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About My Music Staff
My Music Staff is the easy-to-use web app for managing your music teaching business. Teach more. Stress less.
Easy to use and comprehensive. The invoicing is so simple to use and makes it easy to keep up with my finances.
The auto-generated lesson fee feature is a bit confusing for me (showing a balance owed for lessons which haven't occurred) but even more so for the students.
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I couldn't teach so many students without My Music Staff
Comments: As I wrote above, all the administration and accounting is taken care of, leaving me time to teach more students and more hours. I also appreciate the responsive staff, who have always taken care of any wrinkles in the system or any of the problems I might be having within a very short space of time.
Pros:
It covers every single part of running a successful teaching practice. It takes care of my scheduling, it streamlines weekly practice assignments, it has a practice log for students, it lists repertoire completed and ongoing with performance dates, it keeps my accounting in order, it makes my income tax return easy, it gives out student tax receipts, it lists student names and addresses so families can contact each other if they need to exchange lessons, it handles lesson cancellation and make-up lesson registration without my having to be involved, it makes emailing notices a piece of cake, and......... I could go on and on. It even has features that I hadn't thought of to make my life as a piano teacher easier and also better organized. Unlike any other online service I've ever used, whenever there's a question or problem, the support staff answer and solve it within 2 or 3 days. They have even redesigned parts of the program when I've raised a problem. The staff at My Music Staff are dedicated to providing us with the best program possible, and review and update features on an ongoing basis. Without My Music Staff, I couldn't possible have taken on the high number of hours of teaching I now enjoy. Time spent on administration is now minimal, and I can spend my time doing what I really love - teaching!
Cons:
Very small little things that I haven't even bothered to message in. One is that the assignment notes are linked to the name of the event, so when for example Lucy comes for an extra lesson, which is ID'd as an extra lesson, the practice notes will transfer from Lucy's last extra lesson, not from her last regular lesson. Similar thing happens when the student comes for a make up lesson - the notes that come up are from their last make up lesson, which might have been six months ago. I have to go in to the last regular lesson, copy, then back to the make up lesson and paste. Then do the same thing again to transfer the notes from the make up lesson to the NEXT regular lesson. The second thing that comes to mind is that students cannot enter their repertoire themselves, unless it's already on the studio list of repertoire. But I can see that it's probably been changed this way to rule out mistakes the student might make (spelling, opus number, length of piece etc.) I can't think of anything else. Oh yes - I don't really like having to go to Facebook if I have a question. I preferred getting an answer from the support staff, rather than multiple suggestions as to how I might.......... from other users.
Port 443 Response
6 years ago
Hey Susan! Thanks for the great review. Right now, you have "Find past lesson notes for events in the same Event Category only" enabled. Here's how to change that: 1. Click "Settings" in the top right-hand corner and select "My Preferences". 2. From the "Personal" tab, scroll to the very bottom. 3. Uncheck "Find past lesson notes for events in the same Event Category only". 4. Click "Save". Now, the lesson notes will copy forward from their last lesson regardless of the event category :)
My Music Staff is like having a staff!
Comments: It's a good studio management tool. My parents don't take advantage of the features that are available to then, but, that's okay. Mine is a small studio.
Pros:
The schedule is easy to set up and manage. Tracking attendance and sending lesson notes is straightforward and easy. Communicating with families is also easy. Invoicing is straightforward, but doesn't allow me to set up a percentage per student for the ach fees I have to charge for those students whose lessons are paid for under a state education program.
Cons:
Bank fees for those students who pay online are easy. Other fees, especially those that are percentages of the invoice are not accommodated, subsequently, I literally have to manual create invoices for 85% of my students every month.
Alternatives Considered: Duet
Reasons for Choosing My Music Staff: Cost
Switched From: Duet
Reasons for Switching to My Music Staff: I selected My Music Staff over Duet Partner due to cost, primarily.
On the surface it seems ok, but in the details they’re terrible
Comments: My music staff has been ok for us overall. There is a complete lack of data transparency. I’m most upset about their financial approach to the ledger. Support has been nearly useless. Blaming us for their software issues multiple times. My day job is software and systems design. I don’t recommend the software.
Pros:
It’s easy to use for our teachers and clients. The interface is clean and straight forward. We have almost never had to teach someone the interface.
Cons:
Where it counts most my music staff fails. The most critical failure is in their financial ledger. It is possible to entirely mess up a client ledger if a lesson is accidentally removed from the calendar. Or if a rate is changed. It’s a rule of finance that you NEVER make changes to a ledger after the end of the month is closed out and an invoice created. My music staff happily goes back in time and makes changes to billing that are nearly impossible to find. Zero stars in that category. Also they’ve made design decisions that are absolutely backwards of what you would expect. Such as needing to edit every single lesson to change the time zone of the studio.
Worth Every Penny for Music Teachers
Comments: Subscribing to MMS moved helped me to expand my business and move to the next level. I have great respect for the company and much gratitude for the service they provide. They are helping music to flourish in this world!
Pros:
My Music Staff has made my life as a music teacher a thousand times easier! The site is intuitive to use for my students and for me, the ease of accepting regular online payments has subtracted hours of administrative time, and I love the ability to create a library of online resources for my students. MMS has helped me to feel calm and organized and to focus more on my teaching.
Cons:
I really do like everything about the site and heartily recommend it. The only difficulty I've ever encountered is when there is an update and something has moved - but in that case, the excellent customer service has always helped me sort things out.
Affordable for a multi studio
Comments: I used to have 2 software plus Excel spreadsheets. Once I started working with My Music Staff, I moved everything to one place. It is easy to use and intuitive from a computer usage.
Pros:
The support is amazing, quick and precise.
Cons:
There is no online booking at the moment. Sometimes, people just want to book 1 lesson online without emails or phone calls. They don't have an App. You have to open a window in your phone, which makes it harder to read.
Alternatives Considered: Omnify, Jackrabbit Music and OctopusPro
Reasons for Choosing My Music Staff: I made the switch because they weren't meant to be used for music schools but for hairdressers and restaurants (book once). My Music Staff is made for schools and recurring bookings.
Switched From: Calendly and Acuity Scheduling
Reasons for Switching to My Music Staff: Price and support. My Music Staff replied to my email the same day, and offered me an hour to go through a Demo, replied to questions and helped me to understand the process.
User of 10+ Years - I recommend MMS to all of my music teacher friends and associates!
Comments: My overall experience with MMS has been excellent. It is absolutely essentially to running and maintaining my music school, and has taken away a lot of the stress of scheduling lessons.
Pros:
The best part of the system, and by far the most used for us is the scheduling. Not only does in make keeping track of our lessons very simple and straightforward, we can very quickly make changes, and even provide our teachers with access so they can stay on top of their schedules. In addition, being able to synchronize the MMS calendars to Google Calendar or Apple Calendars means that I can see an updated schedule on my phone at any moment. I also love their automated payment system which has removed the need to chase down students/parents for tuition payments; everything goes through automatically at the end of the month and we can rely on a consistent stream of income to cover expense and make sure everyone is paid on time.
Cons:
The only thing I don't like about MMS is the recent GUI change. I'd been using the earlier system for many years and have become quite comfortable with where everything was located. The GUI updated moved some features around which has been somewhat annoying - however I'm gradually getting used to the new layouts.
Alternatives Considered: Jackrabbit Music
Reasons for Switching to My Music Staff: At the time I was a smaller operation with fewer teachers on staff. MMS allows the price to scale based on the number of instructors you have which made their pricing very enticing for my business.
My Music Staff is great!
Comments: I've been using MMS for about 6 years and I love seeing it improve over time. My team and myself are always excited for each new update.
Pros:
MMS is easy to use and easy to integrate into our business protocols. It helps tremendously in keeping us organized and limits the need for tons of paperwork and binders.
Cons:
Missing Features:- Capability to take swiped card transaction- An easier way to track the difference between make-up lessons that were given due to teacher absence versus student absence in the student profile. Currently all issued make-up credits are grouped together in each student's profile, but since we have our studio policies set to where the students aren't penalized for teacher absences and they have a set limit of make-up credits they can receive for student absences per year it is very hard for us to track.
Alternatives Considered: Mindbody
Reasons for Switching to My Music Staff: The price and the fact that it is specific to music.
If you have a private teaching studio...you need this.
Comments: Overall I am super happy with MyMusicStaff. It is not an expensive tool to use and does everything I wanted it to do and a lot more.
Pros:
There are a lot of things I love about MyMusicStaff but the one thing that is the best is the ability to automatically bill families in the beginning of the month. It is the greatest thing. I used to do it by remembering myself or the families and I would always feel like I am undercharging or overcharging. But this way I know that it is exactly right. It is so easy to set it and forget it and see that money coming in every month.
Cons:
Sometimes it seems like the software is a little glitchy. Sometimes it charges twice and you have to do some tricks to get the amount that the family owes you to be correct. When the software works, it really works well but then when it does not it is kind of a pain to get it to be correct.
Excellent tool
Pros:
My Music Staff provides a clear value for the money. The ease of scheduling and tracking income and expenses has made a huge difference in my productivity. More time is spent on teaching (and earning), far less on administration.
Cons:
The single-day view on the calendar needs improvement. Currently, it divides lessons by location. This makes sense for a multi-teacher studio. However, for one teacher who is moving between locations, it's really confusing. Sometimes I just need to be able to look QUICKLY and see the day's lessons, not have to jog back and forth over three columns.
Alternatives Considered: Fons
Reasons for Switching to My Music Staff: My Music Staff offers far more value for the price point. Other products were more expensive, sometimes offering tools I choose not to use; sometimes note. My Music Staff was the Goldilocks tool: just right.
A Must-Have
Comments: Overall, MMS has made organization, scheduling, and communication with studio families easier!
Pros:
This is an all-in-one platform for running your music studio! Before finding My Music Staff, I was using 3 different spreadsheets, 2 paper notebooks, a phone to-do list, and a paper planner to run my business. MMS consolidated this down to one affordable program that is customized to the needs of a music teacher. I love it!
Cons:
I do occasionally encounter technological issues, or notice that there is a task I would like to achieve that I do not know how to accomplish. When this happens, the answer is not always intuitive. (For perspective, I am of the millennial generation, and consider myself technologically savvy enough to independently learn most computer programs oriented for the workplace).
Finally - Simplified Billing!
Comments: The tech support was great when I was trying to work with my service provider to get my own domain working with MyMusicStaff. When designing my own website with their template, they were also responsive and helpful with complex formatting on some of the pages.
Pros:
I like that I don't have to have my home website named something strange like "teacher's helper"--instead I can have my own domain name and a super easy to use website creator (and nice templates to choose from). The "portal" for parents is automatically added to the website. This way, I can use my own domain name in marketing materials. I have been in business for 20 years and grew exhausted checking out different software packages, none of which were specifically for the music teaching business. As for functionality, I like the bulk attendance.
Cons:
Most of it is great. Would like to see continued addition of reports, or the ability to select more options for report content. More uploads--for example, when I put together my schedule for a new semester, it's time consuming to add each lesson in one by one. Being able to type everything in on a spreadsheet and upload it would be great. I find it confusing the way the lesson rates and duration and categories work together. Perhaps this could be simplified somehow--I have to remember which screens to go in to change the students time and category. It gets more confusing when you have siblings at different rates, or when you are discounting lessons for other reasons.
Port 443 Response
6 years ago
Hey Sheila! Thanks for taking the time to provide just fantastic feedback :) Our development is community driven. We depend on the awesome suggestions and feedback that we receive from our members. If there's something more you'd like to see in the reporting, let us know! You can always send your feedback and suggestions to [email protected]
An extremely high value product
Comments: My Music Staff has become indispensible and almost makes life a breeze. Accounts, invoicing and lesson management, notes and plenty more are brilliant. If they can upgrade some and smooth a couple of other areas I'd gladly pay more.
Pros:
After trying a number of other systems which felt like a real pain, I must say I can't find a system anywhere near as good for even double the price. There's a learning curve but it's really nothing like many others out there. TOP PROS: - Invoice for a period for all students in one hit and then email in one more. - Calendar view is powerful: attendance, great filtering by student/teacher/and many more - Setting up lessons is a breeze with conflicts detected automatically (although I wish it picked it up conflicts before pressing save, saving me a click-and-loading cycle) - Love the ability to clone days, run indefinite recurring group lessons with blocked out dates - Account management is brilliant too with a running list of billables and balance at any particular date - Sign up form is embeddable - SMS support mostly great - Notifiations to clients are great
Cons:
SMS INTEGRATION IS PATCHY - Fantastic for e.g. deleting a day. Except to send SMS messages needs to be activated in each profile manually which is slow - can't be turned on by default either - If the student doesn't have SMS turned on they don't get sent - Deleting lessons obscures the account: there is no longer record of that lesson even if it was previously included on an upfront invoice. - Marking a teacher absent is ideal EXCEPT there is no option to SMS all students without activating the feature in each individual profile first. NO SECOND FORM Other than the signup form - you need another service to handle this LEAD MANAGEMENT - No real (even simple) LMS, need another system. hello double handling data - Can classify as "lead" but then they can't book an open lesson. They need to be "Active" to do that, which is confusing because then they're "current students" which they aren't. It would be nice if leads could be added to lessons, then be automatically converted (semi-workaround via Student view sorting) INVOICES - need more templates & automation for outstanding, reminder before due, overdue, overdue 7/14 days - XERO integration please! NO STOCK MANAGEMENT - No stocking books to smooth the process. To sell, a manual entry for every book sold is required. No prefill or stock - I've stopped selling books because of this ATTENDANCE - For group lessons needs optimising too many features has bloated the process & created too many loading panes
Port 443 Response
6 years ago
Hey Isaac! So glad to hear you've been enjoying My Music Staff. We've recently added the "¿Trial Student¿ status. A trialing student is functionally the same as an Active student but provides a way to segment your student list so you can easily identify which students haven¿t yet committed to lessons for the long term. You'll want to use this status rather than "Lead". This will allow you to schedule the students on the calendar. Parents and students do need to opt-in to receive SMS messages. This is to help studios comply with SMS marketing laws. This is why it's not enabled by default. We do agree that after receiving permission, you should be able to enable the feature in bulk so we've added this item to our to-do list. Thanks again for the great review!
My Music Staff Falling Behind
Comments: We've been using MMS for over 4 years now. When we first found this program it was the all-in-one solution we were looking for but unfortunately, as the years have progressed, the site has gotten much slower to work with, updates made are off-point and not helpful and the program is falling behind in offering features that are standard with others. Most noticeable is the lack of an activity feed or notification system. While other customer management and team work platforms have made this piece a base offering, My Music Staff has no way to indicate who is making changes in the database, when changes are made or a way to be notified. They occasionally roll out new features which are of little use. The Beta Attendance update, still in Beta after more than a year has more steps than the original method and makes the routine more cumbersome instead of streamlining. Despite being around since 2013, My Music Staff is still lacking an application made specifically for your phone further hindering their usability. While we'd really like to continue using this program, the lack of investment to keep up with development and customer needs puts it on the verge of being outdated.
Pros:
Ease of set it and forget it weekly lesson management and invoicing for clients.Calendar is user friendly
Cons:
Not responsive to feedback, input. No feed or alert for user changes in any way makes it extremely difficult to track if a teacher makes a change or someone has changed something that will impact your client's billing.The adjustments they do make seem to glitch the system at times.
Port 443 Response
2 years ago
Hi Jill, we're sorry to hear you're feeling that way but appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback to help us improve! Over the past few years we've actually been rebuilding the entire platform on upgraded technology to address concerns like loading speed and modernize the layout. It's still being rolled out to our existing members, but if you don't see the banner on your homepage to upgrade just yet, we'd be happy to enable it for you so you can give it a try! If so, please send an email to [email protected] :) This major upgrade gives us a better foundation to add new features (like the recently added lesson note templates and auto-save lesson notes) and be able to adapt it into a downloadable mobile app. In the meantime, we did specifically focus on the mobile experience as part of the redesign so using the new version on mobile should already feel more like an app.
Hope Bleakman Review- Can’t live without My Music Staff!
Comments: Again, the website feature has helped me secure a lot of free trials after I created a book your free trial page. Seems small but families have responded really well to it and with a little playing around it was really easy to make and turn the ‘contact us’ page into a book a free trial!
Pros:
It’s though to pin point, but I think my favourite is the website feature, I absolutely love I have this under one roof and how I get a notification new families have signed up and they’re already in the system. Once you get to learn the website feature you really can make it your own, im actually proud of the website I’ve been able to build through My Music Staff!
Cons:
It would be great if when parents are signing up their child that they have the option to select what classes they’re enrolling in and the system automatically puts them into those correct classes on the calendar. - Another great featre is if there were more ways to pay online other than PayPal, if parents could click pay now and enter their card details and funds get deposited into the business account that would be a life changer- or if somehow my music staff was partnered with after pay for families to pay their invoices in instalments… I know a few families would opt for that option!- ultimately helping small business get paid on time and not having to chase invoices! I’m in Sydney Australia and I know my families wouldn’t opt for PayPal unfortunately. Also an app would be perfect!
2 months in- loving it!
Comments: The customer service is exceptional. It's really like having a 'staff.' Responses are prompt and answer the question asked, usually along with additional suggestions. The staff checks in about once a month to see if you need help with anything. They are great at anticipating what you might need. For example, during the Corona shutdown they were quick to get online teaching platforms integrated with their scheduling program. They went above and beyond by offering tutorials about getting started teaching online for those of us who had never done it before.
Pros:
I have been using My Music Staff for a couple of months now. My favorite feature is the auto billing from the calendar. Students can change times or cancel lessons themselves which eliminates a lot of the administrative work. I love that I can email students or parents or both seamlessly. I use the online resources feature to upload audio or video customized for each student. It's easy to email notes to parents or students and also maintain private notes for myself. I also like that there is an easy check box for when students pay at the lesson. Just check the box, no need to enter a payment. I like the setting that a cancelled lesson automatically creates an open 'makeup' spot in my schedule that ask students can see and claim.
Cons:
I offer tiered pricing for families. So the first student in a family is full priced, the 2nd is discounted, and the 3rd is more discounted than the 2nd. There isn't a good way to do that on this site. I can assign different prices per student, but if the 'first' child in the family cancels, but child 2 and 3 still do lessons, I have to manually adjust the price. I also don't like that the invoicing shows a balance owed all month long, although it does adjust as needed. For example, my students pay at the end of the month. But on the first of the month, it shows that they owe for the full month. They won't get an invoice until the end of the month, But if they (or I) check their account before then, I would prefer to see a current balance for lessons taken, not lessons taken and scheduled.
You Need This in Your Life!
Comments: Customer support is very helpful!
Pros:
I don't generate invoices until I have my schedule set. Once I have my schedule for the month/semester/etc figured out, I create invoices and send them to parents. I love that this program makes it easy to create and send invoices based on the schedule. What used to take me HOURS now takes minutes. I also like how it tracks payments, adjustments, etc in the program so that even parents can see. No more angry parents claiming they paid when they simply forgot; they can see everything. My studio size doubled because I am so much more organized with everything. I also love that students can see notes that I've taken, assignments, download music, etc. I also send out mass messages for my upcoming concerts which is posted on the group studio page. ALSO I love that it automatically sends reminder texts and emails. I rarely have students forget to come to their lessons anymore (and when they do, I just remind them of my cancellation policy, so I never lose any dollars). I love this program. Just amazing. I will never use anything else.
Cons:
I wish there was an phone app that would allow me to work offline. I frequently work in practice rooms that block out cell phone signal, so I can't load students' notes when I teach. Also, It took forever to figure out how to navigate through the site at first. Lastly, I wish I could figure out how to automatically send my students their lesson schedule for the month (not essential since it is listed in the invoice, but I would like to have the kids get a list of lesson times in the email).
If You Have a Music Studio, You Need This!
Comments: If you run a music studio of any type, you need this software. There are far too many details with scheduling and book keeping for you to do it by yourself. This software has helped me keep track of any and all students at any one time. It has helped me automate many lessons and recital schedules among other things. It helps all teachers at our studio keep attendance records up to date for all students. This is just a bit about what you can do with My Music Staff.
Pros:
I love the fact that my studio found this software. I have been given the responsibility of being the studio manager for a piano studio in California. I love the calendar feature where you can filter different teachers, studios or student lists. My organization runs three studios, one in California and two on the East coast. I love the ability of emailing straight from the application. It allows me to keep in touch with all students, parents and teachers at any time.
Cons:
Sometimes, the technology does get hard sometimes and the scheduling portion can have glitches and put scheduling in the wrong place. Sometimes I have trouble organizing with the app. There are issues with scheduling conflicts at the studio when the times don’t overlap. That could stand to have some updating.
Port 443 Response
6 years ago
Hey Cody! Thanks for the great feedback :) It looks like your studio has conflict detection disabled. To enable this feature: 1. Click "Settings" in the top right-hand corner and select "Studio Settings". 2. From the "Options" tab, click "Check for scheduling conflicts when adding/editing calendar events". 3. Scroll to the bottom and click "Save Options". If you need a hand, we're here to help! Our team can be reached at [email protected] or by phone at 1-888-732-6134.
MMS is a solid product which covers most of the bases
Comments: MMS has made scheduling quite efficient. It is fairly easy to navigate once you get used to it. We have been using it for a long time and I know there are features I haven't even gotten to yet. I don't think we've worked with the support team much as we've been able to figure things out. I would be very interested in taking a live class if it were offered just to appreciate the full potential of the software.
Pros:
I especially like the attendance notes. It informs our students (parents) what is to be expected at the next lesson. This is especially good for parents who are not particularly musical, to remind the child specifics of the practice material. I also like the auto reminder sent for next day classes. This gives the student an opportunity to cancel class in time to qualify for a make up class. And, if a class had been verbally cancelled, but the teacher did not log it as such, (s)he is reminded that the class has been cancelled.
Cons:
I wish there was an entry to list the specific instrument being taught at each class. We can list the instrument in the student information section, but it'd be more convenient if it were right there on the calendar. Many instructors teach multiple disciplines and knowing which is being taught at a given class would make it easier for us to book the right room and/or the right substitute.
Port 443 Response
6 years ago
Hey Jack! You can actually create custom event categories. This would be a great way to detail what instrument is being taught. We'd be happy to walk you through the steps. Send an email to [email protected] or click "Help" in the top right-hand corner of your account and do a quick search for "custom event".
Very good software for music school management
Comments: It is the best out there unless who want to pay tens of thousands for personalised Salesforce set up.
Pros:
There are some very great features in My Music Staff such as the ease of payment from the client. I also like the calendar layout and functionality.
Cons:
Having to jump from one category to the other and back can take along time over the web. It would be easier if all of a clients information including payments, bookings, contact history, etc where all available on one screen. Also, monitoring non-payers can be a bit of a headache and be time consuming.
Best User Experience and Interface of All Lesson Management Systems We've Tried
Comments: Overall, the price and functionality are right with MMS. I'm happy with my choice and out of all of the software as a services I use in my business, this is the one I'm least likely to switch out of.
Pros:
Integrating MMS was incredibly easy. There are a few small features they could add to make it even easier but overall it went quickly enough. I love the transparent (and inexpensive) per teacher pricing. Uptime is fantastic; I don't think I've ever experienced the site being down.
Cons:
MMS is great but not quite mature. I appreciate the really solid uptime but the site can be very slow. As an administrator, I am used to the system and I can generally make it do what I want. My teachers sometimes complain about it (navigating to the contact information for the parents of a child student can be a pain, and has to be explained to them because it's not obvious) but overall they enjoy having student and schedule info at their fingertips. None of them make use of the notes, repertoire, library, etc. so these features don't do much for us though they seem like solid features
Saved My Studio
Comments: My business runs very smoothly and professionally with the use of My Music Staff, I have the control that I need of the studio while giving my instructors the freedom to teach the way they find most effective with the students. Parents enjoy the reminders, automatic invoicing and electronic payment options. My website drives in lots of business and it is created using the templates on My Music Staff. Without this program my studio would never have grown to this point nor would it continue to grow as it is today. I will always recommend and share my love of this program.
Pros:
As I began taking on more students a couple of years ago and I started to struggle with scheduling and and billing, we started looking around and found My Music Staff, it saved my studio. We are now at 32 students and we have 3 instructors, without the ease of My Music Staff I would never be able to schedule and bill families appropriately or keep track of payroll. I love the ease of looking up addresses, families inputting their own information and being able to keep track of assignments within the program. The reminder emails and texts are awesome for busy families and the automatic billing feature is amazing so that I don't have to calculate and send out invoices to families.
Cons:
Nothing really, some of the setting are buried a little bit, but everything is very logical.
MMS is my Business Assistant
Pros:
Scheduling with family portal; auto-invoicing and autopay; automated reminders; options for to host with MMS or embed MMS features on your website.
Cons:
I’ve grown with MMS // I started using it almost right from their beginning. I was looking for something to help manage my growing student list and have stuck with them through some growing pains as they’ve vastly updated over the last 2yr (was on the beta testing team!).
Excellent, reliable, affordable studio management software
Comments: MMS does most of my admin work for me, which allows me to concentrating on teaching — that’s really important to me and I really appreciate it. I also really value how reliable it is. I’ve never lost information and the website has never been down.
Pros:
MMS is overall very easy to use, has an attractive, well-thought through design, and is very reliable. I use it for registering new students, tracking attendance, billing and receiving payments. The customer service team are responsive, honest, open to suggestions and overall simply very helpful. I use it every day, it is the core software of my business, and it has significantly reduced my admin work.
Cons:
Just a couple of minor niggles. I’d like the lesson notes to copy through automatically to a student’s next lesson; usually they do this, but they don’t if it’s not a repeating lesson. It’s not a big deal. I don’t love the Milage function, which is a bit unwieldy to use.
Awesome software. I couldn't live without MMS!
Comments: I've solved so many business problems with MyMusicStaff which have allowed me to spend less time on administrative work and more time teaching my students! I recommend this software to my other teacher friends all the time. This software is such a good value for the price and I love how they really put teachers' needs first!
Pros:
The things I like most about MyMusicStaff are: - The ability for me to send professional-looking invoices to all of my students, ensuring that everyone pays me the correct amount and streamlining my billing process - The ability for students to reschedule their own lessons in the Student Portal - The ability to manage my schedule, leave lesson notes, track progress, handle billing, and use the practice timer all in one place
Cons:
It takes a lot of time to manage on a daily basis, and sometimes it takes me several clicks to get where I need to go. For example, when navigating to the student view to view my Studio News posts, I have to... 1. Click on the 'Students' tab on the left 2. Click on one of my students' names 3. Navigate all the way to the right to where it says 'Student Portal' 4. Click on 'View As Student' 5. Wait for the student view to load 6. Click on the 'News and Blog Posts' bar And finally, see what I wanted to see. The email interface for writing emails within MMS is also a little bit weird. The user interface gets better and better all the time, though, and the staff is very good at responding to suggestions!
Excellent
Comments: Do it. My Music Staff provides me TREMENDOUS value. It is an excellent example of how technology can be used as a tool to enhance our lives.
Pros:
This product ticks all my boxes! It connects with PayPal, so I can accept credit cards online (and if person if I wanted to) and My Music Staff automatically adds the payment to the student's account. It saves me time because students are able to cancel and register for lessons through the website which means less email. Yay! Lending library, digital file locker, website builder, repertoire tracker,... aMAzing! And their customer support has been top notch when I needed help with a feature/setting and in quickly fixing bugs.
Cons:
While it does pretty much everything I could want it to, some of the settings are in unexpected places. There are some calendar settings on the calendar page itself, some are in the main settings, some in preferences, etc. When I want to tweak a setting, I sometimes have to click through multiple pages to find the setting I'm looking for. I'm afraid this may be keeping some people from knowing about, finding, and enjoying many of the great features of My Music Staff.