It’s that time of the year again! Enrollment season is here and it is important for schools to establish an easy, streamlined experience for parents and guardians to submit their student’s health forms.The key to this is an efficient communication between the school staff and parents about what forms are required and when they are due. This can help avoid any confusion and frustration during this busy time of the year. A great tool to keep parents informed about their student’s enrollment requirements and the approaching deadlines are email reminders. An online Student Health Record (SHR) solution such as Magnus, can streamline the form collection process for schools and save staff valuable time. This blog post will cover best practices on using parent email reminders and how they are successfully utilized by Magnus client schools.

Automated email reminders can be set to go out at predetermined times to remind parents what student information is due prior to the start of the school year. Scheduling email alerts for specific times allows schools to update parents efficiently. Schools can set these reminders to go out as frequently as needed until each requirement is fulfilled. The benefit to scheduling auto reminders is that you can set them and let the system do the follow-up until parents submit their forms online. There is no need for manual form collection and phone calls to track down the missing ones.

Timing is Key
It is important to determine the desired deadline for each required student health form so that there is an allocated window of time for parents to submit completed records. At Magnus, we recommend setting “Next Action Dates”, specific dates for when a parent needs to submit an expiring health form, at the end of the school year and again 4 weeks prior to school starting. We suggest keeping a standard date for all ‘Next Action’ items so that parents can log into their Magnus account and submit all form requirements at the same time. Once these deadlines are set, parent email reminders can be scheduled!

We recommend sending out the “Next Action Date” reminder emails about 8 weeks before the expiration date and incomplete requirement emails about 14 weeks prior to the deadline. The frequency of emails once the deadline has been met or the “Next Action Date” is up to the discretion of the school. However, best practice is to avoid sending multiple emails per week in order to avoid overwhelming parents & guardians. 

Using Email Reminders with Magnus Software
Setting auto email reminders within the Magnus solution allow schools to notify parents who have incomplete requirements and upcoming “Next Action Date” items. This not only tells parents exactly what forms are needed and when, but it also gives them sufficient time to complete these requirements.

Required student forms that have already been submitted, but expire yearly are perfect items for the “Next Action Date” feature. This can include health forms such as sports physicals that have to be renewed every 12 months. Email reminders can be sent based on the expiration date and schools can choose how far in advance to send out a notification to parents. Incomplete requirements are the forms that have not been submitted yet, making the student account ‘incomplete’. These alerts can be sent to parents according to the unique deadline set by the school for each required form to complete the student’s health chart. The Magnus SHR solution keeps track of all submitted student forms and makes it easy for school staff to run compliance reports.

Who should receive Parent Reminder Emails?
Parents or guardians of students who have upcoming our outstanding form requirements should receive email reminders. Once the student form has been submitted, the Magnus SHR system will mark the requirement as pending or approved, and the parents will no longer receive reminders.

Let automated Parent Email Reminders do the work for you! This functionality will create efficient communication between the school and parents, making the enrollment season a breeze for both sides!

Learn more about how email reminders can help to streamline parent communication at your school.