This week, we focused on reducing friction to help you work more efficiently. Our biggest update will save you tons of time getting families onto Playground. Plus, we rolled out several improvements and fixes across the board 👀

Top release: SMS sign up

Getting families used to change can be challenging, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve added support for SMS sign-up links, making it simple to get guardians started using Playground.

General improvements

• When selecting a drop-in schedule, you can now view a student’s existing schedule 

• Added loading and empty states to family calendar on web

• Improved unpublished listing landing pages

• Added additional loading states for text updates to indicate when changes are in progress

Payroll improvements

• Avoid costly payroll mistakes with our new ‘active staff’ filter to ensure you’re paying the right people

• No need to run separate payroll reports anymore—select multiple staff at once and run reports simultaneously

CRM improvements

• Lead forms are easier to use and simpler to navigate

• Exporting lead forms now downloads all data from the form to ensure accuracy

• Got a lead stuck in a workflow they shouldn't be in? Now you can unenroll leads from automations!

• Know exactly what stage a lead is in with new fields for ‘created date’ and ‘last activity date’

• Import lead data from more sources

• Easily update lead fields after a student is transitioned to enrolled

• Want to take notes while you’re on a call? You can now easily minimize the call screen

• More fields, more accuracy! Site selection for multi-sites is now an available form option for leads

• Customize your automations even further—you can now select a sender email and phone number rather than rely on a default option

• Assign roles and permissions for different parts of CRM and for CRM as a whole

Fixes

✅ Users who experienced issues linking Plaid to their expenses will now see a resolution
✅ A broken popup when selecting video vs. photo on Android has been fixed

This week was all about polishing, polishing, and more polishing! We made it significantly easier to download student assessment data & adding in milestone information. Additionally, we significantly improved performance and speed across the board on the dashboard. We added 5 paperwork improvements in addition to 11 other improvements.

Releases

• Assessments upgrades — Download student assessment data & add in milestone information easier

• Web speed upgrades — Everything on Playground should be faster, sometimes by 10x or more

Improvements

• Paperwork is now much simpler to share

• Paperwork will now automatically generate a new PDF if an old one did not generate

• Filling out paperwork on mobile is now easier with larger input fields

• Navigation when editing paperwork is much simpler

• Added a “signed by” toggle for paperwork to add the name of the person who signed directly below

• Added the ability to expedite first payouts

• Student absence modal is now a lot simpler to create partial day, full day, or multi day absences

• Running payroll is significantly faster, especially if you have over 15 staff on a pay period

• It is now a lot faster to edit staff hours in bulk while running a payroll

• Able to print staff schedules in bulk from the schedules page

• Added total hours column for student attendance

• Improved CACFP reporting

• CRM: Automations now have exit criteria. Set up conditions for a lead to drop out of an automation using goals

• CRM: Loading pages now show spinners instead of flashing empty states

• CRM: When adding a new phone number, you can now select specific area codes / states to select from

• CRM: Can now edit template names

Fixes

• Booking drop-in care in timezones outside the school’s timezone now works

• Fixed exporting enrollment data when questions had commas in them

This week the calendar got a fresh coat of paint & a boost of extra functionality! Additionally, we launched automated event booking reminders & follow ups to free up your time. We also released the ability to create audiences in the CRM based on customizable filters.

Releases

• Calendar refresh — More granular schedule settings, cleaner interface, faster, and add colors to events!

• CRM: Event booking followups — automate text / email follow ups before or after tour bookings and other events

• CRM: Adjustable lead fields — select which fields are shown by default and which are hidden on lead profile to find information quicker

• CRM: Audiences — create saved views with different filters for your leads

Improvements

• Support for additional exports from other software

• Added author to name to face report

• Add more meal info to food program reports

• Added report to show program enrollment

• Deactivated staff can now see their old paystubs and paperwork

• Added GL codes to drop-in care

• Student attendance now has download buttons and date filters

• Emails now send out much faster after pressing send

• Staff can now filter hours based on selected dates on mobile app

• Editing posts now allows adjusting attachments and can be done inline

• Select all staff as a calendar recipient

• CRM: Form creation now has placeholders for all inputs

• CRM: Delete students/guardians individually

• CRM: Lead created date now visible on kanban

• CRM: Add assigned sites for lead forms

Fixes

• Staff hours will now show a loading spinner before data is pulled instead of empty

• Fixed sorting on immunization reports

• Able to preview unpublished listings

• “Add another” now says “student” or “guardian” as appropriate

• Fixed issue uploading large amounts of data at once to state website

Today we launched a widely requested feature — partial day absences for students! This gives you the flexibility to account for midday absences. And, yes, this will be coming out for staff in the near future as well. In addition, we revamped CRM forms to enable the addition of multiple students and guardians on one form submission.

Releases

• Student partial day absences — mark students as absent for specific times of the day instead of the entire day

• Run Payroll Overhaul — running payroll now includes much more info, easier editing, and gives more flexibility on adjustments

• Userflows — Press “Show tour” on many pages to get a guided walkthrough on how features work

• CRM: Forms now allow multiple guardians and students

Improvements

• Invoices now generate more quickly

• Student payments screen now loads 3-4x faster for students with many payments

• Emails now send much more quickly

• Improved the ordering of templated fields on forms

• Adjustable bank accounts are now live for all payroll flows

• Able to copy resources over when duplicating centers

• Staff are sorted by last name then first name by default

• Chat translations now show flags to help with selection

• Improved enterprise payouts loading screen

• CRM: Able to book tours on behalf of families

• CRM: Can now click into leads from the form submission page

Fixes

• Fixed dropdowns not being selectable for dinner food items

• Schedules are now automatically deleted when staff/students are deleted

• Fixed program reordering on enrollment

• Emergency contact forms now support 10+ guardians

• Fixed food program searching uppercase vs lowercase letters

• CRM: Removed Intercom chat from tour booking screens

• CRM: Automations are no longer automatically marked live on save