musicteachershelper.com vs other online supports

August 2, 2011 at 03:20 AM ·

Hi Lisa, I looked at www.musicteachershelper.com, and it seems to only allow a student to see his/her own schedule, not everyone's, so I don't think this website will help facilitate lesson swapping without your involvement.  The calendar feature in Google, Yahoo! and MSN should allow you to achieve that for free - they let you choose who can see the calendar/events so it's not public to all.  All you have to do is send everyone a list of contact info (with their consent, of course) and a link to the calendar. Hope this helps!

August 2, 2011 at 07:03 PM ·

After playing with that website a little more last night, I found that it's possible to make a student's schedule a "global event" (This is meant for things like recitals, group classes, masterclasses, etc.) that can be seen by everyone, but it's quite confusing - I'm still not sure about the exact steps to make it work (It seems that I was able to do it via Calendar->Add Event/Lesson, but if I added lesson schedule at the time that I added a student, it didn't work). Also, if you do that, when the students log in,  they are going to see everyone's schedule as their own upcoming events, which becomes quite messy, and kind of defeating the purpose. Anyway, it's a hack, and is not how the software is intended to work. I also don't know if doing so will interfere with the billing part. I still think something like Google Calendar suits your purpose better.

Here is an old thread about website hosting and design: http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=17521

August 4, 2011 at 05:31 AM ·

I can only speak for myself (as an adult student) - I don't need the online payment option. While a few parents might appreciate the convenience, I doubt that anyone has problem with traditional payment methods. I also don't think it's cost-effective - it saves a little bit of time on book-keeping, but unless you start accepting cash and online payments only, making trips to deposit checks is inevitable. PayPal charges (2.9% + $0.30) per transaction, and their policies forbid the user from imposing any surcharge for accepting PayPal payments. So you will either have to absorb the cost or start charging everyone more.  Looking at it from a pure business perspective, this extra spending doesn't add value to the business.  Ditto to monthly statements. Just my $0.02.

Here is an interesting discussion about MTH:
www.musicteachershelper.com/forum/viewtopic.php

August 5, 2011 at 10:33 PM ·

I never realized that there are so many of these in the market (Disclaimer: I have not tried any of these, so I don't know the quality of these products/services):

Web-based applications:
http://www.studiohelper.com/
http://www.jackrabbitmusic.com/
http://www.tutorsoffice.com/
http://www.practicespot.com/home.php

Desktop applications:
http://studiocloud.com/
School Management System
Music Teacher's Secretary

I would not recommend Music Teacher's Helper, as everything put into MTH is transmitted as cleartext across the internet, including students' info, billing info, usernames and passwords. Please see my explanation here.

August 7, 2011 at 05:04 PM ·

I have been soooooooooo happy using Music Teacher's Helper for my busy studio [60+ students]. Because I have several sub-groups of students [private studio, university prep program, school program, drop-in students], and a complicated performing and business schedule, it has been a godsend.  It saves me, literally, hours each week in terms of scheduling, bookkeeping, announcments and phone time.   And makes summer lessons by appointment a breeze! 

August 7, 2011 at 05:12 PM ·

I just found out that only the free plan of MTH  sends data insecurely, which is what I was testing with. The paying plans transmit encrypted data via SSL encryption, so it's not an issue for paying customers...  I don't agree that data security should be a luxury, but apparently it's their prerogative to make such business decision.