New SAISD website and employee portal
Late yesterday, SAISD launched its redesigned website. Clicking on the Employee tab will take those in SAISD directly to the new mySAISD Employee Portal.
With the recently launched portal, District employees now have a secure, one-stop-shop to collaborate and share information.
The new portal is designed and hosted in the web-based collaborative platform Microsoft Sharepoint, which makes it easy for employees to sign in to the secure site from anywhere in the world.
“When we were redoing the school websites a few years ago, the biggest thing we kept hearing was that there was no one single place where employees can go and get all the information they need,” said Angela Watters, web design coordinator and project lead on the portal. “This new portal helps solve that problem.”
The portal had a soft launch at the beginning of the school year, and the web team has been collecting feedback in preparation for the official rollout which happened in conjunction with the release of the new SAISD website.
“Employee feedback has been essential to the process,” said Dr. Kenneth Thompson, chief information technology officer. “We sat down face-to-face with teachers, principals and staff to obtain their input. The portal will not solve every communication problem, but it will be an effective and constantly evolving tool for all of our staff members to find what they need on a daily basis in a one-stop-shop.”
Information previously located on the Find it Fast Employees tab on the old website has been transferred over to the portal. Additionally, sensitive materials including payroll and human resource forms and information have been moved over as well.
In the future, Watters says that the web team is working on embedding the different Google features into the portal since many teachers across the District use the Google suite in their classrooms.
“Most of the feedback we have received so far has been positive,” said Watters. “It is a long process, though, and the site will constantly be evolving. We are trying to make people’s jobs easier, and streamline things that give our employees more autonomy.”
Employees who would still like to provide feedback about the portal may login here, go to the Feedback tab at the top right on the page, and submit your questions and comments.
Thompson says that the portal is a fluid site, which will constantly updated.
“Our work changes, our direction changes, our strategy changes,” he said. “We have built the portal in such a way that we can meet the demand for today, and also create a platform that gives us the opportunity to meet the needs of tomorrow.”
While the portal is focused on employee engagement, the redesigned SAISD website better supports our external audiences.
The new website is now mobile friendly and responsive to whatever device someone is using, as well as ADA compliant. It’s designed to make it easy for stakeholders to find the information they most need, and to keep up on what’s happening in the District.
“Our website represents us; it allows us to tell the story of the District,” said Thompson. “Not only does it need to be esthetically pleasing, we need it to be ADA compliant so each and every one of our users can navigate the site.”