For the busy administrators who keep the school running, that’s music to their ears.
Case Study: Suzuki Music Schools
A normal school has a litany of planning difficulties. Making sure that every student is accounted for and that each teacher is properly scheduled is an administrative hurdle even when there are 25 children in every lesson. It’s no wonder, then, that the Suzuki Music Schools of Westport and Orange faced a monumental logistical task: each of their teachers gives one to one instruction to students, meaning that coordinating everything seamlessly required a creative and tailored solution.
The Suzuki method, of which the school is a practitioner, dates back to the middle of the 20th century and blends both private and group instruction. Private lessons develop a student’s personal understanding, while group classes help students share their experiences with others in a fun and non-competitive environment. The schools of Westport and Orange offer lessons in violin, viola, cello, guitar, flute, piano, voice, chamber music, music theory, and ensemble to over 360 students. With so many varied offerings, and so much focused attention on each student, Executive Director Andrew Smith knew that he would need a program capable of handling and processing a great amount of data.
Smith looked at Salesforce and other CRMs, but none of them seemed right for the school’s needs. Either they were too expansive in their scope (and therefore not financially feasible on a non-profit budget), or too limited in their functionality (and thus not helpful for a task as big as his). However, when he was recommended FileMaker, it fit perfectly: a program powerful enough for his needs, that fit within his budget.
In turn, FileMaker recommended Kyo Logic to assist with the development and implementation. As a trusted FileMaker partner, Kyo had both the technical expertise and the customer savvy to handle the project.
This certainly wasn't a set it and forget it solution: it required ongoing communication and adjustments to the ever-changing needs of our school. If you want this kind of database to work, it’s a process. Tim Neudecker, who headed Kyo's project implementation, understood that from the beginning and has been incredibly responsive and willing to work with us to make sure we get everything that we need. I told Tim what I wanted, and he got it done.
Andrew Smith - Executive Director, Suzuki Music Schools of Westport & Orange
The first step in the process was porting all of their old information into FileMaker. While Smith was initially worried that it would require painstaking manual transfer, the Kyo Logic team built a project that automated the transfer, saving countless hours and a massive headache.
Once the information was in the database, Neudecker set about eliminating redundancies and making everything run more smoothly. Payroll, lesson data and income had all been done from different locations — he was able to collate all of these functions, and associate each lesson with a particular teacher and payroll account. With that in place, the school will be able to build a database that makes reaching out to alumni, former teacher and the community: an invaluable resource that will not only help the school’s ability to solicit donation, but also it’s standing in the larger community.
As this is a collaborative process, Suzuki Music Schools of Westport and Orange and Kyo Logic’s relationship is continuing, as the institution looks to add even more functionality into its FileMaker usage going forward. Smith is looking to correlate each lesson with Google Calendar, which would not only help on a day-to-day basis, it would also be invaluable for scheduling things like the students big Carnegie Hall concert in May 2018. Based on his experience with Kyo, he’s optimistic that they’ll find a solution.
As a customer, it can be very frustrating when you know what you want, but you don’t know how to put it all together. Tim and Kyo were so patient in helping us to understand what needed to be done and a strategy to achieve it!
Andrew Smith - Executive Director, Suzuki Music Schools of Westport & Orange