DreamClass

Affordable, accessible & wonderful customer service!

Comments: Working with DreamClass has been amazing; their customer service (shout out to Lids!) is better than any other product I've worked with, and it was definitely one of the main reasons we went with DreamClass over other products. Most issues we have come up with have been immediately brainstormed and troubleshooted by the DreamClass support team, and they have made so many custom fixes for us. Everything we have asked for they have worked on and provided. They are constantly updating the platform and adding more features so it gets better and more expansive each day!

Pros:

We are a small nonprofit afterschool program with about 200 students, some in-person and some online.School periods, courses, and classes are all easy to create, enroll students in, and manage. Attendance is easy for our teachers to complete and on the admin side, it is easy to get reports on daily absences and student attendance summaries.Student profiles allow for UNLIMITED custom fields (other products charge per custom field), which was useful for us as we ask a lot information of our youth (demographic, short answer, health information, learning accommodations etc) and that information is helpful for us to have visible on the student profile. Billing is connected to Stripe and is easy to set up. Invoices can be created and sent manually or automatically on a variety of schedules. Payment schedules can easily be set up for monthly, one-off, or periodic fees, and there is no limit to the number of fees/payment plans created. It is easy to pull reports of unpaid, overdue, or uninvoiced payments. Transcripts are easy to create and download from completed courses. Student information is kept in the system (creating an automatic alumni database) and there is no maximum number of student profiles or accounts. Product is intuitive and even our less-tech-savvy staff have learned how to use it quickly. I would write more but I am running out of characters!

Cons:

DreamClass launched an Admissions tool this summer. It is helpful to have a form that links directly to class enrollment, but there aren't quite enough form building options for our needs. We are still using Formstack for our main registration form then bulk uploading student data through a CSV file.Similarly, there is a gradebook on DreamClass, but there aren't great ways to upload files, create assignments or quizzes, or collect homework assignments through the platform. We are still using Canvas as our Learning Management System, then uploading the final grades to DreamClass to create transcripts. I would love to see DreamClass make their LMS portion more robust or allow for integration with Canvas.

Alternatives Considered: Apricot Social Solutions, Salesforce Essentials, Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT, Jumbula, Gradelink, CampDoc, PowerSchool SIS, CampMinder, HubSpot CRM and Alma

Reasons for Switching to DreamClass: DreamClass is more affordable, has better customer service, and is structurally more inclusive than these other products.Example: DreamClass allows for unlimited custom fields and does not require certain fields such as race or sex. In contrast, one alternative product only allowed for a dropdown of ~5 racial categories, based on the U.S. census groups. If we wanted to add our own custom race/ethnicity category to better reflect the reality of our students, we would have to pay something like $100 per field. Gender was defined as Male, Female, or Prefer Not to Say, not allowing for non-binary or other groups to self-identify. DreamClass fields are open and can better reflect the needs of each organization and their student population.Further, the DC team helped us to make some custom fields only visible to the student and administration. For example, some of our youth use different pronouns in our program than they use with their families. DC helped us to have 2 fields - one pronoun field that was visible just to students/admin, and one that was also visible to families.DC customer service is far more respectful and responsive than my interactions with these other platforms. There is no limit to how many trainings or conversations you have with the support team (some alternative solutions charge per hour). Lids is always willing to jump on a call or answer emails with any questions and meet with any team members!

Easy to use and implement

Comments: Our experience has been great! The team is super helpful, [SENSITIVE CONTENT] our main contact person is just wonderful and very responsive. Adding in our students and their info has been super easy. Any issue we've ran into has been addressed. So far we could not be happier!

Pros:

The features that are available fit what we were looking for. Previously we had spent 2 years trying to get Classter setup for our needs, we ran into one problem after another and were never able to use it! We have only been setting up DreamClass for about 2 weeks and its ready to use. Customer service is wonderful, questions are answered quickly. They are constantly rolling out new features it seems and so far it has been a vastly different experience than what we went through with Classter.

Cons:

There are some features missing due to it being a newer software, but just in the 2 weeks we've been using this they have already starting rolling out some of those features. Like email templates, etc.

All in one portal

Pros:

I am able to keep all student information in one portal, such as lesson plans, quizzes, and invoices.

Cons:

Would like for the portal to be able to enroll the student

Extremely satisfied.

Comments: We are a small fashion school, we have less than 100 students. The courses become popular during the last years, and we had trouble to manage attendance, class records, admissions, calendar, etc. While looking for a school CRM we found DreamClass, it is suitable for us because, being a small company, we can not afford to customize a big CRM. Other companies offer much more detailed-specific software, but is not suitable if you have only few students.
After some interviews with different companies, I did the trial with Dreamclass, and has no doubts about it. We found Dreamclass easy to set, easy to use, and (very important) user-friendly. The platform was not available in Italian, and they did all the translations in less than a month. Highly recommend it!

Pros:

Other CRM have grey - complex interface that is not suitable for young students, DC is intuitive and easy to set. The customer service is excellent, if I have a problem or if I don't find something they fix immediately or send me a video tutorial. Students and teachers have access to their own area, which is easy to use and that is an important feature. I am overall happy with the platform, I will probably add the online payment anytime soon.

Cons:

If I want to be very, very demanding, it could have some integration regarding expenses and some economic aspects. Right now we use another software, and it would be comfortable to have an all-in-one. But this is not, by far, a reason to change DreamClass. At the end, it is a school management software and does it job VERY well.

Alternatives Considered: Agora

Reasons for Switching to DreamClass: It is the only product suitable for a small school and nice, the other companies offered me software that needed to be settled and customized. The only company that had a "ready to use" option had a bad interface, not intuitive at all.

Simple, Streamlined, Sleek . . . And Affordable!

Comments: Amazing! The folks at DreamClass have been great to work with. They are personal, knowledgeable and helpful. I can't speak to the needs of a large organization, but for a small organization, DreamClass is the perfect solution!

Pros:

1. Affordable monthly subscription, even for small organizations. No huge set-up costs. 2. Simple, intuitive, and immediate set-up. Try it yourself with a simple free trial. Then seamlessly convert to a paid subscription. No sunk set-up costs. No risk! 3. Beautiful and intuitive user-interface. 4. Excellent and responsive customer service. 5. New features rolling out regularly.

Cons:

Some features are still in development. For our purposes, the current implementation of certain features (grading, scheduling) is rudimentary.