The original agreement between Kindermusik and SimplySignUp expires in July, but YourVirtuoso will continue to be available, supported and enhanced. The team at SimplySignUp (SSU) is happy to be taking over full responsibility for supporting the service which they defined, designed, and manage today.
Who is SSU?
SSU was formed in 2004 by Gerry Cobley and a Raleigh NC based software design company to address the need for a web-based application serving music studios, dance studios, etc.
Gerry's 15 years administering Julia's large (top 1% Maestro) Kindermusik studio provided the detailed knowledge which, along with with his MBA, business experience with Gartner and his partners' business application and web design expertise combined to create the critical mass needed to develop YourVirtuoso.
SSU has no other investors, and developed YV without any outside funding (not even from KI).
Why is the Agreement Expiring?
SSU and KI hoped that YourVirtuoso would eventually benefit virtually all Kindermusik educators. For this reason, KI elected to make it mandatory for new licensees. What we (SSU) have learned is that there are a very large number of educators who have such small enrollment (10 or 20 students) and no burning desire to grow, that even the $14.95 and the couple of hours to set YV up were beyond their needs. KI plans to address this with their new Class locator based system, and while we provided a proposal to have this interwork with YV and use existing YV capabilities, KI have elected to build it on their own.
What is changing in July?
As a subscriber to YV, very little will change about the service itself. The service has always been owned and managed by SimplySignUp (SSU) and in July the only significant change we expect will be that SSU will take over customer support from KI. The end-user license agreement you accepted when you registered for YV was between you and SSU and is not affected (though we may clarify your full ownership of your data, and ask you to affirm that you are a licensed KM educator who can use the KI logos in your website).
What About the Future of YV?
From the SSU perspective, we are a small but viable corporation focussed on providing a fully integrated, fully featured suite of studio administration and internet marketing tools. This remains our vision, and we have no intention to pull the plug on YourVirtuoso.
We have no plans to increase the subscription price for YV, including YV 2.0 at this time.
KI has no desire to deny you access to KI curriculum information, and we will put a process in place to promptly update curriculum information when necessary.
We will, however, be free to add features based on your needs, not constrained by KI's priorities, and we will putting a process in place to capture your priorities.
We cannot speak to the specifics of which YV features will and wont be duplicated by KI on Kindermusik.com, but our expectation is that educators with significant enrollment, non- Kindermusik curricula, reporting and tracking needs, or concerns over KI ownership of their customer data will find YV the best, if not the only, option. Only time will tell, so we recommend you wait and see.
Should I Let Kindermusik Have an Archive of my Data?
Here are a few facts and one opinion for you to consider:
... and the opinion... Your customer list is the crown jewel of your business. Be very careful how you share it. My advice is not to share it at all - whenever KI sends an email (like Tune In) to your prospects, selling old DRMY inventory for example, with no mention of kindermusik classes, it devalues the Kindermusik brand from the educational values you have spent years promoting. ...end of opinion...
We cannot speak to the specifics of which YV features will and wont be duplicated by KI on Kindermusik.com, but our expectation is that educators with significant enrollment, non- Kindermusik curricula, reporting and tracking needs, or concerns over KI ownership of their customer data will find YV the best, if not the only, option. Only time will tell, so we recommend you wait and see.
Should I Let Kindermusik Have an Archive of my Data?
Here are a few facts and one opinion for you to consider:
- SSU uses a professional, secure hosting company and data is backed up by us every 30 minutes, and transferred to tapes for offsite storage every day.
- In YV 2.0 you can create complete reports for customers and prospects, and export those to "CSV" files which can be stored on your computer and read by excel, word etc.
- SSU has not been informed of how the data would be used by Kindermusik
... and the opinion... Your customer list is the crown jewel of your business. Be very careful how you share it. My advice is not to share it at all - whenever KI sends an email (like Tune In) to your prospects, selling old DRMY inventory for example, with no mention of kindermusik classes, it devalues the Kindermusik brand from the educational values you have spent years promoting. ...end of opinion...
SSU is committed to supporting you, and protecting your valuable customer data.
19 comments:
My biggest concern with using YV has been that it was rather misleading to offer the advanced package for studios offering other classes besides KM, but then not being able to customize it to use it for private lesson scheduling and billing without spending at least 15-20 hours each month adding time slots and setting up enrollment. We have 200+ private students, and only 20 KM students, and had hoped that YV would be something we could count on for the private lessons. It sounds like this might be in the works for the near future, and I'd like some information about those plans.
I sent some specific tech support requests about a year ago with details of this specific situation and what I'd need the program to do, if we were to set up such a system, but after a few messages back and forth, the conversation died. I'd like to re-open it, though. :)
http://harmonymusicstudio.kindermusik.net is the YV site.
Tabby, Sorry that that aspect of YV did not meet your expectations. The custom curricula in the advanced package certainly work best for session-based group classes.
There are a couple of techniques that could make it easier. They may or may not apply to your studio:
1) You can set up a special session for online enrollment which only charges for 1 month, but then transfer students into a simple, non-published session which could last all year, and automatically charge each month.
2) You could simplify the way classes are presented by just having one large class, or one per teacher, or one per day etc. and manage the exact schedule outside YV, but let YV handle payments.
3) YV's new session cloning feature would allow you to recreate private classes quickly from month to month if you need to have each time slot as a separate class. It would not automatically enroll the same student however.
Having said that, there are certainly some things that would make private classes easier in YV, and we need to prioritize them:
1) Ongoing sessions - no start or end - students come and go.
2) Prices shown on a monthly basis
3) Calculation of charges for prorated starts and ends as students come and go.
4) Easy set up of multiple (private) classes with same settings, just different times.
Anything else?
I would love to tell you when we will do these things, but we really want to get some feedback from everyone before setting priorities, so I will have to hold off until we have done that. You are not the only person interested in private classes though - it would be a great addition to YV.
Thanks for the feedback.
One of the things that I would like to see is more user control over what is charged when, instead of just "prorated tuition throughout the semester"... i.e. I'd like to be able to specify what needs to be paid when, and if there's a way to do that now, I haven't figured it out.
I really like YV and having the website and online payments. My concern is that I have reported a "issue" at least a month ago, and have not heard anything back to resolve the problem. Secondly, I wish there were more look and feel options and ways to remove some of the "stock" photos. lastly, I wish there was a way to use the rich editor and actually have it work on the site. Each time I try to bold or change fonts or colors, it shows up on the dialog box, but not the actual site. Thanks for listening.
Amy Reinert
I agree with what Amy said about the look and feel, too. It would be marvelous to be able to integrate the YV interface with my existing studio's website, instead of having it look completely different.
Big ditto to limited look and feel options. I have had a lot of success with YV, but it is discouraguing to see other programs in the immediate geographic area with the identical website look.
I agree. It really takes away from the individuality of the studio. I even thought about trying to decipher the database programming stuff so I could write my own site that pulled data from YV, but I got out of the IT field for a reason, and don't want to jump back into it. Gerry, is it feasable to work on something kind of like what blogger does, where there are generic PHP codes for different fields and you could insert them into your HTML page however you want them?
My concern is that I am a multi-faceted albeit small studio. I hope to grow. I teach private lessons, group lessons, Kindermusik classes, and Music Apprciation classes through a local charter school and homeschool groups. I need what YV offers for semester classes. I also need what Music Teachers Helper offers for private lessons, and I could definitely also use what Constant Contact does, but there is no way I can pay a combined $120 a month (including my phone bill as well.) Help, to anyone out there including Gerry. Is there something that already exists? Or can you combine it all into YV? I would love to know.
I agree with the look and feel of the website as well. Cost aside, I don't want to manage three websites (free or not) that have no connection with each other and make it seem that I am three different entities. Some customization or at least general music options.
Emily,
I'm looking into this service:
http://www.studiohelper.com/
I've done a lot of research on this topic, trying to find programs that can manage the entire studio (classes by semester, lessons recurring ad infinitum but billed monthly, online registration, schedule management, etc... I mean, we have 9 teachers for crying out loud! what a nightmare to schedule over 150 individual private students for!) and from what I've seen, this does the best job, and it can either have its' own site hosted by them or be integrated into your existing site. They also have an "individual teacher" equivalent for studios without multiple faculty.
I apologize, Gerry, if this seems like I'm pushing people away from YV, because that's not my intent. If YV could give us all the things we need in a timely fashion, I'm sure most of us would stay with what we know versus having to learn and set up and entirely new system - but it might be more work than it's worth to sort of re-invent the wheel here... I don't know.
Tabby
Thanks for all the feedback. The good news is that in July we will have more freedom to adapt YV to non-Kindermusik curricula.
There are a few things we expect to do very quickly, including more look and feel options to let you differentiate your website, and some more graphically attractive email templates so that you have a mailing system similar to constant contact built in to YV at no extra charge.
Tabby's question about integrating YV with an existing website is an interesting one. Most systems just let you insert a class list or registration form into your website, which is something we could potentially do. We had thought of another option, which is to host your existing website for you, and have one of our designers integrate ALL the dynamic parts of YV with it - classes, locations, policies, teachers etc. This would probably cost several hundred dollars to set up, so it may not be for everyone - any thoughts?
The payment plans do allow things like "deposit plus monthly payments", so I would love to hear what extra control you want over payment scheduling. For those that have difficulty with this area, there is a "How To..." document about pricing plans.
Again, thanks for the feedback.
Gerry
I agree that I'd like more choices in the look and feel. I am also curious about how this will jibe with the new Kindermusik site look and feel, and if they are planning on offering us websites that match theirs. they have been surprisingly silent on the issue, which makes me a bit upset. I am a new instructor and this service is all I know, but now that I can give CC refuds, I really think it works pretty well. But their new look is hipper and bright; I am sick of the pale lavender...
Thanks,
Gerry,
I LOVE the idea of a more "constant contact" like messaging system. I really like how we can now see who has read the emails I send from YV. I would however, like to be able to edit the emails that come up when I use the query. If I choose the class, session, etc....then want to exclude someone, I want to be able to edit that right in the window that pops up to show you who you are sending the message to. I hope this makes sense!
Amy
So, how do I cancel my subscription to YV so that I'm not paying for it anymore since I don't really use it?
You can now cancel by sending an email to support@simplysignup.com.
If you have any feedback for us it would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Gerry
I have liked using YV. I think it has worked for my families and I think it will help me more if I could learn to use the reports and marketing sections, more.
Here are some things that need
to be addressed:
1. timing of reporting issues and timing of response on issues.
2. Please let us use our own pictures and be able to change the pictures on the home page of the public site! (We could offer a disclaimer to parents saying that we use kids' pictures on our website from time to time and to let us know if they do not want their child's picture used! This disclaimer could go in class policies that they read online. See #5.) Dreaming Big here: Could we upload video of our classes or videos we make of our class pictures?
3. Please let us change the wording on the home page of the public site. Its hard to know where to click to change it and I haven't been able to figure it out.
4. Ease of scheduling private lessons. This would help me and my families!
5.Can you find a way to include a download-able document link that parents could download with my class schedule and policies to read BEFORE they pay?!
6. Could there be a way to put my newsletters on the site?
7. Sometimes YV wants to charge for both the regular home kit and the sibling kit to the same account. Could you fix this? Or what would be the problem?
8.Can you make it easier to put in the criteria for discounts and for the computer program to calculate them. So many days before is not working. It should be from date 1 to date 2, e.g. Sept. 1 to Sept. 10 , apply the discount, stop applying after Sept.10, 11:59 p.m.
Thanks so much for this service and all the hard work that goes into it!
Since Kindermusik International is not our contact for Your Virtuoso, I think it would be helpful for Simply Sign Up tp provide and email/phone contact for questions and concerns. I have 2 questions that need immidiate attention:
1) I need to change the curriculum for all of my Fall 2008 classes. They are already active and I have enrollments in them, so the system is not allowing me to change the curricula. I tried deactivating the class and then changing it, but that did not work either. I do not want to loose any information from the students that are already enrolled. Please tell me how to change the cirricula.
2) I am changing my company name and I need to change my website address. I cannot find anything on YV that allows me to do this. Please give further instruction's, I need this done ASAP.
Thank you!
After reading these comments, I feel compelled to add an exclamation point to some. There was mention, more than once, that the response time for reporting issues was rather slow. I emailed my issue about my group emails not being delivered..on Oct. 13, since the ones I ordered on the 9th are still in queue. On the 16th I received an email from SSU to respond to this email so they could go on and escalate this problem. What is the purpose of this? Once it is reported, shouldn't it be acted upon? I responded, and here it is Oct. 17 and there sit over 125 group emails sitting in queue, with no response from SSU. Now the emails just show a dash line across the board, with no digits. The other problem that should be looked at is the number of issues that are reported and the resolving (?) of them. The numbers show in many catagories, reported, escalated, under consideration, etc. It might be better to show just 2 catagories: issues reported, and issues resolved. If the two don't match up, there is a PROBLEM.
Another issue that I have, while I am in my frustration mood, is that when I order the weekly curriculum templates, some are out-dated (no more journals in VIL), among other statements, I try to replace it with other phrases, and the punctuation marks appear, showing jibberish. I am sure that has to do with the coding tags, or something about technology, but, I would like to be able to change these with ease, not re-do it, after I see it printed out in the final stage. I certainly hope my issues can be resolved SOON, once these emails go out, that were ordered over a week ago, (that say..things we did in class TODAY), I will look very foolish.
I also told Gerry about 5 weeks ago that the contact number needs to be put on the homepage of YV to resolve issues. Still today, Oct. 17, the sign-in page has the KMadministration email address, (which is returned to the sender). Please smooth these issues!
Thanks,
With this migration of Your Virtuoso off the Kindermusik.net, are we going to have to purchase our own web hosting package along with a new domian, AND still pay the monthly fee?
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