We use Google Docs AND facultyfunds.com. Google Docs if we just need to collect data. Then we use faculty fund$ to collect money from our parents etc. They also provide excels/PDFs with info and records of who has paid, student info etc! We use it for almost everything (our dues, sports, activities, fundraisers) so I only have to use google docs a few times.
I'm a software developer. I developed a directory solution for my daughter's district. In it, families (or households) are a type of group, and parents (or, more generally, guardians) and students are types of group members. Each student or parent may be a member of as many family groups (households) as needed.
I believe it can model most real-world situations in a fairly straight-forward manner, though not all situations lend themselves to self-entry.
It can be used purely for data entry, or as a live directory. Parents control what information can be published online or exported for a printed directory per family or individual.
It also offers online marketplaces (spirit wear, lunches, wish lists, etc.), and I am working on additional features.
Please contact me if you would like more information.
PS - As a developer, I would love to hear directly from organizations about what features they want most out of their web sites.
We went the old fashion way by sending out a flyer - we were AMAZED with the response. Now we are trying www.parentteacher.net
web program that is working out awesome for us - - but we're on'y on day 2 of the 60 day free trial. ONce we gathered all the volunteer information onto an excel spread sheet, we uploaded it to this site. It then creates a directory for you. Also you can list what each member like to volunteer with and with a click of a button you can send an email to everyone that was willing to lets say volunteer for a book fair. Too hard and too much to explain - check it out.
Hi, try www.formspring.com. They let you specify conditional fields based on answers to previous questions. That may help with the many cases you're trying to address. It then dumps allthw collected data into a spreadsheet. Good luck.
Jewel - wow, I know exactly what you mean. Our community is very diverse, so we have lots of cultures plus all the versions of families (divorced, different names, two same-sex parents, special characters, complex names, step parents).
I want to be respectful of everyone's preferences, but it gets REALLY hard to figure out a way to record all the combinations. We especially see this on our swim team where we truly deal with every parent as well as child.
The divorced/blended families are often the most difficult because some are still battling each other and there's already lots of tension.
For swim team, we use a database all the local teams use, so do have to limit ourselves to what it will collect. That's actually been a blessing. We did change the labels from "Mother" and "Father" to "Adult 1" and "Adult 2". But we pretty much require two (and only two) adult names.
For directory, I think there's a point where you say - "This is the format. Here are the fields. This is all the space we have."
It does depend on the style you are using. Last one I did was sort of a grid/table with one line per child. So there was no room for extra info. The one from middle school was more of block address merged into 3 or 4 columns. So one person's info might be 5 lines, another could be 4 or 6.
I'd be interested in a form that could load into a spreadsheet to compile the data for a directory also. It would take some doing to accomodate/capture various parental situations:
* One single parents
* Two single parents in same residence
* Two single parents in different residences
* One single and one married couple, different residences
* Two married couples, different residences
Then, allowing fields to input each parental residence and fields that would capture various last name combinations. Divorced parents usually don't want to be listed as though they are married and living in the same residence. And, if they've remarried, they want their spouses to be included as a parent for that child. It can get hairy.
