Back to School Planning

Owned by Jamal Naveed
Last updated: Aug 02, 2024 by David South
8 min read

Ready for back to school? Download our checklist and make sure!

Back to School season can be an exciting and challenging time for students and administrators alike. As a Campus Cloud administrator, you can consider the following mobile app suggestions to help ease your student's transition into a new academic year and ultimately help drive adoption to your mobile app platform:

  • Review app data and share “Forms” to better understand the specific needs of your app users. 

  • "Notify"  app users about upcoming important due dates and events. 

  • Create "Orientation" programs for important events, resources and to-dos.

  • Leverage “Resources” to communicate more effectively and efficiently with your app users. 

  • Create "Events" with Assessment features to track attendance and gather feedback.

  • Maximize the communication features of the app through “Channels” & “Notifications.” 

  • Organize app content in a way that is appealing to your app users. 

  • Work closely with your Client Success Manager to plan and strategize how to best use the mobile app to reach your app users. 

  • And so much more…

 

In this article, you will learn more about how to:

Forms & Insights

Review app data and collect feedback to gauge users’ app preferences effectively. Forms are primarily used to gather information within the app from the app users.

  • You can use Forms to ask questions and collect information such as text, numbers, dates, multiple-choice, photo responses, etc.

  • Users can scan a QR code to access a form. Or, you can also fill them out online (a web form).

  • You can send reminders to fill out forms

  • Users can see their form results in the app

  • Get students' feedback and evaluate their opinions by leveraging the high adoption and engagement of the campus app.

Insights - Campus Cloud provides with many insights on student engagement, app downloads, registrations, health and wellness data and more. The Insights option is the first menu option on the top menu bar. It has four sections:

  • Dashboard - Dashboard presents a summary of student engagement with the campus app. 

  • Engagement - "Engagement" is a powerful tool that you can leverage to give the best experience to your students. You can find this function in the "Insights" on Campus Cloud.

  • Data Export - "Data Export" allows a Campus Cloud administrator to export the list of registered app users for your Campus App (excluding deleted and banned users). 

Community & Notifications

Maximize communication tools that help keep users informed about official institutional news and opportunities while also providing users a space to ask questions and connect with others.

Community: "Community" is one of the functions of Campus Cloud where you can create channels to connect with your fellow mates, students, staffs, post your comments and views and stay connected. 

Community Keyword Alerts: Leverage the Community to identify common challenges and questions students face throughout the year. This could include monitoring mental health issues, helping students navigate physical and digital resources, and alerting support staff so they can proactively reach out to those who need their services.

This feature lets you create a list of keywords that, when mentioned in a post or channel, trigger an email to the Team Member(s) you designate. The email includes the context of the message, along with the name of the person who posted it so you can follow up by responding to the post, messaging the student privately, or contacting them outside of your Campus App.

Create Community Keyword Alerts

Community as a Host: Being a manager of an organization or service, you can use Community on behalf of that club/service or Athletic clubs and orientation calendars as well (called a Host).

Notifications from Community: The community is where all app users engage and communicate with each other. When there is a post in the Community, users receive a push notification on their devices. 

More on Notifications. 

Audiences: "Audiences" allows you to put your students together into specific groups. You can add these groups to channels or can send them 'push' notifications. You can add app users to an audience.

Learn about Dynamic Audiences Set Up

Orientation Programs & Resources 

Leverage Orientation programs to encapsulate information associated with a moment of time throughout the academic year (e.g. Welcome Week Activities). Additionally, use Resources to digitize informational content for students (FAQs, Instructions, Student Success Tips, etc.)

Track & Assess Orientation Events: Orientation events can be created, and the events can be tracked and assessed as well. You can see how many students checked in and what feedback they provided for your events.

Engage & Notify for an Orientation Event: Campus Cloud enables engaging with students through groups and also Notify the students about any upcoming events. Groups are created when creating the Orientation event and turning on its membership wall. 

Resources: The Resources feature is a suite of tools allowing school administrators to provide informational content to students through a rich digital experience. A Resource editor/creator is a rich text format.

Getting Started with Resources: You can view, edit and create Resources under the Manage section on Campus Cloud with the 'Resources' permission.

Share Resources with Students: The created and published Resource can be shared with users to view in the Campus App. 

Create an Orientation Program

To Create a program:

  1. Log in to Campus Cloud.

  2. Click "Manage," then click "Orientation."

  3. Click "Create Program."

  4. Type a name and description for your orientation program. 

  5. [Optional] Turn on membership.

  6. Click Save.

You can see all the list of programs in "Orientation," and your student can see them on the Orientation tile in the Campus App.

Figure 1 - Campus Cloud - Student Life Orientation 

Create an Orientation Event

To create an event within an Orientation program:

  1. Log in to Campus Cloud.

  2. Click "Manage," then click "Orientation."

  3. Find your orientation program, and click its name.

  4. Click "Events," then click "Create Event."

Orientation events work very similarly to regular events. Learn more here: Create an Event.

Create an Orientation To-do List

To create a to-do list within an orientation program:

  1. Log in to Campus Cloud.

  2. Click "Manage," then click "Orientation."

  3. Find your orientation program, and click its name.

  4. Click "To-do's," then click "Create New To-do."

  5. Type a name and due date for your to-do.

  6. [Optional] Type a short description. 

  7. Click "Save." 

Your item appears on the to-do list.  

Repeat the steps above for every item you want to add.

To edit a to-do item, click its name in the list. To delete a to-do, click the "X.". 

Setting up Channels

Channels allow you to create multiple dialogue spaces in your Community and are a great way to create an engaging environment for your students. Here are some best practices for getting your Community up and running with channels.

Here are some ideas for public and private channels to select from: 

Learn more about how to Set up channels.

Engage in Community as Orientation Manager

To engage with the community as that Organization, Service or Orientation/ Athletics manager, click the "Use-As" menu in the Community sidebar, then select the host.

Figure 4 - Select drop-down to select the host to use as Orientation Manager

Learn more about how to Engage & Notify for an Orientation Event.

Notify Students of Events

It empowers you to make announcements by sending push notifications that will appear on students' phones, like a text message.

There are three kinds of notifications: 

  • Regular. The student can choose not to receive these messages based on their notification settings. 

  • Urgent. These messages will override a student's notification settings. 

  • Emergency. These messages will override a student's notification settings and cannot be dismissed without reading. 

Note that it is still possible for students to block push notifications associated with these messages.  More information here. 

Track Attendance for Orientation Events 

If you would like to know if many students attended an Orientation event (or any event on campus), you can enable assessment features for an event through Campus Cloud. Assessment allows you to track attendance for and collect feedback on an event.

When your event is over, the attendance manager receives an email that lists the students who attended the event. If you do not specify an attendance manager, the event manager receives this email.

Learn more here: Create an Event with Assessment.

Figure 5 - Campus Cloud - Events - Assessment

 

Assess Student Engagement for Orientation Events 

  • Events that use assessment have a star rating shown next to the event's name.

  • You can create a custom feedback question.

  • After the event, the student receives an in-app survey asking them to rate the event on a scale of 1-5 stars and answer the custom feedback question.

  • The Event Manager receives a summary email of student feedback.

  • The Attendance Manager (optional) receives an email with the names of students who checked in to the event.

If you turn Feedback on, students who check in receive a notification to answer your feedback question and rate the event.

Learn more here: Create an Event with Assessment.

Pulling It All Together

Pull it all together by creating Tiles in the Campus Guide, establishing Public and Private Channels, setting up Audiences for Push Notifications, etc and organizing that information in an easy to navigate way within the app.

Manage - Studio: "Studio" gives you the ability to create multiple app experiences to deliver information to various audiences through the app, based on your requirements.

Manage - Student Life: Campus Cloud gives you the tool to set up various information through "Student Life". This function appears on the left-hand side in "Manage" on your Campus Cloud and includes:

Manage - Campus Content : Campus Content, as the name suggests, is a function that allows you to create various resources for your students on your Campus App.

Under "Manage" in the top navigation menu, Campus Content includes the following sections:

Campus Guide Tiles for 3rd Party App: Create campus guide tiles in Campus Cloud Studio leading to a third-party app. 

Manage > Studio > Edit an Experience (or create one to then edit) > + add a tile > select the "3rd Party App" option

Required fields:

Test Environment: As a Campus Cloud admin, you can invite users to the app test environment. These test users can make changes to the test environment without affecting the publicly available campus app. They can also view changes you made to the test environment. 

Channels: Channels allow you to create multiple dialogue spaces in your Community and are a great way to create an engaging environment for your students.

Invite Members to a Channel: Campus Cloud enables you to connect with your students and staff through "Community". As an administrator, you can invite members to your channels. 

Community and Channels

Push Notifications: A push notification is a message that pops up on a mobile device when there is an activity in Community. 

 

App Promotion

Prioritize promoting your mobile app to students during the back to school season. Some creative ways to promote your app include the following:

  • Announce during mandatory student sessions (Freshman Seminar, Student Organization Meetings, etc.).

  • Use Event or Service QR Codes to drive adoption through the in-app scanner. 

  • Embed app details in the standard syllabi for faculty to share on the first day of classes.

  • Push students to the app for Forms, Calendars, Events, Course Info and other required information. 

  • Cross promote on your website and other social platforms informing your students of the mobile app. 

  • Leverage video and other branded promotional materials to help spread the word.

Leverage your Campus App across different learning environments

The best practices that you can use and adapt to keep your campus app relevant and engaging for students in all learning environments.

 

Connect with your CSM

We understand that navigating the back-to-school season can be overwhelming for administrators, too. Let us help! Connect with your Client Success Manager using (cs@readyeducation.com), browse our Help Center or reach out to our Support Team for assistance.

Help Center

Submit a Request

 

If you also use our CampusGroups solution, please check out this best practice article.