the Money tab to help you and your parents understand better how changing a card or ACH may affect associated Autopays. We hope this helps to reduce customer confusion and help you get paid on time!
Inbox Search
We’ve updated the Search on all Inboxes to include a more thorough search of your messages to help you find what you need more quickly!
