Engage v2015.07 has introduced exciting new calendar integration options and a further range of tools for the Staff and Parent Portals. This further extends the Engage school management information system’s role at the heart of independent schools, enabling staff, teachers and parents to co-ordinate their schedules in new and more powerful ways.
Portal Calendars can now be exported as a read only view to third party calendar providers, including Outlook and Google. Using the export option from My Calendar it is possible to select individual or multiple calendars to be exported as an iCal URL. The iCal export functionality also allows for multiple export to be generated using different combinations of Portal Calendars.
Similarly there’s now the ability to import and keep a synchronised read-only view of third party calendars, again including Outlook and Google, using an iCal URL format. The imported calendars’ read-only view can be shared with individuals or groups of users with access to the Portal’s Calendar functionality. This adds the ability for the Schools to manage one Calendar in one place, but have automated changes take place in all linked calendars.
Other improvements include:
- Recurring Events can now be created in the Portal Calendar making it easy for teachers to create regular meetings or events.
- The School Events Calendar can be managed from the Portal as well as the client app, enabling more control of events for Schools.
- The Calendar now has an Agenda View as well as Day, Week and Month displays. The agenda view provides a much better view of what is happening in the near future, as well as providing better printouts for parents and staff.
The Calendar is a fully integrated part of Engage and these upgrades are included for all licensed users without additional charge.