Online school registration complements your SIS to fill critical gaps and make everyday tasks easier—empowering both your staff and families.
Administrators and staff are the backbone of schools. Every day you manage a seemingly endless series of tasks to ensure an environment where students can thrive, and having the right combination of tools is crucial to your school’s success. That’s why Student Information Systems (SIS) have become a vital component of every administrator and staff’s toolbox.
But even with a school management system, many schools still find they are stuck in ruts of inefficiency and less-than-productive processes that cause a lot of stress. That’s why Arbiter has stepped in to fill the gaps where SIS fall short. Once you identify the real issues, you can find the right solution: online school registration. And the right solution changes everything.
What is a Student Information System?
SIS has become a modern-day school requirement. An SIS stores student files in digital form and supports the flow of information from individual schools to districts and states, nullifying paper records. Some of the most popular school management platforms include PowerSchool, Infinite Campus, and Skyward.
Top Strengths of SIS:
- Student Record Management
- Attendance Tracking
- Grades, Report Cards, Transcripts
- Compliance Reporting
The Limitations of SIS
Schools process massive amounts of information on a daily basis. Summer camps, AP tests, field trips, dances, clubs, extracurricular activities – all of these require more customized registrations than SIS offers. Arbiter Registration was designed for schools as an easy-to-use tool for these more complex, department-specific tasks.
While an SIS is invaluable for managing core student data like enrollment and reporting, the limitations often include:
- Inflexible Registrations
- Limited Field Customization
- Rigid Form Generation
- Costly Modifications
With SIS as your only tool, administrators and staff are relegated to complicated workarounds usually involving a mess of multiple spreadsheets across disparate systems and masses of emails, or worse – handling everything manually. This heightens stress-levels, increases liabilities, and wastes valuable time.
This is where Arbiter Registration steps in—not as a replacement, but as online school registration software: the perfect complement to your SIS. Together, they create a dynamic duo that addresses both foundational and specialized needs, ensuring every type of school workflow is supported.
A Dynamic Combination: Online School Registration & SIS
School workflows involve moving information through various stages of approval with numerous stakeholders: students, teachers, parents, coaches, administrators, and districts.
Instead of bending over backwards to fit within the limitations of SIS, Arbiter Registration turns every task into an automated and organized flow, ensuring a more efficient, secure, and enjoyable experience for administrators, staff, and families.
It never limits the number of registrations you can create, delivers truly customizable registrations, takes multiple forms of payment, and gives you complete autonomy over your registration creation and collection.
Here are 5 incredible tools that you gain with our platform:
1. 100% Customizable Registrations: Any form can be created in minutes with custom questions or file upload options (e.g.- conduct or attendance policies).
2. Streamlined Fee Management: With secure payment processing, parents can easily make payments, and administrators can track all transactions in a centralized platform – saving hours of reconciliation work.
3. Mobile Access and Real-Time Alerts: Send notifications and access the most up-to-date information on the go to ensure maximal participation and accountability.
4. Roster Management and Reports: Quickly generate any kind of roster or report tailored to specific data queries and requirements, and easily export to use on any platform.
5. User Permissions and Multiple Admins: Permit critical information to be accessed by the right people to maximize student safety and lower liability.
These tools empower you to coordinate programs in a way that perfectly aligns with the needs of every department in your school.
- Academics: AP testing, parent-teacher conferences, field trips
- Athletics: Physicals, eligibility, uniform tracking, and roster management
- Administration: Volunteer sign ups, parking passes, technology rentals, and dances
- Activities: Field trips, summer camps, band camps, clubs, and Booster club
To learn about more use cases for Arbiter Registration, check out this blog.
By combining the strengths of your SIS with the power and flexibility of Arbiter’s online school registration platform, you can maximize your registrations and ensure compliance.
Athletic Registrations: A Real-World Example
Let’s take one of the most complex registration procedures in schools as an example: athletic registrations. Athletic registrations involve many components and stakeholders, including parents, athletic staff, doctors, coaches, districts and state offices.
How would it feel to know with absolute certainty which players were eligible with up-to-date physicals, waivers signed, and parent permissions granted?
Schools that use Arbiter Registration for athletic registrations enjoy that certainty every day using this process:
1. Customize online form submissions: Tailor athletic registrations to include medical details, waivers, and emergency contacts, pulling accurate data from your SIS.
2. Approve physicals electronically: Easily view approval statuses and percentages and quickly clear students to stay organized and efficient.
3. Automate eligibility checks and attendance: Know exactly which athletes are eligible, create ‘live’ rosters, and publish attendance in real-time from a mobile device.
4. Process required fees: Quickly find paid and unpaid registrations and send reminders to encourage completion – while every step is time-stamped for your records along the way.
5. Communicate directly with parents and coaches: With the click of a button, everyone stays on the same page regarding eligibility, critical medical updates, and clearances.
Arbiter Registration simplifies athletic registrations, saving time, ensuring compliance, and providing peace of mind for families and staff. This result would be impossible using just an SIS.
Arbiter was the ideal budget choice when paired with our SIS. We saw significant improvement in our communication flow with our other involved departments, like our nurses and athletic trainers.”
-Lisa S., Assistant AD, Wheaton IL
Ready to Upgrade the Way You Work?
Arbiter Registration complements your SIS, streamlines workflows, enhances the parent experience, and frees up your staff to focus on what really matters: educating and supporting your students.
Ready for registration that works the way your school does? Let us show you how Arbiter Registration complements your SIS.
