A message from the Managing Director

Dear customers,

We are well into 2017 now and I would like to introduce this Newsletter by thanking you for your ongoing support.

The end of 2016 saw some significant changes within Civica, most notably for us was the merging of our libraries and education businesses which provide world leading products to libraries and schools across the world. There is a great cultural and professional synergy between the teams and we are already harnessing the capabilities of our larger combined business to deliver improved products and services to all of our customers.

We’ve been working really hard on our products and we look forward to showing you our new modules in the Civica Education Suite in June at the EduTECH event in Sydney. For those of you not in Sydney, we shall also be scheduling local events which you can attend.

Going forward, we’ll be communicating more to you via this quarterly newsletter, opportunities to participate in webinars, and in our user groups.

I look forward to seeing you and thank you again for your ongoing support.

Simon Jones
Managing Director
Libraries & Education

Welcome to our latest Education customer

We would like to give a warm welcome to our newest customer, Queenwood School for Girls in NSW. Queenwood recently signed up to Civica with iWise and igloo.

Product update – iWise school admin and igloo community portal

The release of iWise featuring responsive design, Attendance Widget and Markbook Student Tracking is currently underway. All customers will have the new release by the end of this week. A new version of igloo has also been released to all TEST sites and we will start deploying the new version featuring responsive design to all customers in the coming weeks. Keep a lookout in your inbox for when this will be installed at your school.

igloo webinars – sign up now

For those of you new to these products, igloo is our community portal software, designed to help teachers, students and teachers communicate and share information more effectively, at any time and on any device. Parents can also view financial information and make school payments via igloo.

We’ve been running a series of webinars to give you an overview of the many great features – if you missed them but are still keen to take a look please contact your sales representative.

 

 

Product update – MAZE

Since the end of the last school year a number of updates were released for Maze. This includes an update that provides the ability to record a USI (Unique Student Identifier) for staff, which was provided as a free download (SCR15620) in December. If you haven’t yet installed this update, please refer to the Support section on our website for further details.

WA schools received release notices for a number of updates to SCSA data submissions (SCR15630, SCR15633, SCR15634) , which were sent out in December and January. The next updates you can expect are for Payroll clients and include updated PAYG tax scales and a change to the PAYG Payment Summary.

Product update – Civica Education Suite

The Civica Education Suite (our new web-based School Management Solution) is coming along in leaps and bounds with exciting new functionality and some new modules.  A number of  independent schools have been implemented and are operating solely on CES, having moved across from Maze and other school management solutions.  All up we now have over 60 schools using our new Finance and/or Admin & Teacher modules.

We are now in a position to offer schools a cloud based solution that caters for all aspects of School Administration, Billing & Finance, Teacher Tools and Academic Reporting; with a brand new, state-of-the-art, web-based timetabling module to be released in term 4.

Get in touch if you would like some more information – or come and see us at EduTech in June.

Help Desk News

One of the many benefits of the recent Civica library and education business merge has been the expansion of our support team.

We are currently in the process of combining the Melbourne based libraries help desk with the Perth based education one to better manage calls in all time zones. This will include a cross skilled support team able to handle calls from our now extended product suite.

We have also got 4 new help desk recruits who are currently undergoing extensive training to bring them up to speed with our products.

Training updates

MAZE training for Perth customers continues into term 2 with courses available throughout the coming months on topics including VET processing, and student and family maintenance.

If you are a MAZE customer located in the eastern states and are interested in training, please contact your sales manager to discuss requirements. If there is enough interest in certain modules or functions we will be happy to arrange group training sessions.

User group updates

We’re in the process of organising state based user groups for term 3, to give everyone the opportunity to attend a free training session and learn about our new developments. We’ll be in touch very soon.

 

Meet your sales representatives

With the combined business merge we’ve got some new faces in our sales team, as well as the reliable old ones many of you have come to know very well over the years. We’ve asked each team member to introduce ourselves today so you know the right person to contact if you have any questions about our products.

Troy Morgan – Sales Director

Troy has been at Civica for four years as sales manager for the libraries team covering Australia and New Zealand. As newly appointed sales director for libraries and education he is responsible for ensuring Sales Managers have the tools and the skills to effectively support our customers to provide the best school management solutions.

contact: troy.morgan@civica.com.au | 03 8676 4400

James Brett (QLD, strategic business)

James has been in the education industry for many years and has a great depth of knowldge of all Civica education products. He enjoys being on the road, building relationships with customers to best understand their requirements.

When not out meeting with customers, James can be found enjoying the serenity of Australia’s bushland, with his tent and portable movie projector.

contact: james.brett@civica.com.au |  02 8324 3150 | 0403 467 894

Julie Morton (NSW, ACT)

Julie has just completed her first year with Civica and has over 20 years experience in the Education IT arena. Over the past year, Julie has enjoyed meeting and working with Civica customers to transform their schools. Julie is relatively new to Australia (she is from the UK) and spends most of her spare time exploring Australia.

contact: julie.morton@civica.com.au |  02 8324 3163  | 0419 536 367

Andre Stephenson (VIC, TAS)

Andre Stephenson joins Civica after 3 successful years looking after accounting practices as Partner Manager VIC/TAS with Melbourne based accounting software provider MYOB. Prior to that, Andre’s work history has seen him in sales and senior relationship management roles with QBE Insurance Group (where he moved to Melbourne from Perth), and a long career with National Australia Bank. Being from Perth, they’re all vocal fans of the West Coast Eagles, and Andre wishes he had more time for cycling, skiing, live music and the arts. Andre can often be found enjoying Melbourne’s terrific dining and nightlife, and he also loves laughing at his own jokes.

contact: andre.stephenson@civica.com.au | 03 8676 4400 | 0404 808 997

Mark Hodgson (WA, ACT)

Mark is based in Perth, covering Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Mark joined Civica in October 2014 having worked in the educational ICT space in the UK as a sales account manager for 15 years. Outside of work Mark is a typical Pom with a keen interest in soccer [football!!] being heavily involved with his local club as a parent, coach, referee, committee member whilst still trying to play himself Just don’t mention his favourite team Sunderland…

contact: mark.hodgson@civica.com.au | 08 6466 2658 | 0421817361

Upcoming events

We are exhibiting at the following conferences this year. We understand that not everyone can make it, so will be holding user groups in each state where will bring you product updates and training.

 

AIS ICT Leadership & Management Conference THIS WEEK, Canberra

James, Julie and Chris look forward to meeting all delegates this Thursday & Friday in Canberra.

Please drop around to our stall to say hi and to see the latest products we have on offer.

 

EduTECH 8-9 June, Sydney Convention Centre

EduTECH is our big event of the year. We will have a full team present and will be showcasing for the very first time he latest modules in the Civica Education Suite.

If you plan to attend make sure you drop by our stand to see a CES demo, pick up some goodies and be in the prize draw

 

ASBA, 25-27 Sept, Sydney Convention Centre

To end off the year we will be back again at the Sydney Convention Centre for ASBA 2017. So if you missed us at EduTECH or AIS, you can see us then.

Or again. 🙂