We know that this year has been especially hard for leavers. The rest of the school year is not looking how it should, goodbyes to school friends might have been rushed, and it’s definitely a different experience studying from home.
Luckily – all this doesn’t need to stop leavers from producing a yearbook. Our platform is completely online, and there’s no need to physically collect any information or come into contact with other students to get the book done. It’s possible to socially distance and stay at home while putting your yearbook together – you can still receive a physical memento of your time at school.
Below, we’ve run through the most helpful tips and things to know about the system when putting your book together remotely. We’ve also thrown in some tips to stay in contact with your committee and make crucial yearbook decisions when apart.
We hope you all stay safe and healthy – look after each other!
Chat
It can be hard to reach people when you can’t physically go and speak to them at school. Luckily, the built in chat feature in your online yearbook makes it easy to stay in touch. Yearbook editors can always message users, and everyone in the book is free to contact the online support team for any help if it’s needed.
This comes especially in handy when you might not have the mobile number or social media handles for everyone in your year.
Your chat preferences can be turned off and on from the ‘Chat’ tab of your yearbook settings. We recommend using the ‘Announcements’ chat function to alert users to vital deadlines, and the Editors group chat is especially useful when collaborating to edit your pages before submitting the book.
Digital Approval and Invoicing
We know things in school can sometimes take a long time, and that there can be a lot of paperwork. Permission slips, the office, invoices. It can all grind to a halt when a school closes!
Our system bypasses all of that – our entire proofing and invoicing system is online. There’s no need to watch the letterbox for physical copies of proofs or invoices, and your teachers can approve your yearbook content with a single click.
After your book has been submitted, you’ll be able to access an order summary dashboard that keeps you up to date with what we’re still waiting to receive – and exactly when we need it by.
The only time we ask for your address is to deliver your yearbooks – everything else can be organised online.
Storefronts
When schools began to close, we started to talk about everything we could do to make your lives easier. Helping to collect payments was an important one. We know it can be difficult to track everyone’s payments down at the best of times – even harder when you have to stay apart!
Over lockdown our tech team developed a virtual storefront for your books, allowing students to pay for their books or their book and hoodie and checkout. Editors can keep track of who has paid for what and when, making it easy to see who’s left to chase.
If this is something you’d like to enable for your books, let us know at support@yearbook.com. The team will work out a few details with you and the tech team will get your storefront ready to go.
Keeping in touch with your committee
Almost all of our books are a team effort. We know from speaking to you that lots of you use school spaces to organise committee meetings, and take joint decisions about your book.
This doesn’t have to stop during school closures! Many of you will already use Zoom to video call your friends – Zoom or other video conferencing software are great tools for calling committee meetings and speaking to everyone if a decision needs to be made. You wouldn’t even need to have everyone’s number – just share a meeting link over your school email and everyone can stay in touch.
If you do have all the editor mobile numbers or socials, make a WhatsApp or Instagram group chat to stay in contact! This year we’ve seen schools set up dedicated Instagram yearbook accounts to let students vote on yearbook decisions and give them updates to how everything’s going – it’s a great tool to keep in touch.
Contact Us
We might all be staying at home, but we’re still here to answer your questions! If you need help with your new timeline, need for us to contact a teacher regarding approval or an invoice, we can be reached at support@yearbook.com