Item: Frontline Professional Growth
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I have used Frontline Professional Growth since it was formerly MyLearningPlan. The main reason we went to this program was to be able to better track our staff professional development hours as well as digitize frequently used forms so that we mitigated paper copies and running them to individuals for signatures. Since we use many of Frontline's other services, such as Absence Management and Oasis Evaluation, this was easy to integrate since it pulled the information we already had in the system. Tracking professional development hours of all staff members is no easy task and this has helped us do that. I am in this platform daily, awarding hours, approving workshops, adding professional development opportunities, and submitting forms.

Pros and Cons

Frontline includes a digital catalog, that you can use to enter all of your professional development workshops into, and track who is attending, print sign-in sheets, and tag professional hours.
The digital routing of forms was a main goal of ours. Not too many applications can create custom routing procedures, and go from person to person as designated in the configuration of the form.
The ability to take all of your commonly used forms and have they digital and available for teachers is useful.
Teachers can track how many hours they have earned throughout the year (and years) in their digital portfolio.

The configuration and startup of Frontline Professional Growth is time-consuming. I wish this was easier to get going.
Creating forms is difficult and the form editor is hard to navigate and use. You cannot create a form yourself. That has to be created and entered into your system by Frontline, which takes more time, especially if it is an easy form you want to create.
There needs to be a better way to save forms you are completing and being able to go right back to them at a later date. I have had teachers lose what they were doing when saving a draft and then have to start all over.
Notifications on forms at individual levels only go out once a day, sometime around 2am. This should be instantaneous, notifying individuals as the form comes in.

Return on Investment

We have used a lot less paper over the past few years which leads to cost savings.
The time it takes to submit a form and get approval has sped up since this is all digital.
The time it takes to track and award professional development hours has sped up.

Alternatives Considered

Schoology

Frontline Professional Growth isn't an LMS. This is something more used on the back end to manage and track staff information regarding professional learning, workshops, and hours. This does a good job in a number of areas, but does have a learning curve and does take a good amount of time to get up and running. There are features that I wish were easier to use.

Other Software Used

Poll Everywhere, Google Drive, Zoom

Likelihood to Recommend

This is perfect for the district looking to convert older physical forms to digital copies, and mitigate the tracking of forms from desk to desk. Frontline will do it all digitally. Those in the approval process can approve or deny, or even ask for more information, which sends the form back to the user who submitted it. This is also good for those looking for a way to manage professional development in their district and all that comes with it, including tracking workshops, awarding hours, etc. Most districts use Frontline programs somewhere, so this is another piece to that. However, this is cost-heavy.

Managing Your Staff Professional Growth in the Digital Workspace

Overall Satisfaction with Frontline Professional Growth