The client: PDK International is a professional association for educators and provides professional learning opportunities, targeted networking, and relevant research, to help members deepen their expertise, elevate their careers, and ultimately experience better results in their work.
The issue: In an effort to inspire the next generation of educators, PDK International runs a number of programs focused on current students, including their Educators Rising competition and scholarships supporting those pursuing a degree in education. These programs inspire and drive a greater future for the field, yet the organization was bogged down in antiquated processes to run them.
“We had students submitting their applications by email with supporting items being attachments, and their videos being uploaded to YouTube,” explains Robyn Mintier, Database and Events Manager. This left the PDK International staff with the task of hunting down and collecting the all the necessary pieces from various locations, and then sending them to the appropriate reviewers. "This was very cumbersome when trying to work with reviewers who were all across the country.”
The solution: Mintier and her team realized a cloud-based application management platform could streamline data and file intake and improve the experience for their review team. As they began shopping, their wish list included flexible online portals -- one for students where they could easily complete applications and upload any materials necessary, and one for reviewers that would allow for remote viewing of those materials and quick scoring.
WizeHive quickly won over the PDK International team with its robust functionality and user-friendly interface. In addition to getting the smoother process and stronger data management they were after, the team was thrilled to take advantage of other features that simplified their day, like the ability to merge data into custom email templates and quickly generate custom reports that they can easily export into Excel when needed.
“It has helped us most in the scoring of our competitions,” Mintier went on. “We no longer have to manually tally all of the results. We can also quickly run a report to see who placed in the top 10 to recognize onsite at our events.”
With rave reviews from both the administrative staff as well as the review team, PDK International investment in WizeHive has been named a true success.
“I can personally say that it has been a tremendous time saver,” says Mintier.
