Five groups of franchisees have been transitioned onto Radius since August. As of today, we have over 200 centers that are solely operating on Radius across the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, and Hong Kong.
We knew that a transition of this size would not be easy, neither for franchisees nor the Home Office team. Obstacles have certainly emerged, some expected and some unexpected, though we knew that some matters would surface that we could not predict. We are focused on resolving issues that arise as soon as possible while enhancing and adding to the current platform. We hope that those of you who have already transitioned can attest to a helpful support experience, and we will continue to improve our processes to better respond to your challenges.
IT continues to develop new capabilities and enhancements to existing features with the interests of franchisees, as a whole, in mind. We have already incorporated many franchisee requests, and we will continue to welcome and evaluate your feedback.
While we have found and overcome many obstacles already in this journey, we did want to update you on one, in particular. A few weeks ago, an inefficiency within the configuration of the database was highlighted. As this caused significant slowdowns in Radius performance, the IT team worked fervently to correct the issue. By reconfiguring the database, we were able to stabilize the system and thus continue further optimization.
When introducing new sets of users into Radius, there will always be new data quirks, and thus bugs to uncover. In the last few weeks, there were several bugs that we were able to identify through testing as well as user reports. Issues with bulk printing for student curriculum and the rendering of Assessment Charts for grouped assessments were fixed. There were also a few bugs that were uncovered in the Student Check-In module that were fixed, but we are keeping a close eye on this feature for further corrections. Our team worked on fixing dozens of bugs, and these fixes were released to Radius on Thursday, September 28. With each release, FBCs will be given a list of Release Updates that are to be shared with franchise owners. Through this process, new bugs will come to the surface, and we will continue to increase our efficiency with fixing them.
While we have designed much of Radius to replicate M2, there are a few places where there is a significant, purposeful difference. Radius is designed to promote the practices recommended to operate a Mathnasium Learning Center. For instance, student curriculum management must be a process that takes place in the student’s learning plan; thus, Radius will always require that curriculum is accessed in the student’s learning plan. Also, all learning plans must originate from an assessment rather than a blank learning plan. These changes in workflow are a big part of what makes Radius intuitive to the processes that Mathnasium promotes in center management.
We know that there are certain features that are not in Radius yet. Partial post-assessments, robust emailing functionality, further integrative features with Mathnasium University, and a full suite of reports are all features that are currently high in the development priority list, and you will see regular progress on these.
We are proud of the way that the field and centralized support teams have worked tirelessly, including weekend availability, to help everyone through the transition. While progress is being made every day, there are still some obstacles ahead. Please continue to communicate with your FBCs and the support team, as we are committed to helping you through this change as successfully as we possibly can. We are confident that everyone will find the transition pains to be well worth it once this has all been completed. We are working to bring to life the innovative ideas that have been conceptualized, but could not be realized with the Salesforce platform.
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14 Comments To "RADIUS UPDATE"
#1 Comment By Ryan Booth On September 29, 2017 @ 8:35 pm
I have tried to be patient with the Radius mess, but this message is dishonest and insulting. If you knew that the transition “would not be easy for franchisees,” then why didn’t you tell us so at the Convention, instead of saying exactly the opposite? This is revisionist history at its worst.
I wish I’d come here to read something like, “We’re really sorry that we messed up and pushed out a half-developed, buggy, often unusable Radius onto franchisees without adequate beta-testing.” An apology is in order, and instead I come here to see HQ patting themselves on the back for the awesome job that they think they are doing.
I’ve been frustrated but patient, but reading this hogwash is infuriating. You know what’s really pathetic? MMS was better than Radius 8 years ago. One of my CDs had it right when she said,
“You know why they called it Radius instead of Diameter? Because it’s only halfway finished.”
#2 Comment By Ryan Booth On September 29, 2017 @ 8:54 pm
“Radius will always require that curriculum is accessed in the student’s learning plan. Also, all learning plans must originate from an assessment rather than a blank learning plan.”
This is wrong and ignores the way that many centers actually work with their students.
When a student brings in homework that he or doesn’t understand, we often need to teach that concept so that the student can do the homework. It’s usually much easier to teach from our own curriculum, so it’s better to print a relevant PK and teach from that.
It’s not at all unusual for students to come in and say, “I have a test tomorrow on [topic], and I really need some extra help.” In the past, I could easily print out [topic] and help that student, but now HQ is saying that I shouldn’t do that, that I should provide less service to our students and parents. That’s unacceptable.
It also says to every franchisee, “We don’t trust you with the curriculum.” You do stuff like this, and then you wonder why franchisees don’t trust HQ on stuff like Mathnasium Online. I defended HQ in that mess, telling other franchisees that HQ was as trustworthy as it gets — and then you turn around and tell me that you don’t trust me at all.
Our centers send a weekly email to teachers asking them what concepts they are teaching in the coming week, and we assign that material in a “Teacher Updates” learning plan and print it out and keep it in a separate tab in the binder so that we can spend a portion of each session on that material, and we can keep that material separate from the prescriptives in the learning plan (and thus throw out unused pages in a few weeks). How do I keep the promises that I’ve made to my parents?
#3 Comment By Mathnasium Matters On October 2, 2017 @ 12:27 pm
We would like to clarify our intent around searching for curriculum to help a student with their homework. We agree that this practice is not only necessary but critical to a full Mathnasium experience for a student. The reason that Radius requires it to be done through a student’s learning plan is to ensure that the material is accurately recorded in the learning plan. This will allow it to be progress reported on, and eventually we intend to allow it to be included in post assessments. Including this school-aligned curriculum in learning plans and subsequent measures of progress and mastery will ensure that it is part of the communication with both parents and teachers.
The challenge at this point is that the search function in Radius is very limited, so we understand that this is causing frustration. We have shared a complete list of curricula with those who are currently running their centers on Radius, so that you can find what you need more quickly by using the exact title that you are looking for; however, this is not a long-term solution. The improvement of the search feature is a top priority in upcoming releases. This will include upgrades to the search function itself, as well as a more comprehensive set of filters on the material itself.
#4 Comment By Billy Jo Little On September 30, 2017 @ 8:58 am
This message gives the appearance of a “bait and switch”. We use the search function because the schools that we serve do not use textbooks and typically do not assign homework. A student comes in and says,” I’m struggling with a topic” and I look for Mathnasium curriculum to use. Please advise on proper techniques to use in these situations considering it is majority of the students we see.
I also do not understand the watermark that uses up so much toner and is a distraction to the student.
#5 Comment By Mathnasium Matters On October 2, 2017 @ 12:27 pm
We have wanted to watermark our curriculum for some time to better brand our intellectual property. This change was too difficult to make on M2, but available to us in Radius. We have already adjusted the shading to make the watermark light – both on the eyes and toner – when printed.
#6 Comment By John Opalko On October 2, 2017 @ 1:56 pm
Ryan, I want to second your comments, and applaud your willingness to state the obvious. HQ needs to be held responsible.
John
#7 Comment By Ryan Booth On October 2, 2017 @ 4:10 pm
This statement:
“Also, all learning plans must originate from an assessment rather than a blank learning plan.”
and this statement:
“We would like to clarify our intent around searching for curriculum to help a student with their homework. We agree that this practice is not only necessary but critical to a full Mathnasium experience for a student. The reason that Radius requires it to be done through a student’s learning plan is to ensure that the material is accurately recorded in the learning plan”
do not go together. As I stated, I keep separate learning plans labeled as “Teacher Updates” for students. These learning plans are obviously not generated from assessments. They start as blank learning plans. If I were to assign teacher-suggested material inside the regular learning plans generated from assessments, it would be very confusing, both to us and to parents and teachers, in evaluating a students’ progress through the learning plan. If a student comes into the center and tells me that he has a test tomorrow on [topic], then I need to print curriculum on [topic], but I am not focused on the student completing that PK, because we won’t have time to do that before he moves on to something else. Leaving that PK as “not mastered” inside the regular, assessment-generated LPs doesn’t work. Again, that’s a recipe for a nasty mess of an LP.
#8 Comment By Greg Bundens On October 3, 2017 @ 11:50 am
Ryan, this is extremely well articulated. I completely agree that we need the flexibility to “dial up” needed prescriptive topics immediately as student situations dictate.
I am hopeful that HQ and the Radius team will understand the need for this essential feature. We can only hope the folks at the home office are listening carefully here. It has been my experience that they do value and respond to thoughtful franchisee feedback.
Greg
#9 Comment By Jodi Ralston On October 3, 2017 @ 5:37 pm
We have not switched to Radius yet so I am looking for tips from others who have made the transition. If we can’t make learning plans from scratch, how do you handle students who have finished all the regular assessments, up through Geometry? In M2 we create a learning plan for them based off of typical Algebra 2 materials available in our curriculum. We have to do this starting from a blank learning plan as there is not an Algebra 2 assessment yet. We do the same for Pre-Calc. Will we not be able to do this in Radius? What should we do with these students?
#10 Comment By Jodi Ralston On October 3, 2017 @ 6:50 pm
As I think more about this, there are many times that we give students a bit of work on a topic to help the student get by in school, but we know that they are not at a level where we could expect complete mastery on that topic yet. I thought this was a core principal of the “Mathnasium Hour”. It is important that the student has some say in what they work on while at our center (for approximately 1/3 of the session), but we do not want these topics to take over their learning plans and we are not commited to work on these topics until mastery as we know that sometimes it is more beneficial to the student to have our focus remain on foundational topics (2/3 of the session). How would we communicate to parents that these topics were added to a student’s learning plan just to get access to the material, but we are not expecting mastery at this time?
#11 Comment By Lynette Groves On October 4, 2017 @ 1:54 pm
Jodi,
We switched over a few weeks ago and recently created a LP for an Algebra 2 student. We pieced together the HHM topics that corresponds to the text book that the school district uses. You can group more than 2 assessments now, after the last Radius update, and create a LP. It was pretty easy to do.
You can also work around adding new items to the LP. You would need to go to the LP and click Add New Items. Then search for the PK, FO that you want (This is the hard part). Then when you find it you can click on the Preview button. This will open it in a PDF and you can print. This will not add it to the LP and it will not print the students name on the PK.
I have to say that this was a very rough transition for my centers. There is a whole lot of functionality that is missing and you have to learn to be very creative with work arounds. I don’t think it was tested in centers. I am still finding that attachments did not transfer from all our accounts or something things transferred in duplicate. I hope that we can spot and recover all of this before M2 is gone completely. I don’t feel that this system was beta tested and it was rushed. But with how CSOD was rolled out I don’t know why I would expect any different. I am trying to stay positive with this system and I hope that functionality improves quickly. It has potential, lets see if it lives up!
#12 Comment By James Pinato On October 5, 2017 @ 1:49 pm
Ryan, I share your sentiments as well. At this year’s Mathnasium convention, I remember during one of the morning sessions, the tech department showed a demo of Radius. I remember feeling the excitement in the room in that we were moving to a system that was marketed to be easier to use and overall, just a nicer experience than M2. This is what I took away from the demo, and of course, I also had my reservations: could Radius do the same things we were already used to doing in M2?
I noticed there wasn’t a search bar. How would we find PKs to print on the fly if need be?
I noticed they didn’t demo in-Center tasks that are a huge part of what we do. How would we run things like partial post assessments?
I noticed they didn’t demo the various types of reports that we could customize to our liking. How would we be able to sort out the information we didn’t need quickly and efficiently?
And of course, how would Radius fit the needs of every Center? Given a sandbox, people are going to find their own unique uses. Would it have the same flexibility as M2?
I could see the potential of the platform and I remained hopeful that the things I didn’t see would be implemented and that the transition to Radius would be something like M2, but re-skinned with our Mathnasium look and feel. Maybe it would run faster than M2, be more lightweight, and we would be able to execute our tasks with higher efficiency and efficacy, having a platform that was specifically designed with Mathnasium Learning Centers in mind. Personally, this is what my expectation was for Radius and I believed in the hype.
I understood that at the convention, the presenter (apologies for forgetting his name), had said that they would inevitably find bugs and to be patient with them as they worked things out with that. I understood that as we transitioned platforms, there would be problems, hiccups, and bugs along the way, as long as I had the same functionality as I did in M2, I could and would be patient. So to my surprise, when I found out we couldn’t do things like partial post assessments immediately, I didn’t understand. Not so much as to why this functionality was not in Radius, but why we were forced to transition to a platform that wasn’t ready for the common tasks Centers look to do.
When I contacted my FBC, he had confirmed that the functionality was not yet there and that it was high on their priority list to implement, giving me a rough estimate of when he thought the functionality would be implemented, but it did not solve my immediate problem — I had to give my students PPAs for this quarter. I was forced to do them inefficiently, without a high degree of accuracy, but the task was completed and we’ll see how that may affect things down the line. Hopefully it doesn’t shake things up too much.
I still remain hopeful, but I am more reserved and primarily confused. I remain hopeful because of the communication I’ve had with my FBC in terms of what’s on the priority list and what they have planned coming down the line to hopefully make things easier. We’ll see what happens and maybe this is going against my better judgment, I can’t really say for sure.
James Pinato
Mathnasium of Poway
#13 Comment By Scott Methe On November 9, 2017 @ 11:48 am
I’ve converted over 20% of my current enrollment due to automation that occurs through M2 / Salesforce. That is, when I get a lead, I can create an automation workflow through Zapier that lets me get an email and a text message. Furthermore, there is integration with Constant Contact – and when a lead comes in through Salesforce, they are automatically added to Constant Contact and sent a personalized message with a link that allows them to book an assessment. SO MANY PEOPLE IN OUR MARKET WORK THIS WAY TODAY. The move to Radius is moving backward, and unless ROBUST integrations are added to allow us to keep up with the rest of the world, then in my book, this whole thing was a big waste of time and ultimately embarrassing for a company located just a few hours from Silicon Valley. I know you’re trying to do a lot – merge CRM with LMS functionality and keep quality control. However, this is already a fail in my book and I really, really hope that your team builds APIs and integrations that allow our systems to work with each other (i.e., Constant Contact) to ensure that our franchisees and directors are working smarter and not harder. Call me unimpressed and a bit upset that key functionality that has allowed me to build the business literally while I sleep is going away. Boo.
#14 Comment By Scott Methe On March 9, 2018 @ 8:41 am
Most of what I wrote in my prior comment has been completely addressed, or is no longer an issue because I have adapted to the updates. I’m really impressed with how the organization has improved Radius so quickly. I feel pretty bad about leaving negative comments – again, because most of what is going on with Radius now is really amazing. It’s a GREAT LMS system and its CRM is improving all the time. BRAVO! (not a boo!)