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Introducing Orah’s New And Improved Shift Reports

Paul Organ

February 13, 2024

Orah Shift Reports

Every boarding school writes up a “Shift Report” or “Duty Report”  

Duty/Shift Reports have been a staple in boarding schools for hundreds of years. It’s a nuanced report giving a ‘general overview’ of previous shifts which helps to keep a level of continuity between staff. We all know how much it helps when you get a big picture update from one of your trusted colleagues.

From speaking with customers, we knew that many of them were already doing this in some form or another, the old school ‘logbook’, google docs, or even other clunky software products. They felt there was a lot of room for improvement to bring it all into one place and blend both the benefit of data being collected and the ‘nuance’ that only comes from the freedom of the written word.

We knew we could do it better.

Blending science and art

When you’re using Orah, data is being entered and collected all the time - so our approach has been to provide a clear ‘Activity feed’ much like you have on various social media platforms. This way, you simply log in and get an update based on all the activity happening within the software. BUT our customers have shared how important it is to be able to provide detailed information surrounding that data to give a clearer picture of what’s been happening and how it can sometimes be hard to stop and log certain events during their shift when the chaos of a school day can take over.

Get it done, quickly…

At the end of a long (and sometimes stressful) shift, the last thing you want to deal with is clunky software, so we’ve made it super easy for you to build templates with different sections making it clear and easy for your staff to know what to fill in.

Writing a duty report using a template

Once a template has been selected, your staff can simply add all the required notes, tag students and attach pastoral notes all from the same screen. 

Better collaboration and visibility as a team

When it’s done, your team has the ability to view (depending on User Roles and Access Rights) the report either directly through your email inbox:

A example of a daily digest email.

Or directly through the activity feed, where you can even create chat conversations within the post to ask for clarification or add any appropriate inside jokes ;)

Give a comprehensive update in a familiar format every shift.

Viewing Posts Within A Student’s Profile

Based on the information put in on your shift/duty report, your students will be tagged and a record of that summary will feature on their profile for any later viewing. This will come in handy when you need to make a report for the semester or if you ever have to speak to their parents (hopefully for good reasons!).

An example of a duty report showing up in a student profile after they were tagged.

Getting started with Shift Reports

If you’re an Orah customer, touch base with your Success Manager to get you set up for help, or check out the help articles to get started here.

If you’re a school looking for a better way, simply click here to get a demo of our software to find out how we could help out at your school.

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Paul Organ

I live in Auckland, New Zealand. I enjoy exercise, sauna's and cold plunges, video games and design. Prior to Orah (10 years ago now!) I was a University Student studying my Masters of Architecture. There are two important things that keep me enthused at work - Using creativity to solve complex problems and working with good people.

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