| New
Features in Denbigh Administration v9 |
| Correspondence Module |
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Creating correspondence
in Denbigh Admin has always been a very powerful and flexible function,
but with one key limitation - the inability to store a copy of the letter
for future reference. The Correspondence Module in Denbigh Admin v9 provides the facility to create correspondence for any recipient in the database – parents, students, staff, alumni, community – and store a copy of the letter permanently. A ‘letter master’ table allows you to create any number of proformas/templates to be reused as required. The proformas can contain merge fields which will automatically be populated with data relevant to each recipient. They may also be categorised such that proformas used by different users in the school are easily located and selected, even if there are many hundreds of proformas in the system. You may also create different print layouts through which to print different types of correspondence. For example, you may have one layout that includes the school letterhead on it so PDF documents may be created and emailed direct from the module, but your default layout does not include the letterhead elements so it may be printed to pre-printed official school stationery. You may create a specific layout for references that do not include a recipient’s mailing address … and in fact we supply the system with these options already in place. You are able to add to these as required. This module has enormous implications for many users in the school. For example: The Registrar: All letters sent to prospective parents are stored online so you can easily see what has been sent, and what communications you have had with each family. Add the ‘Reminders’ function into the mix (see below), and you have a very powerful function for managing your communications with prospective clients. Attendance: A record of each letter sent home to chase up unexplained absentees are immediately available for reference. Discipline Committee: Any correspondence sent home advising parents of impending detentions or other discipline matters are stored for easy reference or retrieval. |
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| Asset Register |
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A recent addition to Denbigh
Administration is the Asset Register. It is a financial asset register
(not to be confused with resource tracking and booking system), managing
purchase details, depreciation, maintenance / service costs, disposals
and profit and loss. Photographs and finance arrangements on each asset
may be recorded. Categories may be set up with default depreciation rates for more efficient data entry, and detailed reporting. Full depreciation, YTD depreciation and WDV is immediately available on any asset without running a report. The Asset Register records Asset Serial Number, Category, Description, Purchase Date, YTD Depreciation and Full Depreciation. Powerful reporting is key to a strong Asset Register, and a wide variety of reports are available, including Summary and Detailed Valuation of Assets, Details of Additions and Disposals for a Specific Year or Month and various options for valuations of Assets. It is possible to have written an automated posting of journal entries from the Asset Register to your General Ledger system if desired, depending on which GL system you run. |
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| Budget Module |
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Reporting the current balance of each budget holder’s budget is
typically a time consuming and inexact art in schools … if it happens
at all. It can be such a daunting process that schools leave each budget
holder to try to keep track of what they have and have not spent to date.
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| Presently, this module is written to read data from MoneyWorks, but it
has the potential to read data from other accounting packages if an appropriate
technology and access can be provided to do so. The administrator’s screen allows assignment of specific staffmembers to each budget, and only those assigned will have access to view and print the summary and detailed reports provided. |
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| End of Year Functions |
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1. Archiving of Current Data including Student and Staff Absences, Sport and Extra-Curricular 2. Roll Leaving Students to Alumni 3. Increment Years of Current Students 4. Enrol New Students 5. Import Academic Classes for the new session This does not actually add any new functionality, but rather just assists by drawing all these functions together into the one location. |
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| Reminders |
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When
you first log into the system, we have always displayed a certain amount
of information directly on the MainMenu. For example, student and staff
birthdays today and this week, absentees for the current day and the
day’s timetable of the currently logged in user. A recent addition is an extra tab displaying the School Calendar for the current day. This, by default, explicitly omits timetabled classes that appear in the calendar, and room bookings, retaining just the school events that may be of interest or value to the user. This may be tailored to suit. Possibly the most valuable addition, though, is the Reminders tab. Any user may create themselves a reminder to follow up on a student, staffmember or family, or in fact any community member in the database. A date is entered on which the reminder will become active, and it will remain active and visible on the MainMenu until it is flagged as actioned. Clicking on the reminder will take you directly to the record of the person / family that the reminder references. There are many scenarios where this would be invaluable, but following are a few: Registrar send a prospectus to a parent who has expressed interest in the school, then set a reminder to follow up in 14 days time. Accounts staff a debtor with an overdue account apologises for the late payment and says that it will be settled by Friday next week. Deputy Principal a student with an inappropriate hairdo has been told to have it rectified over the weekend set a reminder to follow up with them on Monday. |
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Absentees for the current day, both staff and students,
are shown. The timetable of the currently logged in user is also shown
for the current day. |
The School Calendar for
the current day is delivered directly here and if you have entered reminders
to follow up for students, and staff or parents, they are visible on the
Reminders tab. |
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| Two more Denbigh International Developers gain FileMaker Certification |
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Justin Warner and Craig McKessar, both members of Denbigh
International’s team of developers, have recently honed their
FileMaker skills to gain the industry-recognised credential of FileMaker
Certified Developer, the only certification sponsored by the makers
of FileMaker. |
 Justin Warner |
 Craig McKessar |
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| Visit our website here... |
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For enquiries or to provide feedback, please contact us... |
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Denbigh International is a FileMaker Business Alliance Platinum Level Member.
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