Do you have notice boards, service counters, phone booths, or outdoor signs at your school? Since your students and parents will be walking through your school during fall registration and everyday during the school year, these are ideal locations to promote your online student store.

Long line-ups can also be a strong incentive for parents to make use of the online alternative. Remind parents and students that are standing in line during fall registration that you offer online payments that are quick, easy and available 24 hours a day!

If you need flyers - let me know!

Major Announcement!

Tip for the day:

TODAY'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

whoot whoot!

Enjoy your Tuesday everyone :)

Spanish Versions of Flyer & Instructions!

Hi Everyone,

Good news..thanks to Katie over at MLK Jr. Middle School, I now have Spanish versions of the flyer and WebStore Login Instruction templates that you can use!

If you need them, just let me know and I can send them over!

Thanks Katie!!

Back to School!

So I just spent 4 days in Las Vegas on site at 5 of our schools during their orientation days! Let me just say - CRAZY! I learned so much about the students, parents and most importantly your everyday jobs. You all deserve a standing ovation for your efforts!!

We had computer labs setup on campus for those that wanted to pay by credit card and the thing that parents mentioned the most to me (nope..not the credit card fees!) was:

"I WISH I WOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT WE COULD PAY ONLINE BEFORE I GOT HERE SO I DIDN'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH ALL OF THIS!"

This just re-emphasizes that it's all about the messaging to parents that is the KEY to making your store a success. I'm here to help with this so let me know how I can help you! I can help you create your fliers, posters, emails, etc. as I know that each of you are incredibly busy!

just ask :)

Product Reviews!!

Hi Everyone,
I've been checking around on some of your stores and have noticed that the Product Review option is enabled on your products. This feature allows parents and students to comment on the items that you have for sale. This can be scary! I've had 2 people that have had reviews of their products and people haven't been so nice...complaining about the color of the shirt and the design of the logo - apparently they weren't fans and wanted everyone to know! No need to have other see these types of comments so I'd recommend to all of our users to DISABLE this feature on your store.

Here's how:
Management - WebStore - WebStore/Software Options

Click the NEXT button at the bottom of the screens to get to the 4 tab - Sales Options

At the bottom of that screen you'll see Optional Features: Gift Certificates, Product Reviews and About Us


Disable Product Reviews (and Gift Certificates if you're not ready for this yet!). Click the next button to navigate through the rest of the screens then click finish.

Don't forget, you must SYNC YOUR STORE after making this change!

Defaulted Passwords

Hi WebStore Users,

I've received a few calls saying that parents are having problems figuring out what their default password is. Since their passwords are auto created from their customer record in Tracks, it's all dependent on how you have their last name displayed.

Remember, passwords are all lower case letters!!

here are some examples:

Josh Smith = jsmith

Emily Chan-Norris = echan-norris (hyphen is included in password)

Vanessa Del Rosario = vdel rosario (space is included in password between last name)

Michael Hudson II = mhudson ii (space is included in password between last name and roman numerals - roman numerals are in lower case letters)

This should cover most of the last name situations so hopefully you can follow these examples when helping parents with logging in!

Enjoy your day

Important - WebStore Link on School Website

Hi Everyone,

As we're coming up towards a busy time for transactions, I want to make sure that your links are working properly. I've had a couple calls saying that parents were having issues with items being deleted from their carts when they go to purchase.

Make sure that your WebStore link opens up into a new web browser when parents/students click on it from your school website. If the link is embedded in your school website, it can cause issues for some customers. If their security settings (in IE and possibly other browsers) are set to Medium or includes blocking of 3rd party cookies, then they cannot add items to their cart. The WebStore message will say that the item was added to their cart successfully, but then the cart shows as empty.

So overall lesson - check your link on your school website and have your IT person change it if necessary so that it opens up into a new web browser to avoid any problems for your customers.

Unique Email Addresses

Happy Monday WebStore Users,

Hope you all had a great weekend! Wanted to make sure to remind you all that the WebStore only allows UNIQUE email addresses to be stored in the system.

So if parents have multiple children and log in under each students' account and try to make purchases for each child, they will NOT be able to enter the SAME email address for each child in their separate accounts. They will get an error message that says that that email address is already stored in the system.

Therefore, recommend to parents that they create their own usernames and passwords and assign their students to their account so that they are all attached to 1 email address.

You can always refer them to the Quick Start Guide on the WebStore that will walk them through setting up their own accounts. Feel free to print out that guide as well for your records so you can have it on hand if anyone needs help.

Hope you all have a great week!

Out of Stock

Hi Everyone,

I've noticed on some stores that some of items are showing up as OUT OF STOCK on the details page of the item.

Here's why!

On the main tab of item maintenance you'll see Quantity on Hand and WebStore on Hand fields. Typically the WebStore on Hand field has a zero in it - which is perfectly fine - HOWEVER if you go to the WebStore 2 tab and there is a checkmark in Display Available Stock this will display whatever number is in the WebStore on Hand field on the item in the WebStore.

If WebStore on Hand has a zero and there's a checkmark next to Display Available Stock - the item will show up as OUT OF STOCK on the WebStore.

Uncheck Display Available Stock - sync your store and OUT OF STOCK will go away and parents and students will be able to now purchase this item.

Happy Back to School time!

Make Items Orderable!

Hi WebStore Users!

Just a reminder!! If you previously set items to Un-Orderable in the WebStore while you were gone during the summer - make sure to go into item maintenance and make them Orderable when you're ready to start accepting payments for fall registration!

Otherwise, people won't be able to add items to their cart....right Jolene?? :)

Usernames & Passwords

Hi WebStore users!

hope the summer has been treating you well. Many of you are now back in the office (yay..I've missed you. I haven't had anyone to talk to all of July!) and I wanted to make sure to remind you of a few things now that fall registration is coming up!

1. Usernames = student ID numbers/ student alpha codes - whatever their customer no. is in Tracks is what you should be relaying to parents/students

2. Passwords = defaulted as their first initial & last name - no spaces and all lower case letters.

I've received 2 calls this morning actually saying that parents can't log in and neither can you! TURN OFF YOUR CAP LOCKS WHEN ENTERING IN THEIR PASSWORDS!!

hope you all have a great week!