The PLS is designed to stimulate and facilitate parental involvement with schools and allow parents and students access to grades, attendance, homework assignments and course registration via the phone or Internet. Second, it imports data from the school's existing student management system. These attendance and gradebook reports are then sent to parents automatically via voice notifications on a phone or in the form of visual charts accessed via the Internet.
Parents can also dial in from any touch-tone phone to check on student progress.
In addition, schools can easily monitor usage of the system with custom management reports that provide details on all outbound and inbound calls. These reports indicate the status of all calls - whether connected to parents, answering machines or inoperable numbers. They also give officials an indication of peak calling patterns, allowing for better systems management. This system is designed so that each school has a ParentLink server, whether their voice system is a KSU, PBX or Centrex. The voice server connects to the LAN for Internet access and the phone switch or Centrex lines for voice access.