Dec 8, 20216 min read

Child Care Seer Release Spotlight - December 8, 2021

Child Care Seer® Family Connection now available!!!!

After months of development, quality review, and a highly successful debut in our test centers, Child Care Seer® is proud to offer Family Connection to all of our customers! What is Family Connection? It’s the Seer solution to keeping your parents informed and engaged.

Just like everything else in Seer, we’ve designed Family Connection for daycare owners and directors by listening to and incorporating suggestions and feedback from daycare owners and directors. In this case, we’ve also made sure your families will love using Family Connection to receive updates from your center throughout the day. Read on for details about all of the newly released features and learn how Seer will help you to stay connected with your families!

Inbox Messaging

Your Daycare Inbox will help you to keep track of all communications between your daycare and your families. Whether you send a message to one parent or an announcement to all, you will find the Seer Inbox intuitive and easy to use. We make sure you never miss an incoming message or forget to respond to a conversation. Send a message whenever you like, whether or not the child is currently in your center.

To get started, just click on the messaging icon on the top of your Dashboard!

Parents can easily access their Child Care Seer Inbox via Parent Portal on their mobile phone, or by simply

following the link when notified of a new message via email or the Seer app.

We include Inbox Messaging with all Child Care Seer subscription levels.

Child Care Seer App

Your parents can stay connected throughout the day when they download the new Child Care Seer app on their mobile phone! Whenever your teachers add an entry to the Daily Journal, parents automatically receive a pop-up notification and a link to view what’s happening in their child’s day. Whether Mom wants to know when her child eats lunch or Dad wants to make sure that Aunt Jane picks up his son on time, Child Care Seer offers peace of mind throughout the day that they’ve made the right decision in choosing your center for care.

Daily Journal

At the end of the day, your parents will love the Daily Journal powered by Seer’s Family Connection. Shortly after checkout, Seer automatically sends a link to view the child’s day in full, including activities, pictures, meals and more! Parents don’t need to have a Seer account to follow the link, so they are free to share as they wish. However, they will need access to the Parent Portal to view previous reports and also to watch their child’s progress as the journal is updated throughout the day.

Easy to Add and Edit Journal Entries

At Child Care Seer, we want your staff to have eyes up paying attention and not eyes down on the device. We’ve designed our classroom interface with this in mind!

Large, intuitive avatars and icons let your teachers add a Family Connection entry to a child’s journal with a few simple clicks. Every entry, from the first health check to the final activity, has most-often-used items available with one touch and pre-planned selections ready to add. Adding a photo or a comment is also easily done with a simple touch. We even support speech-to-text on your device for those moments when a longer comment is needed. Seer lets you add an entry to one child or many, saving you time and typing!

Awaiting Release...

In your current parent engagement app, did you ever find a photo in a daily report that you wish had never been sent to parents, but now it’s too late? Child Care Seer is excited to introduce Awaiting Release to your Dashboard! As director, you get to decide how and when an entry is released to the child’s Daily Journal. Maybe you want to review every entry? Maybe you want to release entries automatically after 15 minutes? No matter what you choose, Seer puts you in control of the information leaving your center!

Food and Activity Planners

When your kitchen manager adds the weekly menu to the schedule in Seer, adding a food entry for a child becomes easier than eating! Quickly select how much of each item the child ate, snap a quick photo if you like, and the entry is ready to add to the Daily Journal.

Scheduling activities in advance also makes them much easier for staff to execute in the classroom. The planner includes a spot for your curriculum manager to add Daily Journal details as well as a place to include internal teacher notes or instructions. When adding an activity entry for a child, staff can use the information already provided, customize if needed, snap a quick picture and they’re done. It’s just that easy. We’ll even let the teacher add an entry for several children all at once, because we know they have plenty of other things to do!

Classroom Devices

Did you already purchase tablets to use as classroom devices with your previous parent engagement app? Great news: You don’t have to buy new ones to use Family Connection! With Child Care Seer, you can use any web-enabled device to run a classroom, even your mobile phone. As with our main platform, Seer allows unlimited staff and students in a class, because we want to help you run your center, not place limits on your existing policy.

Class devices are easy for staff to authorize right from the kiosk when they check-in, or authorize a device from the dashboard by simply clicking

the icon. You can also add or edit an entry anytime you need to with full access right from your computer.

Class devices also allow staff to start and stop classroom events in real-time, including: naptimes, trips to the playground, and even classroom merging at the beginning and end of the day. Devices also allow teachers and children to join and leave classes throughout the day and even move to another location in your building quickly and easily. As always, Seer lets you schedule these important transitions and keep track of where everyone is at all times in your center in real-time from the Dashboard view.

Other Features in Family Connection...

Class Notebook

We know sharing information during a staff transition can be hurried and sometimes important information is missed in the process. To ease transitions and help ensure everyone is aware of key instructions, updates, and observations, Child Care Seer is happy to introduce the Class Notebook. You can put your sticky notes back in the drawer, because the Class Notebook will let you add and store notes from an active class device or from the desktop classroom view.

Whether it’s a note about a child needing extra care for today or a memo about avoiding the mud on the playground, Seer now has a place to add and view these important details for your staff. Take more time to say hello to those coming on shift or give well wishes to those leaving for the day, and let the Class Notebook help make transitions smooth.

Upcoming View

Now included on every class device, the Upcoming tab will let your staff know what to expect throughout the day. We’ll show you when children and staff are scheduled to arrive and leave, as well as planned events for the class. To start or end an event, just touch the button. To admit a child to your class, just touch the button. Did you accidentally click the wrong button? That’s okay, we understand how active your classroom can be, so we’ll give you time to undo the action before Seer actually records it.

Other Updates You'll Notice in Child Care Seer...

Authorize a Kiosk on the Dashboard

Now you can authorize all devices, including kiosks, right from your dashboard! For classroom devices, click the device icon next to the class name. For kiosks, click the device icon in the Scheduled row. Just as before, you can authorize any device via QR code or password. Simply click the same icon to disconnect a device at any time.

Class Page Filter and Roster Updates

We’ve added a filter to the Class detail page to allow you to view the information you want to see. View all children planned for today, all children assigned to this home class, all children currently in the class, and more! Download a roster for children in the viewer at any time, now including child birthdates and contact information for all related adults.

Tool Tips on Dashboard Warnings

Do you have a pink or yellow warning on your dashboard, but you’re not sure why? We’ve made it easier to find out! Simply hover your mouse over the information icon in the highlighted area, and Seer will let you know the details.

Owed is Clickable on the Dashboard

Have you ever seen the Owed tile on your Dashboard header? If so, you’ve probably contacted Customer Success to help you figure out which child account is owed money. With this release, you can click on the Owed tile to see which account is affected without ever leaving your Dashboard!

Deactivation Changes

When you deactivate a child who has aged out or left your center, Child Care Seer will now deactivate associated adults that do not have another child connection in Seer. Did you deactivate too soon? That’s okay, just re-activate the child and the adults will come back, too!

Happenings

Because we’ve added class activities and an activities planner, we’ve renamed check-in, check-out, and class join activities to “happenings.” All menus and reports remain as previous, just a wording change to avoid confusion moving forward.