Planning 2012-2013 Routes

Here are some of the steps that may need to be done to your Bustops data once a roll over has been done in Bustops or an import of students with their next years grades from your student administration system is completed:

• reassign students who will move to a new building to stops for that school
• import or enter new kindergarteners
• adjust routes for new students and remove stops without students
• notify parents - through newspaper postings, letters or post cards
• print new route packages for drivers - routes with riders, driving directions, route maps

You may want to consider the timing of doing your upgrade.  If your kindergarten registration is in April you may want to wait to begin until after the new students are entered and the students grade rolled over in your student admin system, them import the info into BUSTOPS. 

Call for help with any of the steps as you need it or to discuss importing student data. Also, BUSTOPS can be used to create and customize all of the reports/posting information noted above.

Check to make sure Eligibility Coding/Placement Lines are setup for your SD if you have a lot of students who switch schools each year -- this can cut down on the work needing to be done each spring.

Time is quickly flying by - don't wait until the last minute to start planning.

Support Notice

Just to let everyone know, our office will be closed on Monday, February 20th, 2012 for President's Day.

If you have an urgent BUSTOPS support issue, please e-mail ystrange@bustops.com and someone will return your call.

Have a great long weekend!

Happy New Year!

Well, Happy New Year everyone!  I hope that 2012 will be a good year for everyone.

I wanted to remind everyone, if you are planning on doing any major changes to your routing for the 2012-2013 school year - closing buildings, opening buildings, moving to grade centers, moving from double to single routes or vice-versa, or just want to see if your routes are as efficient as they could be - now is the time to start doing scenarios... if you haven't already started in the fall.

Even if you aren't making major changes, if you want to get a jump start on getting your information updated for the upcoming school year, call the office and book a GoToMeeting appointment for the support staff to make a copy of your data and upgrade it.

If you're unsure if you should start planning now or wait for a bit, call us and we'll discuss your situation and help you decide how to proceed.

Enjoy the last half of January!

Holiday Office Closing

MicroAnalytics' offices will be closed from Thursday, December 22nd, 2011 at 4:00 pm and will reopen on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012 at 8:30 am.  If you have any questions or concerns, please call 416-691-1222.  In case of emergency during the closing, please e-mail maryb@bustops.com.

The staff of MicroAnalytics, and my family and myself

wish you and your family 

A Happy Holiday Season!

Automating Assigning Students

If you have more than a few hundred students who change schools each summer when you do your upgrade in Bustops and do not have Eligibility Coding setup in your data, you should consider having us help you do this.

The steps are:

• draw in school attendance and walk boundaries
• draw in group stop areas
• code to the streets in each area, the school of attendance for the roads, grades at that school and the type of transportation students get from the street to that school

Once this is complete, when you assign students to their stops, Bustops will automatically designate the students' stop type, and retain the information of which stop the students on the street should get assigned to.

Having this information setup in Bustops can greatly decrease the number of students you need to individually assign or reassign to stops each summer.

To discuss how this would work for your school district and setup a GoToMeeting appointment give the office a call.

Have a great week!

Pondering New Webinar Series

I've been trying to think of new Webinar Topics we could do, and was reviewing our Tutorial and old Training Class documentation.

I am thinking of doing a 6 week Webinar Series - "A Routing Problem".  The series would take us through the steps needed to see the impact of opening a new school on routes. 

Each Monday participants will receive an e-mail with information for you to read and ponder.  Then, the Wednesday of that week we would have a Conference Call/Webinar to discuss participants ideas regarding the information received Monday, what additional information is needed and what steps would be taken in Bustops to see the effects of the information at hand at that time.

Webinars would be expected to last 30-45 minutes.  This will be of most benefit to experienced Bustops users and any School Districts who may redistrict.

Let me know what you think - add a comment to the blog or e-mail support@bustops.com to express your interest.  Webinar sizes will be restricted to 10 customers.

I'm really excited about this idea and hope you are too!

Support Notice

In observation of Thanksgiving, our office will be closed on Thursday, November 24th and Friday, November 25th.

The office will reopen at 8:00 am EST on Monday, November 28th.

Happy Thanksgiving!