Beta register

[AnonyMouse_63398]

Who has been testing out the new register feature on tapestry and how are you finding it? 

[AnonyMouse_81605]

Hi Emma, It's exciting isn't it - we were waiting for ages!

We've had it a couple of weeks now. I like that it's easy  to swipe the children in at the start of each day, it works nicely on our iPads. Do you use iPads or Kindles? It was a bit daunting to begin with and we were a bit worried about setting it all up. How did you set up your sessions and register groups? We had a bit of a debate at the start and ended up making a group for each day, so our ‘Monday register’ has all our children who we are expecting on Monday. That way when we take the register it’s easy to see who should be in. The only drawback there is if children come in on a day that isn't their usual one! We use like the ‘live feed’ bit, it's handy for us to see if any marks have been changed, how are you doing with it?

[AnonyMouse_7120]

Hi, I’ve been ‘playing around’ with it alongside our normal paper version, I’d also like to see a way to add a child who just comes in for an extra session without having to add them to that days group and then have to remove again, I’ve also fed back that I’d prefer to be able to view the children in age order (but that’s just because my paper register is that way).

I’ve set it up as daily groups...Regiser Monday, Register Tuesday rather than Monday Regsiter as I didn’t like that they got mixed in amongst other groups that way and wanted to see them together when I edited groups.

 

[AnonyMouse_29641]

Do you know if you can only use it for the EYFS children who have a Tapestry file or is it just a stand-alone list?  As a childminder I only need six EYFS files, but with all the after school children I'd need to use a more expensive package for more than 12 children.  

[AnonyMouse_7120]

I wouldn’t know for sure but as you need to add your Tapestry children to your register groups I’d think they’d already need to be included in your Tap registration number.

[EmilyTapestrySupport]

Hi all,

It's great to see you giving the new register feature a go, and hopefully finding it useful! Thanks for any feedback you've given so far, we'll certainly take this into consideration and discuss as a team whether it's something we can add. 

Mousekeeter is correct that whilst you can use register for any age of children, they do have to be ones that are included in your Tapestry subscription. We have discussed the idea of being able to add children to the register that aren't on your Tapestry, but we're not sure whether it's something we could add as this would create an extra cost on our end with having to store the details of these children that aren't on an account.

We'll keep you all updated with this though. 

Best wishes and Merry Christmas! 

Emily

[AnonyMouse_63398]

Morning all.

so I have been using the register for a few weeks now and after a couple of different set ups I think I have found one that works for me.

At first, I too set up my children in daily groups, but as others have said, this gets complicated when children swap days or do extra days. Also, my school kids are mostly adhoc. After looking at the different settings, I played around with the absence codes and changed a couple so I have one that says pre-school/nursery and also one that says un-contracted day. I now have one big group register and mark them in or absent as appropriate. At the end of the day, I go to the live status feed and print screen it and save the photo on my one drive under a “registers” folder and change the file name to the date. This way, I have a copy of the register for each day with the relevant times and codes.

I have mentioned to tapestry the idea of making the school children “inactive”, but still being able to add them to the register and they have said that this is something they are looking into, but in the meantime I have just renewed my normal package (as supposed to the new smaller one) in order to be able to include them.

Xx

[AnonyMouse_7120]

I must admit since initially getting the register trial i’ve been a bit lax so need to get back to it.

Emma - how many do you have as a whole group to go through and do you mark those out that you know don’t attend that day before opening opening up? I’m going to try it as one whole group, do you have an am/lunch/pm groups?

Thanks for the advice :-) 

[AnonyMouse_63398]

On 24/01/2019 at 07:07, Mouseketeer said:

I must admit since initially getting the register trial i’ve been a bit lax so need to get back to it.

Emma - how many do you have as a whole group to go through and do you mark those out that you know don’t attend that day before opening opening up? I’m going to try it as one whole group, do you have an am/lunch/pm groups?

Thanks for the advice :-) 

Yep, all my children including all the school children are in one group. There are 12 in total. 

If it is a day that they are not supposed to be in, I give them the absence mark of “un-contracted day” which I added myself in the registers settings. If it is a contracted day but they are at pre-school then they are given the absence mark of “nursery/pre-school” which again I added in the registers settings. These are marked when I mark the first child in for the day.

I personally didn’t bother with sessions as I found it too complicated, especially when trying to save the register at the end of the day. I just have my opening and closing time (with 1/2hr either side in case of early drop off or late collection) as one session. 

I print screen the live status feed at the end of the day as I find the “archive register” does not store the times the children started and finished and there is no way to save the live status (which does have the times on it).

I should also point out that when I added the absence codes, I also deleted a few that weren’t relevant. I also added a few and changed some to make them more relevant to being a childminder such as “childminder holiday” and “childminder sickness”

Xx

[AnonyMouse_7120]

Thank you, I’m not sure how easy having 50’ish as one group would work, I have also changed the absence codes :-) 

[EmilyTapestrySupport]

Hi all,

Hopefully you will have received my email this afternoon but just to let you know we've listened to all the feedback we've received and we're now planning on making some fairly substantial changes to the way the register works.

These are primarily to make the process of signing children in and out throughout the day easier and to also cope with children possibly having different sessions throughout the week, but there will be other additions and modifications.

Whilst we work on adding these, you will still be able to use the register if you wish, but please do note that it will be changing.

We will still of course welcome any more feedback you have about it and as long as you are still happy to be a tester, we will contact you once these new changes are ready to be tested.

Best wishes,

Emily

[AnonyMouse_63398]

Hi Emily,

I have just returned from a weeks holiday and one thing I noticed with the register was the inability to mark my holiday without logging in each day to do so (which I was unable to do).

Would it be possible to add to the register the ability to mark holiday (children and childminder) in advance. For example, if you knew you were going to be closed for a week in March, you could input that into the register beforehand.

Does that make sense? Xx

[EmilyTapestrySupport]

Hi Emma,

Yes that does make sense! This is actually something we are working on adding with the changes I mentioned above. 

We'll let you know when these are ready to be tested. 

Best wishes,

Emily

[AnonyMouse_63398]

Good morning.

I am still enjoying using the register but was wondering if there any news as to when the changes are happening?

Emma. Xx

[EmilyTapestrySupport]

Hi Emma,

I'm glad to hear you are still enjoying using the register!

I'm afraid we are still working on those changes to the register, but as soon as these changes are ready to be tested, we will get in touch with you.

Best wishes,

Emily