We are excited to announce the arrival of two new dashboards to the VeriSky suite of services. Since our very first demo back in September 2012, customers have been urging us to apply our collaborative management technology to other areas of operation. Thanks to a ton of feedback from many great organizations, we have been able to expand our service to provide data management services for expansion teams and accreditation programs. The best part about the new dashboards is that they have been integrated right into the existing platform and with the flip of a switch, can be enabled for your organization.

So what are you waiting for? See how we can simplify your life today.

Learn more about the Discipline Dashboard

Learn more about the Expansion Dashboard

Learn more about the Accreditation Dashboard

Tri Sigma Sorority has selected VeriSky to provide a web-based solution for managing chapter supervision requirements for their chapter accountability program.

Beginning February 2013, Tri Sigma headquarters will take advantage of a suite of tools that aid in creating, tracking, and managing chapter supervision requirements. A process that used to take hours and included stacks of paper, a handful of conferences calls, and dozens of emails, has been reduced to just minutes. Here's how it works:

When disciplinary action is taken against a chapter, the chapter leadership will be invited to a private dashboard where they may review the goals that have been developed for them. As due dates approach, the chapter will be able to upload the necessary materials to complete the requirements. Headquarters staff, volunteers, and campus-based staff may be invited into the dashboard to help review and approve the chapter’s submissions, as well as offer advice and feedback to the chapter. Tools such as automatic notifications, document sharing, and online chat will keep everyone on the same page and encourage collaboration.

"We are extremely impressed with the technology. More importantly, we're looking forward to the opportunity to shift our time from tracking and paperwork to support and guidance as goals are completed," Said Lorin Phillips, Assistant Executive Director, "I know this will also enable better communication between the chapters and the risk management committee."

"We are very excited to work with Tri Sigma Sorority," said Jacob Kingdon, Co-Founder and CEO of VeriSky, "Our goal is to provide Tri Sigma with a service that not only simplifies and expedites the discipline process, but also provides the organization with relevant comparative data and analysis tools to help them spend more time being proactive, and less time being reactive."

VeriSky specializes in the online managing, tracking, and analyzing of discipline, expansion, and accreditation information for Greek organizations and is the first company in the market to provide chapter and colony management services tailored specifically for Greek Headquarters. Learn more at www.verisky.com.

The annual Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisers conference was this past weekend at the beautiful JW Marriott hotel in downtown Indianapolis. Hundreds of campus-based professionals, headquarters employees, and vendors came together for a week of networking, education, collaboration, and fun, so naturally, the VeriSky Team was there to participate. During our two days at the conference we had an opportunity to meet hundreds of Greek professionals and conduct over a dozen demonstrations of our three products. We just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of the bright, passionate people that we had an opportunity to meet during the conference; we are very encouraged by all of the great feedback we received. We look forward to participating in many more conferences in the future.

For those of you that had an opportunity to see VeriSky in action and would like to start your free trial, please contact sales@verisky.com to setup your account. Setup is easy and takes less than 24 hours.

For those of you that didn't have a chance to meet us and see our products, please sign up for an online demo today or email sales@verisky.com for more information.

We have added lots of new features both on the surface and behind the scenes. Let's dive in and see what's new with Verisky.

Customizing dashboard headers

Sanction, Term, Requirement, Plan of Action, Probation... We've heard them all. We understand that your organization may use unique verbiage when it comes to disciplinary actions, so we are happy to customize your dashboard for you. During the setup process, just let us know what verbiage you prefer and we will be sure to customize the dashboard to meet your needs.

System emails now come from "You"

We understand that your students, volunteers, and other constituents don't want to hear from us on a daily basis. We also understand that too much email from any one company can result in deleting emails without even opening them. With that being said, we think that our email notifications are very important and will help ensure that chapter leaders complete the requirements of their sanction on time. So, after some great feedback from our friends at Sigma Nu, we have made some changes to the way our email notifications work. When a chapter leader receives a notification about an upcoming term that is due, it will still be sent from our servers, but it will now come under the name of the administrator on that account. That means students are receiving emails from your staff that they know and trust rather than some company they aren't familiar with. We also have added a feature that allows the student or volunteer to respond directly to that email and have their response sent right to the administrator rather than to us at VeriSky. Pretty neat, huh?

Link file share materials to individual terms

You may have noticed the file share feature on your main dashboard. This file share is a great place for an organization to store contracts, best practices, policies, and templates for easy access by students, volunteers, and other constituents. Thanks to some great feedback from Phi Delta Theta, we have also added a feature that allows an organization to attach these files directly to an individual requirement within a sanction. By attaching a file directly to the term, the student will be able to just open the term, click on the document, and download it to their computer without ever having to leave the page. Convenient? We think so.

Select your chapters from a list

We know how precious your time is and in a world with way too many tasks and way too little time, every second counts. That is why we are doing everything we can to speed up the sanction creation process. When we setup your dashboard for the first time, we will have you provide us with a list of your active chapters along with their designations. So now, when you create a sanction, you will no longer need to type in information about the chapter, just select it from the list. Not only does this speed up things for you, but it also ensures that we maintain accurate records in our database. This means better reporting and analytics for you. Fantastic!

What else are we working on?

We pride ourselves in pumping out micro-updates as often as possible. Who wants to wait months or even years for a new version of a product? We sure don't. So here is a sneak peak of some of the neat things that are coming soon.

Archiving Your Sanctions: We are working on providing you a better way to access and view archived sanctions. We are committed to preserving your disciplinary records for as long as you want to maintain them, complete with files, comments, timestamps, and users. Not only is it handy to be able to store all of your disciplinary records online, but having this data allows us to build some pretty neat reporting and analytic tools for you to assess your disciplinary program over a period of time.

Internet Explorer Compatibility: So we apologize for any inconvenience for those of you still using Internet Explorer as your primary internet browser. While the majority of our site is accessible in Internet Explorer, some of the features, design, and formatting may look or operate a little differently. We are working on this. For now, we suggest using Chrome, Firefox, or Safari for the best experience.

Sanction Templates: We understand that some organizations use very similar sanctions for multiple disciplinary cases. For that reason, we want to make it easier for you to copy existing sanctions and terms over into your new project. This will eliminate the need for you to have to type in the same requirements over and over again. When you click on "sanction a new chapter" you will be able to select from an existing sanction template or create a new one.

Timeline: Ever remind someone to do something 3 or 4 times, but they deny it when they fail to follow through? Yeah, we hate that too. So we are developing a timeline for each sanction that administrators will be able to access right from the sanction dashboard. The timeline will include any and all activity on that sanction in chronological order, including any notification emails sent from the system, comments made within VeriSky, terms approved, rejected, or completed, and every other action taken by any user in that dashboard. We think this could come in handy.

Multiple Dashboards: So this is a top secret project that we have been working on for a while now and we think it is pretty cool. Through all of our testing and the great feedback we have received, we have come to realize that the technology we have built is applicable in several areas other than just chapter discipline. While we can't share all of the details with you right this moment, we will be sure to update you as soon as the additional dashboards are available. Here's looking at you Mr. Expansion Director...

Have any other great ideas, please send them to jacob@verisky.com.

Last but not least...

Sometimes building software can be a lonely job. We would love for you to be our friend. Please follow us on facebook and twitter to get the latest company and product updates, converse with fellow VeriSky users, and provide us with the important feedback we need to improve our product.

After 18 months of development and beta testing, we officially launched our new discipline management service on September 10, 2012. Demos are currently underway with several fraternity headquarters and we are looking to open up the service to sorority headquarters next week. VeriSky provides Fraternity and Sorority headquarters employees all of the tools they need to create, manage, and collaborate on chapter discipline. Our cloud-based service allows the staff to develop customized sanctions, track due dates and completion rates, communicate with chapter officers and volunteers, and keep the rest of their staff and board in the loop.

"We are very excited to see our concept come to fruition," said Jacob Kingdon, Co-Founder and CEO of VeriSky. "Our collaborative management technology is unlike any other service in the market. We have taken a process that is inherently reactive, isolated, and time-consuming and completely flipped it on its head." In Jacob’s former position as Director of Chapter Services for Phi Delta Theta Fraternity, he spent four years overseeing the chapter discipline process for the 170-chapter fraternity.

"We believe that VeriSky will change the way that organizations perceive the discipline process," added Jacob. "Our goal is to develop a service that not only simplifies and expedites the sanctioning process, but also provides organizations with relevant comparative data and analysis tools to help them spend more time being proactive."

To learn more about VeriSky and see the service in action, explore our website or sign up for a free demo. "We are working tirelessly to update the service and add new features every week." Jacob added. "We have built a company around real people doing real work, and our customer's feedback is directly used to improve our end-user’s experience."

VeriSky specializes in the online managing, tracking, and analyzing of disciplinary information for Greek organizations and is the first company in the market to provide discipline management services tailored specifically for Greek Headquarters.

One of the most unique aspects of VeriSky is our collaborative approach to chapter discipline. Through our Collaborative Management technology, an organization can assign different roles to staff, campus administrators, volunteers, and chapter members. Each role serves a unique purpose and understanding these roles will be essential to getting the most out of your VeriSky experience.

What are the different types of user roles?

Administrators: Paid users that represent an organization's headquarters. This is the top level user in charge of creating sanctions, assigning other user roles, and managing the overall discipline dashboard. (Administrators are typically a headquarters employee in charge of discipline)

Overseers: Assigned by the administrator on an organization-wide basis. This user type can see everything that the administrator has created, including all sanctions and their corresponding terms. (Overseers are typically board members, discipline committees, or high level staff members)

Managers: Assigned by the administrator to a specific sanction. This user type is extremely important as it is the core of the collaborative management system. Once managers have been added to a particular sanction, they may be assigned to individual terms of that sanction. As the chapter completes each term within their sanction, managers are tasked with monitoring and approving the terms for which they are assigned. (Managers are typically campus administrators, local and regional advisers, as well as staff members)

Student Leaders: Assigned by the administrator to a specific sanction. This user is responsible for completing the sanctions that have been assigned to his or her chapter through the submission of support materials. (Student Leaders are typically executive officers within the chapter)

How do I assign users?

When an organization chooses to pay to use VeriSky for all of their discipline management needs, an account will be developed for that particular organization and an initial administrator will be assigned to that organization. The administrator can assign different types of users on the discipline dashboard.

Organization-Wide Users: To invite additional administrators or add overseers to the organization, click on the buttons at the top of the discipline dashboard. Remember these users are organization specific and will be able to see all sanctions developed by the organization.

Sanction-Wide Users: To invite managers and student leaders to a particular sanction, click on the buttons at the top of that chapter's sanction page. Remember that these users are assigned only to a particular chapter's sanction and can only see the data associated with that sanction.

How many users can I assign?

Currently the number of users that an administrator may assign is unlimited, although as an administrator, we suggest following these guidelines to avoid too much confusion. We tend to take the "less is more" approach to adding users.

• Guideline 1: Only add additional administrators to your account if it is absolutely necessary for someone else to create sanctions, add users, and have the power to delete data from your account. We do not limit the number of administrators that any one organization would like to have, but we recommend a single person to manage the organization's discipline if possible.
• Guideline 2: Add as many overseers as you'd like, but be aware of the privacy of your chapters. Remember that overseers can see everything that the administrator(s) see, just without the ability to add or delete anything. Add board members, discipline committee members, senior level staff, and anyone else that you think should have access to every sanction for every chapter.
• Guideline 3: Managers are great because they not only help to spread out the work of managing a sanction, but they also help to offer some transparency to the chapter's constituents. As a sorority administrator, you may choose to add the Greek Adviser, Chapter Adviser, Regional Volunteer, and Educational Consultant as managers on a sanction. By inviting these four individuals into VeriSky, you are giving them access only to that chapter's sanction. After you invite them, you can immediately assign each manager to manage individual terms within that sanction. For example, the Chapter Adviser might be assigned to manage the terms associated with recruitment and finance, whereas the Greek Adviser might be assigned to manage the terms associated with bringing a speaker to campus or submitting event planning forms for events on campus.
• Guideline 4: Every sanction must have Student Leaders assigned to it in order for anything to be completed. We suggest adding the chapter president and then letting him or her add additional student leaders as he/she sees fit. Sometimes it is easier if one chapter member is in charge of submitting all of the support material to ensure that it is submitted on time and is correct information.

Some Additional Tips For Users

• Tip 1: Do not confuse overseers with managers. Adding the Greek Advisor at Union College as an overseer will give him access to see your sanctions at Auburn, USC, Michigan State, and any other chapters that are currently completing disciplinary sanctions. Overseers are added on an organization-wide basis, whereas managers are assigned just to a particular chapter's sanction.
• Tip 2: Remember to add managers to a sanction before you start developing terms so that you can assign them as you go rather than having to backtrack.
• Tip 3: If you need a refresher on user types while you are using the discipline management system, just hover over the little question mark bubbles within the dashboard to get a quick reminder.

It has been over a year since the skeleton of a website we now call VeriSky was first placed online. The first version was nothing more than crude lines of data as we began to build the discipline management technology. Now, over a year later, as we get closer and closer to our public launch, our focus has shifted from data to design. A quote from Jeffrey Zeldman, entrepreneur and web designer, comes to mind:

"Content precedes design.
Design in the absence of content
is not design, it's decoration."

Jeffrey couldn't be more right. For months we focused our energy on developing a technology that worked. Ensuring that every button led to the correct page; that every ounce of data entered into the system was properly stored and secured; that every bit of feedback from our beta testers was analyzed and new features were developed that benefited our loyal users. Without a properly functioning product, what good would a pretty website be for our users? Well, as the wise monkey Rafiki once said in The Lion King, "it is time!" Over the next several weeks below are some of the design changes you can expect to see.

Headers, Buttons, and Pictures, Oh My!

One of the first things you'll see is a cleaner, more visual design to the dashboard. The header has been shrunk so that it doesn't take up so much space, the VeriSky logo has been simplified, and all of those blue links that seem to blend together have been turned into buttons. As we add more features to the site, look for new buttons to appear on this navigation bar. The "account" link has now been replaced with your profile picture. Hovering over your picture will bring up the account and sign out buttons. If you do not have a profile picture yet, click on account, edit your account info, and then update your picture with Gravatar. Gravatar is a third party site that links your email address with a picture of your choice and then automatically links that picture to thousands of websites including Google, Wordpress, and many others. If you don't like Gravatar, don't worry, we will be adding an option for you to upload your own picture right on our site.

Making Progress!

We want you to visualize your progress as you use our discipline management system. Whether you are an administrator overseeing the disciplinary sanctions of 35 chapters or a chapter president trying to complete your educational terms on time, you want to be able to see the progress that you are making on a daily basis. The addition of completion bars for each sanction, allow you to see how close you are to completing your goals.

Oh yeah, and administrators, you now have the ability to copy sanctions to use on another project. Do you have 20 chapters all serving an academic probation with the exact same requirements? No need to create the same sanction 20 separate times; just create it once, copy it, plug in the new chapter name, publish it, and watch those fancy progress bars as your chapters begin to reach their goals. Talk about a time saver!

Over the next few weeks you will begin to see other design elements implemented within the dashboard. Blue links replaced with buttons, the addition of icons to help guide you through the site and add some consistency to our core features and user types. Also look for continuous improvements to the submission and verification system as well as the chat feature. As always, your feedback is much appreciated, and helps us to make crucial decisions as we decide what to do next.

Did someone say new website...

The old public marketing site at www.verisky.com is being tossed in the trash and replaced with a brand new fancy schmancy one at the same address. For now, the old website will serve as a placeholder for our existing users to log in, but beyond that, it doesn't serve much of a purpose. The new site will provide current users and future users with all of the information they need to make the most out of their VeriSky experience. As we get closer to launching our new site, check back for updates and some teasers of the new design.

Other Notable Updates This Week

• Added a scroll bar to all of the notifications on the left-hand side of the dashboard
• Welcome email now sent to administrators when they register for the site
• Changed the weekly update email to focus on progress of existing chapters
• Added several new design features (with many more to come)
• Bug with due dates has been fixed to more accurately determine when a term is past due
• Several bug fixes and backend updates to improve the user experience and speed of the site

Over the past few weeks, a lot has changed within the Discipline Management Suite. Most notably, the user interface has received a major facelift with improvements made to the look and feel as well as the addition of a couple new features. Some of the major updates include:

All the info you need in one place!

Term details are now available right on the sanction dashboard so you never have to leave the page. By clicking on "view details" all of the information you need will appear directly below the term. Along with this improvement, you will also notice the addition of an Activity Feed that features all activity associated with that term. Users also have the ability to leave comments and questions for each other in the Activity Feed, adding a bit of a social aspect to the system.

Other significant updates

• Increased size limit of uploads to accommodate most documents and spreadsheets (if uploading a large scanned PDF, you may have to break it up into multiple files)
• Administrators now have the ability to share the created sanction with managers before publishing. This gives managers the opportunity to provide feedback before the sanction is sent to the chapter leaders
• Added email notifications to remind users of upcoming due dates and action items
• Added a comment feature to each individual term to allow users to communicate with one another
• Gave users the ability to delete uploaded files
• Added progress bar to each sanction
• Added password reset functionality (just in case you can't remember that all important password!)
• Made significant backend changes that increase the speed of the entire site, making your experience faster

Another big update for VeriSky! Thanks to all of your wonderful feedback, we are making improvements to the system every day. Keep them coming. Here is the low down on this most recent update:

• Fixed bug with sorting of terms. They are now sorted by due date with the term that is due next listed at the top.
• Added the ability for admins to copy and delete terms
• Added current term status to reporting section for admins
• Color-coded term status
• Gave admins the ability invite additional admins into the system for their organization (this is helpful for transitions, as well as organizations that have multiple people handling chapter discipline)
• Minor fixes to the invite form for users

Today we are happy to announce several minor updates and bug fixes. This round of updates was focused on improving the user experience and ensuring that from start to finish, your experience is glitch free. Below are some of the highlights of this update:

• Several minor changes to sign up page.
• All files from document share section will now open in a separate tab.
• Removed unnecessary invite pages after sanction is published; all user additions are now done on the dashboard.
• Fixed a bug that now allows overseers to be invited into the system without publishing a sanction.
• Admin will now show up as the manager for terms that do not have a manager assigned.
• Terms that do not require student action will no longer auto-complete on the due date; the terms  are now auto-submitted for approval to the assigned manager on the due date.
• Chapter Designations have now been added to the sanction title on the sanction dashboard.
• Chapter Designation and Sanction Name have now been added to actions in the recent activity feed as well as the calendar.
• Terms will now auto-sort by due date, rather than alphabetical order (you will soon have the ability to sort all columns as you wish, but this will come in a future update).
• Overseers have been provided with additional user contact information within their organization.
• Fixed a bug that was causing users with multiple roles to show up twice in the user list.
• Fixed an error with updating account information.

Stay tuned for some exciting new features and updates coming soon.