Meet Portal, the gateway your schools have been begging for! Schools now not only need but want a platform where they have access to manage, export, and sort their students. Stay ahead of the curve with our very own Portal. For this blog, we’ll dig a bit deeper into what Portal is and all the handy tricks it has up its sleeve. You won’t be disappointed.
Before we jump in, let’s quickly recap what Portal is. Portal empowers schools with the autonomy to sort, manage, and generate reports on their students. It also provides customizable visibility settings that allow you to maintain overall control and oversight. Streamlining your workflow by relieving your studio of mundane tasks, Portal hands back some of the workload to schools.
Utilizing cloud-based accessibility, Portal allows schools to print replacement ID cards, certificates, or any other design templates you decide to provide. These life-saving features are bundled into one platform, fully connected to the rest of the Fotomerchant ecosystem. This blog focus on Portal’s yearbook capabilities and how Portal links to the rest of Fotomerchant. To learn more about Portal in general, click here.
Let’s Talk Yearbooks
Don’t shudder at the thought of yearbooks anymore. Portal has made organizing and executing yearbooks a piece of cake. This historically challenging item for schools, often leads to studios bearing the brunt. No more! Schools can select, sort, and export all related yearbook data and images with Portal.
So how does it work? Seamlessly connecting to our other platforms, turn on the commerce setting so parents or kids can select their own yearbook image(s) in the shopping cart. Once picked, schools can quickly sort through subject data to view who has or hasn’t picked their images.
For any of the not-so-organized parents, yearbook administrators can swoop in and select students who have yet to do so. Schools can easily sort and flick through all the students without yearbook selection, choosing and amending incorrect selections. We’ve heard lots of studio feedback on the experience of yearbooks, usually taking a lot of back and forth to sort out a simple selection. Now with Portal, schools have a central gateway to manage selections themselves. Yearbooks are simplified for both schools and studios. Awesome.
Easy Peasy Exports
The second factor in yearbooks, after selecting, is extracting the images. With Portal, give schools access to export the data themselves. No more “help, I’ve lost the link you sent.” Now, schools can generate exports as many times as their heart desires.
To export data, schools will go to subjects and choose which yearbook export they’d like. Let’s say the schools don’t know precisely what they need, but know they need, at least, a student id, last name and first name, and a small JPEG. Here comes Portal’s compounding filter section to the rescue. The yearbook administrator can add these selections, group via either teacher or grade, and BOOM, export is done.
No need to twiddle their thumbs; they can either wait a short period or close the window and continue generating exports. The data will be sent to their email when generated. This process is so pleasant and easy to use; your schools will thank you. It’s a win-win for everyone.
We’ve Re-Thought Licences
We hear you. There are other similar products on the market, so why Fotomerchant’s Portal? One key difference is when you purchase a Portal license, it’s for the entire school. This includes all events occurring in the school per year.
From our understanding, the other alternate portal solutions on the market are event-based licenses. We decided to try something new. Our portal licenses are charged per school per year. We believe this creates a better use case for all involved. Schools won’t need a new license assigned for each event, so switching between events or licenses is unnecessary. With Portal, you can configure each staff member to see what’s associated with their school for the whole year. You can even go down to a more granular level and customize which event or sessions each individual can see.
Real-Time, Saves Time
Another distinguishing factor between our competition is the option to utilize Portal amongst our other hosts of products. This is where you can really see the beauty of our real-time ecosystem. What do I mean by that? Imagine this scenario; the yearbook administrator is sitting down the hall, watching images come straight into their screen through Portal as they hear cameras snapping in a few rooms down the hall within a matter of SECONDS.
Yep, no more export and import shenanigans. Once our capture device sees the image taken, it’s transferred to the cloud in real time through our system, assigned to a subject, automatically cropped, color corrected, and sent straight into your school’s Portal. Their jaws will be on the floor; we promise you that. That’s the benefit of using our cloud-based Portal; you’ll be plugging into the innovative Fotomerchant ecosystem. What’s not to love?
One-Time Offer
It gets better! We’re offering an introductory offer for Portal. This promotion will be revealed on the 1st of July, so you’ll only have to wait a few more days to find out what we’ve got in store for you. What I will say is that this offer is a one-time occurrence. You won’t see a price like this for Portal again. Keep your eyes peeled!
Still hungry for more Portal content? Luckily, we’ve had the sassy duo Peter and Christian back in the webinar studio, recording a tour of the Portal platform for you. They go into more detail on what I’ve covered above, so check it out.
So what are you waiting for? Elevate your day-to-day studio workflow and sign up for Portal.
