This week we released a powerful integration with NEXT worker's compensation for folks using Playground Payroll. We also added two factor authentication (2FA) for folks wanting to add an additional layer of security to their account. Additionally, as a result of suggestions received, our team added the ability to create multiple choice custom fields. Finally, for programs located in Arizona, we're working with DES to create an attendance integration between the two systems.

Read on to learn about the additional quality of life improvements made.

Releases

• Worker’s compensation integration

• Two factor authentication

• Multiple choice custom fields

• Arizona DES attendance integration goes into beta testing

Improvements

• All student changes are now logged on the student activity page

• Added deductions column to payroll summary reports

• Expense are now simpler to add

• Now much easier to onboard to Playground’s billing

• Faster to fill out address fields during enrollment by selecting student address

• Able to edit descriptions on credit card / ACH payments

• Able to manually retry payroll payments

• Family portal is fully mobile responsive now

• Staff are now notified when students transition into their classroom

Fixes

• Not able to approve payrolls until page fully loads

• Fixed issue with enrollment exports not showing if the form is deleted or unlinked

• Fixed net pay split for failed payments

• Fixed issue where some deleted questions would show on forms

• No longer shows sign out when clicking on student avatar

More granular guardian permissions and roles has been one of the most anticipated family features. Families can now add in family members, selectively give access to billing, mark contacts as emergency only, and more. This helps answer questions like "How do I give grandma access to billing?" ensuring that emergency contacts cannot see any student information, and ensuring that families feel comfortable bringing more guardians on to the Playground app.

Many programs have been using our AI beta with Camber, and based on the amazing feedback we are excited to bring Camber to general availability. Camber is not yet trained on Playground specifically, but is able to help with generally administrative tasks like lesson planning, meal planning, writing messages to families, and more.

One big safety and security feature that has been asked for a while now has been blocking staff access before/after school hours. This is a new setting that you can turn on to ensure staff are only on Playground during work hours.

Finally, we will soon be launching our CRM and marketing automation tool purpose built for child care. We will be updating you on all the things we are building before a beta launch, and you can keep up to date by joining our waitlist here.

Releases

• Guardian Roles — you can now give guardians more granular roles and permissions

• Camber is now generally available! Talk to your very own child care ai bot

• Can now block teacher access to Playground if not clocked in to school

Improvements

• Tags on enterprise are now default sorted alphabetically

• If a family has not yet signed up, invoice emails will include a sign up link

• All attendance reports are now significantly faster when ran on multiple schools

• Parents can now record multi-day absences at once on the mobile app

• Improved process of adding staff to payroll

• When adding paperwork with no recipients, it will now ask you to confirm

• Settings added to form creation modal — should be much easier to set up forms now

• Added more bulk import options at the enterprise level

• Added additional export options for payroll

• Daily staff hours reports now show missing clock out chip

• When using the engagement dashboard, you can now click into a student to see their feed in the sidebar

• Added payment status to the debits table

• Can now acknowledge posts on the web feed

Fixes

• Updated CACFP to report based on rule changes

• Removed payment methods from drop-ins that do not include pricing

• Fixed issue with form fields jumping around when trying to drag and drop

CRM — Coming Soon

• Added lead list views + kanban views

• Added lead detail view page with activity feed + details + note logging

• Added lead forms that can be embedded into your website

Provider paperwork is now live! The same way student and staff paperwork is digitized and stored in Playground, now you can digitize and store all your program level paperwork. In addition, we launched the ability to take payment deposits and hold those deposits to be applied to future payments. Finally, we launched a commonly requested feature to be able to schedule newsletters to send in the future.

Releases

• Provider paperwork beta launched — keep all your school paperwork in one place

• Deposits support! You can now “hold” deposits on Playground

• Schedule send out newsletters

Improvements

• Added student classroom transition report

• Added more paperwork templates

• Payout loading states improved

• Enterprise schools are now sorted by name by default

• More payment reports include total amounts

• Added weekends to aggregate attendance report

• Added more columns to select for staff and guardians

• Payout reporting includes more dates and information

• Able to add more information about tags on enterprise reporting

• Custom fields are now sorted everywhere based on user preference

• General launch of drop-in care

• Staff notes now how role based visibility

• Improved loading states for old Playground sessions (e.g. keeping the tab open for a long time)

• Parents now receive emails confirming drop-in booking after paying

• Adding someone to a chat now shows you if they have signed up for Playground or not

• Can now filter staff paperwork by active/inactive staff

Fixes

• Fixed staff paperwork editing permissions

• Some small text changes to better clarify billing

• Removed $0 subsidy entries

• Fixed enterprise payout reports sometimes not loading

• Able to press the down caret to open and close table rows instead of having to click on the row itself

• Fixed permissions on enterprise roles

This week we launched our much anticipated Dashboards tab to everyone to give providers significantly more insights into their program operations. We're continuing to develop this area more and would love to hear what else would be helpful to see. Additionally, we launched provider level paperwork as a beta to make it easy to store and organize all paperwork not assigned to students or staff. Finally, our team has been hard at work continuing to listen to feedback and improve general quality of life with 35 additional improvements and fixes.

Releases

• Dashboards are now live for everyone! Click Dashboard on the top of your menu to see insights into your program

• Provider level paperwork beta launched! Keep all your program level paperwork that's not assigned to students or staff on Playground

• Added drag and drop to custom report fields

Improvements

• Able to transition students and staff directly from ratio dashboard

• All reports now run faster

• Added profile images instead of avatars in many places

• Staff hours reports now have a total row

• Running payroll now better guesses what payment method to use by default

• Pay dates that are not allowed are now grayed out

• Able to change contractor payout method during payroll creation

• Improved payroll staff selection

• Able to download individual payrolls to CSV

• Easier onboarding to payroll flow if staff do not yet have a Playground account

• Added expired student documents chart on the Dashboard

• Added several more imports when starting out with Playground

• Improved payment dispute handling

• Student documents are now clickable on application overview to see a summary

• Paperwork tables are now downloadable

• Added colors to milestones on the student assessments page

• Added a note to invite staff that explains that staff will be invited

• Added custom emergency contacts report

• Able to add date of birth to student enrollment cards

• Playground will now prioritize active, admin or staff accounts over guardian accounts when logging in, by default

• Improved error messaging when booking drop-in care slots

• Able to book drop-in care more than 3 months out now

• Shared Device setting is now enabled by default for all tablets signed into staff accounts

• Able to add in footer contents to emails sent by Playground

• Staff notes now show on mobile

• Able to add check numbers on bulk deposits

• Can now edit enrollment invite emails

• Billing period autopay summary emails improved

Fixes

• Fixed editing the first plan group not updating the title

• Enterprise no longer reloads when navigating back from a single school on specific pages

• Fixed issue with secondary state on guardians created before 2023

• Fixed error where some fields showed as missing when saving a document

• Can now edit a student name if no classroom selected

• Fixed issue where clicking on the dropdown didn’t expand a row on tables

• Fixed issue with downloading file requests