How to Sync Education Institutions Contacts to Smartphones? (2024)

There are 4,007,908 teachers in the United States, which includes 2 million teachers in elementary schools alone.

However, within just one school, managing contacts can already feel overwhelming, especially when it comes to keeping track of teachers, administrators, and staff.

To simplify communication and improve efficiency, schools need a reliable way to organize and access contact information on smartphones.

In this post, I’ll guide you through how to sync education institution contacts to smartphones.

Keep reading!

Key Takeaways:

• Educational institutions must sync contacts to smartphones to 1) streamline communication, 2) improve crisis management, 3) improve parent-teacher communication, and 4) ensure better data management.
• CiraSync is the best tool educational institutions can use to sync contacts to smartphones.

Some resources you might like:

• How to Sync IT Firm Contacts to Smartphones?
• How to Sync Construction Contacts to Smartphones?
• How to Sync Government Contacts to Smartphones

Why Do Education Institutions Need to Sync Contacts to Smartphones?

Streamlined Communications

In the words of famous author, poet, and teacher Robert John Meehan:

Whether daily communications with colleagues or making urgent announcements, reaching out to the right person in time can make all the difference. 

By syncing contacts, institutions can kiss goodbye to manual updates and make sure critical contacts are always available on employee smartphones. This streamlines communications and allows them to free up time and focus on their jobs.

Parent & Guardian Communication

87% of parents report wanting direct and truthful communication about their child’s performance, even if things aren’t going well.

This statistic shows the importance of teacher-parent communication. Parents want to know about positive and negative changes in their child’s studies.

In fact, a 2016 study by Child Trends indicated that 89% of parents attended a parent-teacher conference, and 79% attended a school or class event.

This shows they are ready to attend events for hours to communicate with school representatives.

Where am I coming from?

Engaging parents and guardians is crucial for students‘ success, and contact sync is a great way to improve parent-teacher communication. 

For example, it allows schools to send parents information about their child’s performance in school, upcoming events, and other notifications. No matter their income or background, students with involved parents will be more likely to earn higher grades and test scores, attend school regularly, and develop better social skills.

Crisis Management & Emergency Alerts

Sadly, crises happen more often than we would like. Education Week reports that 52 school crises in 2022 resulted in injuries (38 in 2023).

This is a topic I absolutely don’t want to discuss here because it’s heartbreaking.

But here is the point.

During an emergency like a natural disaster or safety hazard, the educational institution is responsible for contacting parents immediately. But how will the institution do this if they don’t have the correct parents’ contacts?

Moreover, with automatic contact sync, administrative and emergency response teams can coordinate their communications with students, teachers, and other staff. 

For instance, during a storm, a school can send out notifications to parents. They can tell them about evacuation procedures or closure.

Collaboration Between Faculty & Staff

Let’s discuss two more reasons to sync education contacts to smartphones.

Syncing contacts significantly improves interactions between faculty and staff. People can share ideas and group up for interdisciplinary events, such as lectures or extra-curricular activities. 

For instance, a group of teachers may decide to run a big interdisciplinary event and need to create a committee. With synced contacts, they can easily stay in touch throughout the process without having to search for each member’s contact data every time.

Better Data Management and Security

Managing many contacts (including staff, contractors, and parents) is a real burden for IT teams at educational institutions. They spend hours editing and updating contact databases instead of focusing on other critical tasks.

The solution is to choose a secured contact sync tool.

Take CiraSync, for example.

It’s a tool that allows IT firms, construction, government agencies, and education institutions to sync contacts to employee’s smartphones.

Security is one key reason why companies choose CiraSync. For example,

• We do not store passwords.
• CiraSync integrates with Microsoft Azure and the Azure Consent Network.
• CiraSync is compliant with GDPR.
• When a CiraSync worker updates mailboxes in Office 365, it uses HTTPS to connect with the EWS.

CiraSync uses encryption and follows data protection regulations, ensuring that your contact data remains safe and compliant with privacy laws like FERPA. Check out our security whitepaper and data privacy policy to learn more about our security measures at CiraSync.

How to Sync Education Institutions Contacts to Smartphones?

Now you know why contact syncing is so critical in educational institutions, let’s get into how it works on CiraSync:

1. Sign up for CiraSync. It’s always free.

2. Following the onboarding process, you will access the dashboard. Click the + sign next to “Contact Lists.”

3. You’ll see multiple source types to choose from. The CiraSync platform needs to know where your contacts come from before pushing them to smartphones.

For this example, I will use the “Global Address List” as our source of contacts.

3. Next, select “Active Directory Items.” Here, you’ll just need to choose the contact sources you want to sync. Click NEXT in the top right corner.

4. In the GAL field, search for a name and select the user (smartphone) you want to target. These users will always receive synced contacts. Click “Next” in the top right corner.

5. Fill out “Provide Contact List Name” to name the contact list and click “Save.”

6. The sync summary dashboard will briefly appear. Open the CiraSync main dashboard by clicking on the “Return” icon at the top-left of your screen.

7. Check the “Update Cache” option in the “Sync Status” at the top right side of the Dashboard and click on SYNC NOW to sync your contacts.

Voila! 

You have now set up automatic contact sync to employee smartphones. 

From now on, CiraSync will scan your contacts, identify changes, and push updated contacts to all synced mobile phones.

Frequently Asked Questions