Information to Run Your Program

November 2014

ACEweb Now Supports PayPal Express Checkout!

Give your students the ability to pay online with either a credit card or their PayPal account:

The PayPal Express Checkout interface is free* for our ACEweb customers using the Electronic Credit Card Interface module. However, there are a few restrictions:

This is an add-on service that provides an additional payment method. It doesn't replace your current credit card payment service.
It's only available to customers using a redirect-type credit card payment service. Contact your ACEware technician if you don't know what type of payment service you currently use.
Security protocols restrict it to ACEweb only. It will not be made available for use in Student Manager.

Once your PayPal Express Checkout account is set up, contact your ACEware technician to add the service to ACEweb.

*Note: PayPal fees will apply. Visit PayPal.com for more information, and to set up your PayPal Express Checkout account.

Contributed by Cheryl Scott

Registration now open for ACEware Users' Conference

Annual conference is the highlight of our year! We look forward to seeing customers and providing them an atmosphere of open communication to meet, interact, and learn both with and from each other. In addition to the informational sessions and hands-on workshops provided by our team, you'll hear from your peers and see examples of how they use ACEware to support their programs. Whether you are new to the ACEware family or a seasoned user, you are sure to take away practical information that is immediately useful in your program!

We're offering you more on the shore in Myrtle Beach!

More time in hands-on workshops...

more information on reports...

more time with techs...

more time to connect with peers.

Can't wait to see you there!

Contributed by Sharon Brookshire

Ten Tips to Help Us Help You

1.      If you have a Student Manager emergency (e.g. no one can log into Student Manager), DON'T send an email! Call 800-925-2493 and press "0" to get immediate help.

2.      See if you can repeat the error (e.g. verify it's not caused by some momentary glitch such as a temporary loss of network connectivity).

3.      If you can repeat the error, find out if anyone else is having the same problem (if not, the problem may be related to your workstation or your unique system preferences).

4.      Try closing Student Manager then restarting it. This may clear up certain errors such as 'File is in Use'.

5.      Consult the available resources for possible solutions... look at the Online Help, check with your Keeper of the Flame, check your notes.

6.      When reporting an error to your ACEware Technician, please include this information:

Student Manager Version - located in the upper-left of the Student Manager screen. (i.e. Student Manager 7.2.A.025 or Student Manager 8.0.008)
What you were doing when you got the error. E.g. "I clicked the Look up Names icon, selected a name record and pressed the Enter key, and got this error."
A screen shot of the error message you received or send us the ERR.TXT file from the Manager data folder.

7. Keep a diary. We keep notes too, and between the two of us we might find a pattern to avoid a future problem.

8. Need a report? Before you contact your technician, determine what you need in the report. For example, "I need a list of registrations that were assessed a specific fee, with the information sorted by course then registrants." Of course, the MOST helpful thing is a picture/draft (in Word or Excel) of what you want the report to look like.

9. Data, what data??? To be included in a report, the data MUST reside in Student Manager somewhere. For example, you cannot report on registrants' gender if you are not recording gender on any name records.

10. What if I don't see a place for the data I need to collect? Check your screen preferences (Edit > Preferences > [specific tab]). It's possible the field is available and just not turned on. If it's not available, contact your technician to discuss options. Student Manager provides many fields that can be repurposed for your specific needs.

Contributed by Cheryl Scott

MATTHEW'S CORNER (of the cabin) - Instructor Name Tags

Wouldn't it be nice to have a way to print name tags for your instructors when you print off name tags for your students? Wouldn't it be nice if Matthew quit asking dumb questions like this?

In the latest update released last week (8.0.010), there is a new option on the Course Quick Reports options screen that, if you have Nametags selected (highlighted), you can also choose to print instructor nametags. It does still bring up the option to run all Nametags, by Registration Add Date, or select the names you want. If you do choose the option to show only students registered after a specified date, the instructor(s) will not show on the report. Also, if you uncheck the instructor(s) when you select the registrants, they will not show in that case either.

Hopefully you can make use of this new feature.

Contributed by Matthew J. Olson

Marketing in 2015

I'm headed to the UPCEA Marketing and Enrollment conference in Atlanta this week, and since I expect to bump into a lot of folks who spend way more time on marketing than I do, I thought it would be a good idea to do a little research on marketing trends. What I learned was exciting! For example: Did you know that almost 2 billion people are on Facebook and that they post about 2.5 million messages a minute? Or that many have predicted that 2015 will be the year of wearable computing, and they insist that it could change our world as much as the Internet? Good stuff.

I also learned some new marketing jargon:

Infobesity - enough said
Micro-targeting - total customization of your message to your customer
Listicle - bullet point blogging
Social bizologist - a social media and business expert who aligns an organization's social media efforts with their mission
Advertorial - a paid ad that attempts to look like a news article

What I noticed overall is that, if you want to accomplish anything, you need to code. "Coding is a necessity," is a phrase that showed up over and over in my research. They're not talking about writing lines of programming code; they're talking about filling in your subject code on the course screen, or using interest codes on the name screen. That kind of coding. If you want to learn more about how to code your data in a way that supports your marketing efforts, talk with your tech, call Chuck (it's one of his favorite subjects), or read the white paper posted on our website.

The ease with which you can code in Student Manager would certainly be met with enthusiastic approval by marketing experts who covet every single piece of data. Because before you can do any micro-targeting, or publish any advertorials, you need to know the who, what, where, and when info that only coding can provide.

By the way, I'm also delighted to hear that 2015 is going to be the year of humor in digital marketing. I think we could all use a few good belly laughs.

Contributed by Lauri Thompson

Blackboard Partnership

ACEware, in partnership with Blackboard Learn, is building a new module to allow customers who use the Blackboard LMS to seamlessly interface with ACEweb. The goal is for students who register and pay for Blackboard courses through ACEweb to have the option of immediately accessing the course in real time.

ACEware is building this interface in November with plans to release for purchase in January. Stay tuned for this much anticipated release.

Contributed by Sharon Brookshire

ACEware on the Road Again

November is another busy month for professional development conferences. ACEware representatives will be attending the events listed below. If you will be attending, we hope you will stop by the exhibit area to say hello and visit a bit. We enjoy hearing how things are going for you!.

UPCEA Marketing and Enrollment Management Seminar - November 5-7 in Atlanta, GA

Representative: Lauri Thompson

CMED - November 21-23 in St Pete Beach, FL

Representative: Chuck Havlicek

LERN - November 21-23 in Orlando, FL

Representative: Sharon Brookshire

Contributed by Sharon Brookshire

Thank you Callanwolde Fine Arts Center for sharing this fantastic picture with us. We are sure your "Halloween Night on Callanwolde Mountain" was a great success.

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