Ease of use

Creating and managing a website for your institution using the yourschool.in platform is very easy.

• There is no installation to be done. Just register your institution on the website and on approval by us you can create all the content about your institution.
• You do not need to have any technical personnel to operate the website. All you need to know is basic computer knowledge and you will be able to post content about your institution.
• You can use the site from anywhere 24 X 7 and update the content as it is completely on the internet.
• No need of high bandwidth dedicated internet connection from your institute to operate the website. Broadband connections with a minimum of 256 kbps is enough to operate the website.
• You can change the information published at any time by yourself thus giving you complete control over the website with no dependencies.

Our aim has been to make operating the website as simple as operating an email account.

Why have a website ?

The internet is taking the world by storm. It is being said that there is a fourth basic need being added to the three basic needs of food, clothing, shelter and that is internet bandwidth. Having an online presence for any institution is very important. Without an online presense the brand of the institution can be diluted and in some cases even tarnished. As an example, at the time of writing this article the http://airtel.com/ website loads http://vodafone.es/ website. So it is important to have the right URL so that people searching for your institution do not get diverted to the wrong place.

Once you have a good website URL developing a website can be a very expensive investment. The cost of developing a website depends on the design of the website and also the functionality of the website. Using the website some of the things you can do are

• Showcase the facilities of your institution
• Publish photographs of activities and your institution
• Create holiday calendars and event calendars
• Provide a mechanism for parents and teachers to interact with each other

What we at yourschool.in want to do is that provide both the ability to have an elegant design and functionality at an affordable cost. The website will also be added to a directory of schools which will be comprehensive.

What does it do?

yourschool.in is a unique platform that provides comprehensive and up-to-date information for parents looking for a school and at the same time giving the schools and franchisors the power to update and change their branding and content along with the benefit of using various services to manage the information flow between parents and schools.

For a parent

• It provides a listing of all detailed information of the school including a road map, seat availability, features of the school, syllabus, services offered, timings, etc.
  
• Easy information exchange between parents and teachers using various communication media such as websites, e-mail and SMS.
  
• Information is readily available online on all important information like, holidays, events, syllabus, teacher's contact numbers, any other important notification.
  
• Provide the school with information such as allergies the child may have likes and dislikes or any special notes that the teacher would have to be notified about in an emergency.
  

For the preschool

• Get a full fledged website along with interactive services at an affordable cost.
  
• Have the ability to showcase your school to parents who are looking to fulfill the need for a school.
  
• Ability to communicate easily with the parents and update them on their child's progress through various communication media such as website, e-mail and SMS.
  
• Have ready and easily available online access to all the details of a child.
  

As a franchisor

• The franchisor can view information about each preschool that belongs to their franchise and monitor them online.
  
• The franchisor can customize their website starting from the website address, the way the website looks and the content on the website.
  
• Gives you a unique advertising platform to showcase the preschools and their services that are under your franchise.

What is it trying to address ?

Parents depend on other parents, friends, hoardings, banners, newspaper advertisements to tell them which schools exist. The internet does not have a comprehensive website of all the schools in each locality that can answer simple questions every parent has such as

• Which school is closest to my residence?
  
• Which school still has vacancies - Capacity vs. Occupied?
  
• What training methods does the school use?
  
• Where is the exact location - road-maps to the school?
  
• When does admission take place and what is is the admission criteria?
  
• Can I see my child online while my child is at day care?
  
• Will I be able to monitor the progress of my child online?
  
• Will I be able to interact with the teachers of the preschool without going to the school?
  
• Will I be able to see the list of holidays and other information such as syllabus and event/activities that the preschool is going to have?
  

Schools too would like to provide this information and also other services to better meet the needs and expectations of parents.

• How do I get a full fledged website along with interactive services at an affordable cost?
  
• How do I showcase my school to parents who are looking to fulfill the need for a school?
  
• How can I communicate easily with the parents and update them on their child's progress?
  
• How can I have ready access to a parent’s phone number or a child’s profile during an emergency?
  

Franchisor’s too face issues currently such as

• Information gathering and publishing is centralized on the franchisor’s website and the medium to publish this information is basic. So the right information is not being distributed to the target audience which is the parents.
  
• Generating statistics of the various franchisees under the franchisor is not easily available online.
  
• Tracking performance of the franchisees is difficult.
  
• Outsource the technological aspect of managing a preschool so that the franchisors and franchisees can concentrate on running the schools.

Yourschool.in is a portal that aims to address these issues. In subsequent articles we will go into the details of how these issues are being addressed in the portal.