When you sign people up, you first add them as a prospect using nauticed.org/quickadd and assign to you. This, or you ensure they sign up through your website using the proper link to us or using the iframe. This way they become your prospect and you can see them in your list.
You only convert them to a training student when you are taking them out on the water and they have paid you for your training fee. Only at that time do you pay the technology conversion fee. Note it is only the School or private instructor that can convert the prospect to a training student. If you are an instructor that works for a school then you make a “Request to Convert” through your dashboard.
If they signed up direct but you believe they are your prospect (you introduced them first to NauticEd) - just let NauticEd support know and we will assign them to you as a prospect. The technology conversion fee still needs to be paid when you do the training but at least at this point the school or private instructor earns course sales commission on your prospects when they buy a course. This only if they found NauticEd through you. If they found you through us they are not your prospect - they are NauticEd’s propsect. But you can still earn commissions if you buy the courses for them - only do this after they have paid your the full price of the courses.
So generally, the technology fee does not really cost anything. It is offset by the course commissions the school or private instructor makes on the first set of courses your students buy.
Further explanation
NauticEd schools and instructors have “prospects” and “training students”. Prospects are simply people that have found your School or Private Instructor program via a flyer, via your website, or via some means where you haven’t necessarily talk to them, or maybe you signed them up with quickadd. There is no cost associated with a prospect.
Prospects are listed in your dashboard as a prospect or under “all”. When a prospect makes a course purchase you will earn a commission or you can purchase courses for a prospect at your commission rate off the full purchase price. Training students are prospects that have been converted to your training student. You need only convert a prospect to a student when you are training that student on the water. It means that you have collected money from them for the training. The technology conversion fee to convert a person from a prospect to a training student is $24 per person. This combined fee among all of schools and instructors helps NauticEd to stay on top of the latest and greatest technology. You will only pay the technology conversion fee once per person and again it is only when you are about to train this person on the water and they have paid you money for the training so that you are never out of pocket on this fee. You are free to add this cost to the students’ amount that they pay you for training. Once a person is converted to a training student you can grade their competence.
As the school admin or as a private instructor, you convert the prospect to a training student on your dashboard. As an instructor working for a school, you will click the button “request to convert”. This will show up to the school admin under a tab called conversion request. The school admin will also be sent a notification email about the request. The school will pay the technology conversion fee.
Make sure that you do the conversion before you take the student out on the water so that you will be able to see them in your student list for the assessment app.
If you are a School and Instructor in one, then it is better to do all the above logged in as your school profile. In this manner, you don’t have to do that request to convert as your instructor profile and then log out and login as your school profile to accept the conversion.