Q&A

Introducing the TASIS Portugal Parent Community!

What is the TASIS Portugal Parent Community?

It’s an online home for news, events, resources and information for families at TASIS Portugal, helping new families feel welcome and informed and helping us all to build a thriving community for our children.

In practical terms, the platform will help to make the TPA (The Parent Association) more efficient, by making it easier to manage admin for events, emails and groups. The plan is that all TPA events will be managed via this platform, and we’ll gradually launch more activities (like a work experience/ mentoring program) on the community site in the future.

How does the technology work?

The community is being powered by a specialist software (called ToucanTech) designed for schools and membership groups. The platform combines a community website (to publish content and for parents to login/ connect) as well as an underlying database/ CRM storing records for every current TASIS Portugal parent.

The data records are securely synced from the school’s main database (iSAMS) on a regular basis, with relationship links to show connected children and partners - this is helpful for creating database filters and segments.

On the TASIS Community platform we can publish news, manage events (and ticketing), create online groups, capture data (e.g. forms/ surveys), run a mentoring program, promote volunteering opportunities, send email newsletters, take payments, run reports and more!

Please note that some content is published publicly (i.e. visible to anyone without logging in) and some content is ‘hidden’ behind login. All the online profiles of people, the community networking, and any photos (other than a gallery cover image), are automatically locked behind login.

There are other features within the system - such as online shop, fundraising, a jobs board and mobile app - but we’re not launching these yet. The primary focus initially will be to connect parents and to share useful news and events.

How do I register/ create an online profile on the community?

Head to https://community.tasisportugal.org/register and fill out the registration form, including selecting all the countries that you have an association with (anywhere that you’ve lived, worked, studied etc) - we’ll use this info to help us plan events like the international fair, or to introduce new families to people with similar backgrounds. Your details should match with an existing record in the database and once you’ve registered you’ll need to wait 24-48 hours for Aimee/ Thaisa to approve your online profile. You can then login using your email/ password (or using LI/ FB/ Google if you joined using these SSO options).

What can I do on the new community site?

As a parent you can use the online community to:

Read news (including past newsletters), download useful resources and view photos
Browse upcoming events, sign-up/ buy tickets/ see who else will be attending
Submit your own stories, resources or business profile to share with the community (this will be checked by a community admin before publication)
Join an online group and post content/ questions/ comments to the group. Group admins have the ability to manage their group page (like a Facebook page) meaning they can manage the design of the page, members, emails, events etc all from the ‘front end’ without accessing the admin portal/ database
See info about the TPA and who’s on each committee
Search the parent directory, and connect/ message people with online profiles
Update your profile information and privacy/ notification settings

As an admin (e.g. TPA/ school staff) you can:

Post content including articles, downloadable documents, embedded videos, photos
Create events, with (ticketing/ field/ payment options)and manage attendee lists
Build email newsletters, pulling content from the website or adding other content, segment recipient lists, schedule send times, resend and clean out bounces etc
Update database records, create custom data fields, run filters and reports (this might require more training - which you can request any time from support@toucantech.com) - exercise caution when editing data on the system!
Create data capture forms/ surveys, set up donation campaigns, build an online shop, launch a mentoring program, create job/ internship posts and more.

How does this new community website differ to other websites/ platforms used at TASIS?

Like most organizations, the school runs a combination of different systems/ softwares, each with specific functionality - here’s an overview of some of the systems relevant to parents:

Main school website (tasisportugal.org) - to promote the school to the outside world, mostly for admissions marketing

Parent community (community.tasisportugal.org) - to connect and inform parents and make parent newsletters and TPA events and admin more efficient

iSAMS parent portal (tasisportugal.isams.cloud) - this is connected to the school’s main student database and is used by parents to access student reports and MAP scores, book parent teacher conference slots, fill out health and leave request forms, see invoices and receipts for school fees. There’s also a mobile app for this portal, although generally it’s recommended to use the web browser version

eLearning platforms - a range of specialist learning apps, are used for different Grades (Sachel One, Lexis, Mathletics etc) to support the classroom curriculum

SOCS - a new after-school clubs/ sports app will be introduced for parents soon

Where is the data stored/ hosted?

The TASIS parent community is stored on a dedicated database on ToucanTech’s EU server hosted with Amazon Web Services (AWS). All data, including emails, are processed securely via this server, with industry-standard encryption, monitoring and backup procedures in place. Under GDPR, ToucanTech is the data processor and TASIS Portugal is the data controller for the data and we are using legitimate interests as our legal basis for processing the data. Any parent joining the online community gives their consent (as part of the sign-up process) to share their profile information with other parents, and they can edit/ remove their profile at any time.