Attendance - Student swiping per class and for hallpass

Julie Katz

We were using SchoolPass for attendance with students swiping their badges on iPads to come into class and if they needed a hallpass. SchoolPass was no longer providing updates that were needed so we now went with Orah. We are in their pilot program and it is going a bit slow.

Are any other schools out there using a system that has student scanning capability?

Christine Zaremba

I'm really curious about your experience with SchoolPass - when you say they were no longer providing the updates you need, do you mean they sunset part of the software in favor of a lateral Raptor product, or they were dropping the ball? We have been having a really hard time with them with daily attendance - it was great for a long time but as they get closer to moving to fully branded Raptor products, it's become a struggle. I'm hopeful this is temporary as part of the transition. I also spoke with Orah recently but they didn't have the RFID capability we need built out yet, as promising as it looked.

Kristi Romanik

I would love to know more about Orah for attendance. Does it have a visitor management piece as well?

Laurie Cornett Cross

Also have SchoolPass and we scan into each class. It is a daily challenge..Blackbaud is aware that the integration is less than stellar. I did not think Orah had capability to do scanning? Have been searching for a good solution that integrates with BB but so far ..nada. I might recommend looking at Ruvna if you do not do scanning..

Kathy Hannon

We have SchoolPass - we tried working with the Attendance feature but after over a year fighting to get changes, SchoolPass was unwilling to listen to suggests on how to make the sync work. Blackbaud isn't the problem, the SchoolPass' API integration that is the issue - mainly the timing of sync, an hour is too long when you are dealing with attendance. Sync was overwriting what we were taking in class for attendance - what a mess! We are only using SchoolPass as a student check-in/check-out and VM system but are having difficulties with the syncing of just out parent/student records now. I had such high hopes when Raptor bought them 😒

Kristin Heard

We had the same experiences with SchoolPass. The only function that we actually liked it for was afterschool activities in our Lower school. For Attendance in the high school, it just didn't work for us. I've looked at a demo of Orah and want to look at Ruvna, too. I'd love to hear any follow up from any of you who decide to go with one of them.

Karen Faucheux

We are looking for a new solution since using School Pass these past few years. It works fine scanning in and out but the delayed sync that @Kathy Hannon mentions is what gives us issues. It overrides things we've already done. We were told we have to purchase the parent/teacher portal for School Pass in order to get the immediate syncs which is not what we were told when we purchased it. I think what a lot of these companies don't realize is we need immediate updates and many us do not want our students taking their own attendance in their phones (even with geofencing) or making the teachers have to log into another system to take attendance. I'd love to hear how others are handling their teachers inputting attendance and if there are any other products worth looking at. I'm going to demo Ruvna again soon.

Scott Chrysler

@Karen Faucheux, @Kristin Heard, @Kathy Hannon @Laurie Cornett Cross We have implemented Ruvna for accountability and mass communication, but have not ventured into the attendance module yet. Ruvna is an exceptional product that has streamlined our accountability during safety events and made mass communication with any combination of constituents (alumni not included) a breeze. They are developing a new module for dismissal time. Support is first class. The price is extremely reasonable in my eyes.

I strongly encourage anyone to look at this product and see if it can help with their needs.

Scott

Julie Katz

So far we have been happy with Orah and their support. They are promising to have hall pass swiping for the 26-27 school year as it is a priority for many schools.

Using Orah our teachers find it the easiest for taking attendance over Blackbaud and SchoolPass. Comments do flow through from Orah which is helpful for our audits. Also teachers are able to take attendance for another teacher if they are out so the grade levels do work as a team.

SchoolPass was hard to get answers from support and in general not so responsive in the end.