Doug McDonald
Track Unpaid Leave at Your Daycare
According to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) eligible employees at your child care, daycare or preschool may be entitled to job security and continuation of benefits during a qualified leave. Some common examples include the arrival of a new baby or caring for an immediate relative with a serious illness. You might also allow employees to take other kinds of unpaid leave as well. As an employer, you’d probably like to track the time off without including those hours as paid compensation. With Procare Software® and the Employee Data module you can do just that. Continue reading
Plan “B” for Your Child Care Check In Station
Maybe the Check In station at your daycare center or preschool has temporarily failed, or you don’t even have a Check In station at all. What is your “plan B” strategy for an alternate way to record attendance times for children if a Check In computer is not available? Computers can be down for a variety of reasons and it’s a good idea to have a strategy in place at those times, to reduce stress and keep your workflow going smoothly. With Procare Software® and the Attendance Tracker program you have a nifty alternate way to get kids checked in or out using the Receptionist feature. All you need is a working Procare computer available and a staff person to operate it. The Receptionist will let you quickly record times with the authorized person’s initials and the current date and time. Continue reading
Text Messaging for Your Daycare
New! Texting Capabilities from Procare
Sometimes you need to contact people in a hurry, like when you have a power outage, a flood in your school, a big storm is approaching or other event. You want to let everyone know quickly so they can take appropriate action. If you’re already sending email through Procare Software® it’s easy to now send short texts (up to 140 characters) directly from Procare too. You’ll save time and reach your families, employees and vendors in the quickest way possible. They’ll likely be impressed with your up-to-date communications techniques! Best of all there is no cost to send messages from Procare. Continue reading
Procare U: Sneak Preview
Introducing Procare U
Looking for a way to improve and test your knowledge of Procare Software®? We’re introducing a new type of learning with Procare University, affectionately known as “Procare U”.
There are already a few sample lessons available, but before we get to that I want to share our vision of Procare U for the future.
As of April 2012, new lessons are available. See: Learn Procare at Procare U
Will Procare U be Different from Webinars or Training?
Yes! Procare U will target specific task competencies by the type of work done (and your level of responsibility) with the pace controlled by you. Maybe you just need to learn to add family information, set up billing and run a few reports, but nothing more. You, or someone from your company, will be able to assign just the classes you need – making the best use of your time by quickly getting to the heart of your studies. Continue reading
Classroom Forecasting – Sunny with a Chance of Savings!
Would you like to know how many teachers you need in a classroom in the future? Perhaps you want to predict an upcoming vacancy in the Butterflies room? Using the schedule reporting features of Procare Software® you can be your own Carnac the Magnificent and “divine the answer…” !
Setting Up Schedules
First you’ll want to enter your Classroom Ratios. Then you’ll set up Child Schedules and Employee Schedules as well – in order to forecast accurate staffing needs to meet your child/teacher ratios. You can even use multi-line day schedules if children or employees switch rooms during the day, like a preschooler scheduled in the preschool room from 8:30 am to 11:30 am who then moves to the Bluebirds room from 11:30 am to 4:30 pm.