What is Avela Explore?

Avela Explore helps give parents a visual way to view and find schools available for them in their organization. Explore shows schools on a map, with each school having its own pin. Parents can click the pin to view more details about the school. All of this is powered by the data you give us and is fully customizable to fit your parent population.

Avela Explore is optimized for both desktop and mobile based on viewport size. Families can view Avela Explore from any device.

Explore also utilizes languages in Google Translate to automatically translate to the languages configured by the organization. If a parent’s default browser is a language that has been configured, Explore will automatically translate.

Map

The explore map displays a view localized on the schools available. Each school has a pin that, when clicked, opens a detail panel showing more information about that school.

Parents can click and drag the map (or hold on the map and drag on mobile devices) to move the map around. The map can be zoomed in and out by scrolling (or pinching on mobile) or by using the “+” and “-” icons at the bottom of the map.

School details

Each school has some information about it that can be viewed. These details for the school can be viewed by clicking a school in the left panel school list or clicking any pin on the map.

The details a school can have about them include:

• School name
• School address
• Links to the school website or other resources
• Written sections of content that can have a description of the school and more text information. Aside from the school photos, there isn’t support for photos.
• You can customize the tabs and data you’d like to include for your schools

Searching & filtering

School can be searched for by address. You can enter an address in the search bar at the top of the screen. When the address is entered, a pin is dropped on the map denoting that address. The parent can then view schools sorted by distance to their address.

Address search also shows the neighborhood schools.

Filtering allows parents to refine the available schools based on a variety of properties. These are customizable based on the properties that are added to schools.

You can also search by keyword by clicking the “Keyword” button next to the “Filter” button. This allows parents to search for schools by any keywords associated with a school, located in their description and school information. As keywords are entered, the list and map will update to only show the schools that have the entered keyword.

Saving schools

When parents are browsing the available schools, they can optional bookmark, or save, schools that are of interest to them. These saved schools are then available to view at a later time on the same device and web browser by clicking the “Saved schools” button at the top of the screen.

Clicking a saved school selects that school’s pin on the map and opens the detail panel, show more information about that school. Schools can be ordered, so the parent can keep track of their favorite ones. Schools can also be removed from the list at any time.

If a parent wants to save the school list elsewhere or share it with someone else, we provide the opportunity to do so at the bottom of the saved schools panel. By clicking either the email or phone icon, parents can input the appropriate email or phone number and a list of their saved schools will be sent to them.

Demand meter

Avela allows you to configure a demand meter to show and incentivize parents to save and apply to more schools. The demand meter can be customized based on the data of your schools given previous enrollment cycles and helps parents maximize their chances of getting into a school of their choice without sharing specific enrollment data and waitlist lengths.

Integration to Avela Apply

Schools that are saved in Explore can be moved directly over to Avela Apply when the family is ready to do so. This can be configured for your specific instance - see more here.