Parent waiting time between interviews is virtually eliminated. Historical research has shown parent time waste can be reduced by over 30 hours or 25%.

Parents get to leave the event earlier, even if it is fully booked due to less waiting time. Where possible, schedules are also blocked up earlier, reducing late interviews.

Interviews are assigned fairly to all parents overall. Paper based or other systems disadvantage some parents by their form submission time, or surname ranking.

Parents may prioritise their interview requests, resulting in a far more satisfying match, where parents are far more likely to get the interviews they prefer.

Paper schedules organised by students, means good students are at a scheduling advantage, despite the fact they may be the ones least in need of interviews. Poorly organised students are often less diligent in scheduling interviews, either by omission or intent, yet manual systems disadvantage them.

EdvalPTN’s approach removes students from the ‘organiser’ role, and encourages more interviews with students in educational need.

Paper systems have hand written interview times. Computer schedules are delivered to parents in neat typed format, to reduce confusion.

Schedules are also accessible online, where paper copy can be mislaid or illegible. Preference forms also advise parents of the exact names and subjects of their child’s teachers, which is not available via paper scheduling.

Computer schedules provide an additional accessibility method for communicating interview requests as it augments, rather than replaces paper forms. Modern parents may prefer to communicate via the web rather than fill out paper forms, or trust their child to ‘remember’ to hand them in correctly.

Parents with a more traditional focus can still use paper forms without penalty, as neither submission time or access method affects the allocation of interviews.

Parents may even phone the school to submit details, as they need only express their teacher and time preferences, not ‘negotiate’ suitable times which is a longer process.

Parents are far more likely to get preferred interview start times, leading to high parental satisfaction, or confidence in incorporating interviews to busy lifestyles.

Parents may not like to notify cancelations if they have to ring the school and ‘speak’ to someone. Electronic systems encourage easy notice of cancels, even after hours.

Manual systems need a teacher’s and a student’s schedule, which can cause confusion, clashes, or occasional double bookings. Computer schedules prevent conflicts, and are accurate right up to the start of the event, even where changes have been made.

Computer schedules directly support families, unlike paper systems where siblings must negotiate with each other as well as both their teachers, which is not easy.

Computer schedules allow parents to change interview preferences, or designated interview times, including cancelling.

 

Online interview forms allow links to rich media like Google maps showing aerial photos of clearly marked school buildings and parking areas used on the event night.

Computer schedules encourage direct calendar interface, allowing automatic creation of the event and interview schedule directly in the parent’s computer, to make it easy for them to attend. Automatic reminders can further encourage attendance.