babbl -
Thanks for the great enhancement ideas - we will definitely logged them.

One suggestion, while the teachers cannot change the FROM name in the email, they can use the subject line to identify their message. Teachers could be instructed to use a specific subject line like "A Message from Your Child's Teacher" or "A Message from Mrs. Smith" so parents can identify the messages.

BJ Burke -
Customer Support

Very good points to this. and thanks for saving us the time on figuring out the problem of what happens when the kids change teachers next year. manually changing 400 kids would just be too time consuming.
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babbl-on;136888 wrote: Hi there!



I've been poking around in the PTO Manager software for a couple of days now. There's a lot of really nice functionality! Please keep in mind that my questions are based on just a few days of looking around, so I understand that the answer might be out there and I haven't found it yet!

I've been tasked with the job of helping to create and maintain school email lists, specific to each teacher, for the upcoming year. I recognize this isn't exactly what the software was created for, but the email addresses are already in there, and it sure would be handy if it were to work. I can see that the teachers can log in and email the parents in their classroom, as they've been entered as volunteers with Volunteer Chair permissions. Is there any way to have an email say that it comes from the the person who is logged in to the system, instead of coming from the default "From" field for our school? There is concern that teacher emails will not get read, because the parents will assume that it is another PTO email and not specific to their child's classroom.

Here's what I would REALLY like to see:
The ability to assign a mailing list to a teacher. For example, in Mrs. Smith's 1st grade class, the name would be customized to something like This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. The teacher could go home to their own private computer and use their own email system to send a message to their class parents, and so could everyone else in the class! Then the next year, when we move the kids to the 2nd grade, their new group mailing list name would be This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Are my dreams very very far-reaching? Is this something that's in there already? If not, is it something you might consider working on in the future?

I'm also wondering about the decision to make the software so reliant on the volunteers. I have so many families in which both of the parents volunteer, and each parent must have a child attached in order to have their classroom assignments be accurate. So we manually enter the child's name in each volunteer record. But at the end of the year, when its time to move the child's classroom, the change has to be done in both parents' records. Is there anyway to link two volunteers to the same child without having to do the data entry manually? This could also be helpful for the directory. With so many families having different names and even addresses from their partners, co-parents, and their children, it would be nice to see contact information for all volunteers associated with the child in one place.

Another request: It would be so great to have a classroom re-assignment screen for the kids, for when they move from one grade to the next! Just one screen that lists all the kids in the system, with drop-downs to assign them all to new classes from one screen, rather than having to click on each of them individually (and each time they have a parent volunteer connected to them).

I think that's it for my long list. I'm happy to clarify if I haven't been very clear. Thanks for your time, and please let me know what you think!!

Hi there!

I've been poking around in the PTO Manager software for a couple of days now. There's a lot of really nice functionality! Please keep in mind that my questions are based on just a few days of looking around, so I understand that the answer might be out there and I haven't found it yet!

I've been tasked with the job of helping to create and maintain school email lists, specific to each teacher, for the upcoming year. I recognize this isn't exactly what the software was created for, but the email addresses are already in there, and it sure would be handy if it were to work. I can see that the teachers can log in and email the parents in their classroom, as they've been entered as volunteers with Volunteer Chair permissions. Is there any way to have an email say that it comes from the the person who is logged in to the system, instead of coming from the default "From" field for our school? There is concern that teacher emails will not get read, because the parents will assume that it is another PTO email and not specific to their child's classroom.

Here's what I would REALLY like to see:
The ability to assign a mailing list to a teacher. For example, in Mrs. Smith's 1st grade class, the name would be customized to something like This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. The teacher could go home to their own private computer and use their own email system to send a message to their class parents, and so could everyone else in the class! Then the next year, when we move the kids to the 2nd grade, their new group mailing list name would be This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Are my dreams very very far-reaching? Is this something that's in there already? If not, is it something you might consider working on in the future?

I'm also wondering about the decision to make the software so reliant on the volunteers. I have so many families in which both of the parents volunteer, and each parent must have a child attached in order to have their classroom assignments be accurate. So we manually enter the child's name in each volunteer record. But at the end of the year, when its time to move the child's classroom, the change has to be done in both parents' records. Is there anyway to link two volunteers to the same child without having to do the data entry manually? This could also be helpful for the directory. With so many families having different names and even addresses from their partners, co-parents, and their children, it would be nice to see contact information for all volunteers associated with the child in one place.

Another request: It would be so great to have a classroom re-assignment screen for the kids, for when they move from one grade to the next! Just one screen that lists all the kids in the system, with drop-downs to assign them all to new classes from one screen, rather than having to click on each of them individually (and each time they have a parent volunteer connected to them).

I think that's it for my long list. I'm happy to clarify if I haven't been very clear. Thanks for your time, and please let me know what you think!!