Selecting school mobile app features

Integration might be the most important feature of all because it enables you to provide targeted information to your parents, students, faculty and staff. Your school staff should have the ability to send info that’s specific to various audience segments (e.g., a school-by-school basis, grade-level, etc.) so that the info the recipients get applies to them.

Integration can also make it easy for you to manage how information is shared and how tightly it is tied into your other channels – such as your school website. If done correctly, such website-mobile app integration can keep you from managing information from multiple fronts, or having duplicate information.

(NOTE: Your website pages should be easily accessible from the mobile app. With a website featuring responsive design (adjusts nicely to any device), your users can stay within the mobile app to find what they are seeking. A good school mobile app will allow the user to access any page on the website through a mobile device.)

Rather than having to always go to your school’s calendar of events and sort through the schools, a mobile app with a good calendar feature enables your users to sync their own personal calendar with your school calendar.

Imagine if you had several schools and a district site, and you two of your children were in one of the elementary schools. You don’t want to force your visitors to sift through all the schools and their respective events to find the info about your kids’ school.

When comparing mobile apps, make sure the calendar feature is user friendly. Simple things like big buttons and showing the correct calendars can be very important. Also make sure it resembles in both looks and function the native calendar on your mobile device – simple, touch-friendly and easy to navigate. Your school mobile app calendar should provide an easy way for someone to click a button on an event and add it to the calendar. 

Push notification should be used when timely info is required to be shared. In some cases, it will be a district-wide or school-wide message that is being sent. Other times, it may only pertain explicitly to the person getting the info. 

People want apps that keep them engaged with relevant information. Push settings need to be predetermined based on an app login or the ability for the parent or student to adjust their settings. This setup needs to be intuitive for the user, and it is important to communicate this when downloading and installing.

When sending notifications, you need the ability to segment your messages. Depending on your school or district, you can empower various people to send push notifications. Some systems even have the luxury of workflows and approval processes to ensure no rogue messages are pushed out to your school community.

Promoting your school through words, pictures and videos is so important these days, and your mobile app should be set up to accommodate that.

Schools are embracing social media and using it to engage their school families and the community at large. While a majority of people have dedicated social media mobile apps on their phones, the benefit of a mobile app is to make it easier for users to access these accounts.

An important factor for a mobile app is its ability to recognize your type of phone and directly link to the actual social media app. (Many mobile apps will launch a browser instead of the mobile app.)

In a perfect world, you can promote your message from a single spot and it will be shared across channels. For example, imagine you need volunteers for a school carnival. You create a page on your website, broadcast a message, and everything can also be available on your mobile app. You can even include a form for parents to fill out directly on the mobile app.

Photos and videos are great ways to spread the word for engagement. Video consumption on mobile devices is way up and will continue to soar. If photos and videos are or will be part of your school’s communication, make sure they work on your mobile app.

Like the calendar, a school directory is a very popular spot for you visitors, and yours should allow you to quickly search for an individual and click a phone number or an email button to automatically reach that person. (Again, with targeted content integration, the contacts that are relevant to the specific mobile app user will appear, rather than unrelated faculty and staff.)

Your directory should be easy for not only your parents and others searching for contact info, but for the content managers. Contact information should pull from your school’s centralized data. When faculty or staff contact info changes, many apps require you to upload a CSV file. Look for an app that integrates the directory with your school system to avoid that hassle and keep your data up to date and accurate.

One of the most frequently accessed areas of a website is the forms section. These important forms should also be readily accessible for your mobile app users as well.

Permission forms for field trips, transportation, model release, opt-ins, and opt-outs are convenient when they can be found with just a few clicks on a school mobile app. 

There are two major categories of permission slips: blanket and informed consent, with the former providing more protection for the school and teachers. Be sure to contact your school attorney when making your forms and making them available on your school mobile app.