ClassJuggler News - November 2016

Enhancements to the Parent Portal – Your Ideas Needed

ClassJuggler is in the process of completely reworking the Customer Self-Service Center (a.k.a "parent portal") with a newly redesigned, and fully mobile responsive, new interface. We've already identified that over 70% of parents who access the self-service center are using a smartphone or tablet, and we want to make sure everyone has a good user experience.

During the redesign, we want to hear from our clients on what you would like to see as your top three enhancements. The more responses we get, the better the new version will become. So take a few minutes and ask your staff (and parents too) what they would like to see different in the portal. Send an email to support@classjuggler.com titled "Self-Service Center Suggestions" with your ideas.

Did You Notice ClassJuggler Moved?

Probably not, and that's actually good! Technology is great when it works seamlessly without you noticing. ClassJuggler recently moved its entire hosting architecture from the West Coast to the East Coast. This move was part of our backup and disaster recovery plan to ensure that ClassJuggler is always available, regardless of what is happening regionally on our nation's networks.

We haven't had much cause to use our backup plan in the past 12 years, but with the prior week's nationwide denial of service attacks and hacking attempts, we put our plan into motion to ensure safe and reliable access to ClassJuggler.

In the coming months we will be replacing all of our older server hardware in Northern California and moving ClassJuggler back to being hosted locally on our fast new servers. We will continue to maintain our East Coast hosting facility so in the event of a catastrophic failure or other massive network outage, we can continue to remain online for all of our clients.

Security of Information in ClassJuggler

In a great segue to last month's article about user security, and our article above, we received a question from one of our clients:

We just finished a cyber security course and we already have a back-up plan in place for our own computers and are PCI Compliant through Trustwave but we were wondering if you all [ClassJuggler] had a plan/any policies in place in case you all are hacked? We would just like to know in case our customers ask about their security (which they do often because we are in the DC area and everyone is either paranoid or a lawyer).

This was such a great question that it warrants a special response:

ClassJuggler's primary hosting facility is in Northern California, where we house our current and soon to be new (in the next few weeks) advanced servers. Just this past weekend ClassJuggler came under attack, as much of the country did, from widespread denial of service and hacking attacks. At that time our backup plan kicked in and we shifted our entire hosting to the East Coast, to our Northern Virginia facility. This is a key part of ClassJuggler's security, back-up, and disaster recovery plans.

On the question of hacking when it comes to ClassJuggler… We store no critical data that would be of any interest to a hacker, and we are generally too small a target for a hacker who is looking for millions of credit cards or account passwords to shopping sites. All of our sensitive credit card data is stored with the Visa Corporation, so we are as secure as any company can be for that data. And the only data we do store on ClassJuggler is of generally no interest to a hacker – names and addresses – which are all available publicly.

If security was ever a concern of yours, we hope the above discussion gives you some peace-of-mind when it comes to security and backup plans.

FREE Webinar Training Series

ClassJuggler offers free online classes to its clients and demo users.

Our Webinar schedule for November is:

Thursday November 10, 10:00am PT:
Paging Buttons – Quick navigation through customer, student, class and instructors.
Tuesday November 29, 2:00pm PT:
Data Management with – Mass Status Change & Inactive Record Manager

If you'd like to attend either of these classes, please email education@classjuggler.com

Customer Support Schedule

Customer Support will be closed for holidays on the following upcoming dates:

Nov 8 - Election Day
Nov 11 - Veteran's Day
Nov 24 & 25 - Thanksgiving
Dec 19 – 23 - Christmas

These dates are also visible on your sign-in screen.

Customer Support is Here for You!

Whether you're a brand new customer or a seasoned client, you may have questions on how to best utilize ClassJuggler for your business. Our Customer Support Specialists are never more than a phone call or email away.

Give us a call at (866) 214-6128 or email support@classjuggler.com. Support hours are Mon–Fri from 8am–5pm PT.

International Clients

Skype chat is available. If you've got questions and would like to speak with someone in person, just email us and we'll arrange a time to connect with you.

We're Listening. We Want to Hear From You

If you have ideas or suggestions for topics in an upcoming newsletter or for a Webinar, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at editor@classjuggler.com.