Online class booking, payments and parent communication for an after-school education provider

About the client

The client runs after-school programmes in many partner schools, with classes by day and level, trial places and full-term enrolments.

The challenge

Parents needed term dates, programme details, prices and room information before booking, and enrolment depended on staff answering each enquiry.

Most sessions repeat every term with only the dates changing, but staff were recreating them manually. Payment status, trials and waiting lists were tracked separately, and weekly updates to parents took hours.

What we built

The system has two sides: a booking site for parents and a management portal for the team.

• School and session selection: Parents choose a school, then a day and programme level, and see term dates, programme details, a video, the price, the room and contact details.
• Trial or full term: Parents book a three-week trial or the full term, choose how many children to enrol and enter details for each child and parent.
• Online payment: Payment is taken through a payment gateway, followed by a confirmation email written for that specific session.
• Session master: Staff edit, add or duplicate sessions, and each new term is rolled over automatically with new dates.
• Student master: Each student links to their parent and session, with payment status (full, trial, pending) and enrolment status (current full, current trial, waiting or past).
• Search and saved filters: Every field can be filtered, combined into advanced searches and saved, for example to find parents of children under 12 for a holiday workshop.

Parent communication

• Personalised SMS: Staff send SMS to the parents of selected students, with names of parent and child filled in from the records.
• Weekly photo updates: Staff upload a few photos per session each week, and the system places them into a ready-made update for each school, which can still be edited before it goes out.

Zoho apps used

• Zoho Creator: Booking site, payments, session and student management, SMS and weekly updates

What changed for the client

Parents can research, book and pay in a single visit. Staff no longer rebuild sessions every term, can see payment and enrolment status for every child, and send targeted messages and weekly updates in minutes instead of hours.