December 2004

Welcome to the KCDA HotSheet

The KCDA Hot Sheet has been developed to alert members to new contracts, market or price changes, and contracts that are nearing renewal.

In this issue you will find:
• New Products
  • E-Man
• Services

  • KCDA New Operating System

  • Start up order forms

• KCDA Calendar

  • Year End KCDA Calendar - Revised

New Products

E-Man
Is the network within your District slow?  Does your District want to add application but can’t because it will slow the network down? Does your technology staff need to speed up the network and are they looking for a solution? 

EMAN Networks designs, installs and manages custom, high speed Wide Area Networks for school districts.  EMAN Networks supports clients all the way through the process; from estimates for budgeting (based on a design and information gathered in the field), to information about how E-RATE money will offset costs, to assistance with integrating your school networks and telephone systems, to helping you with the E-RATE system, to installation and cutover to the new network, to monitoring the network 24 hours a day.

The networks are based on fiber optic cabling running at Gigabit Ethernet speed between the schools in your district.  The costs are drastically lower than other telecommunications vendors because EMAN Networks is a non-profit corporation designed specifically to meet the needs of school districts.  Throughout the contract EMAN Networks works to lower your monthly costs by leasing additional fiber optic strands to other organizations with 12% of that income applied to your monthly cost.

Equipment also available for purchase under this contract:  Foundry Networks, RAD, Adtran, Avaya Telephone Systems, Vbrick Video Systems.  Additional services available under this contract:  Network Design and Consulting, Outside Plant Engineering, Project Management and Video System Design. For more information contact KCDA or E-Man at  888-399-0297.

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Services

KCDA New Operating System
Responding to the needs of members, KCDA will be going live on a new operating system during the first quarter of 2005.  This powerful software will allow us to streamline internal procedures and continue adding services for members.  As with any new system, there are some challenges that come with the advantages.  Some of these are:

• Orders will flow much more rapidly through to the warehouse for shipping. This however does not give us the opportunity to peruse orders before shipping.  If you prefer direct shipment on orders for large quantities of paper we suggest the order be called in or faxed indicating your request for direct shipment.
  
• This software allows for order management by delivery request date.  Therefore, school start up orders will no longer have a deadline.  Order when you have time and indicate when delivery is requested.  Please note that due to the enormous quantity of orders placed for summer deliveries, it may be difficult for KCDA to meet every requested date.

School Start up order forms

 Some of you may be wondering where your School Start Up Request form is….  This year you won’t need them.  After the first of the year you will be able to log into www.kcda.org and:

Print out forms or individual pages you need

Or

Use the form on your computer to enter items you want to order.  Once selected, you can print out your order and only the items you select will appear. 

If you would like to test out this new way of ordering, go to www.kcda.org, select “how to order” and then “Sample School Start Up Order form” This will give you an idea of what is to come.  Watch our website after the first of the year for access to all of the order forms. 

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KCDA Calendar

Year End KCDA Schedule
The end of the year means it is time once again to count inventory in our 170,000 Sq Ft warehouse.  The following are dates to remember!

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If you wish to have additional staff members added to this list please e-mail us their name and address at customerservice@kcda.org.

King County Directors' Association
18639 - 80th Ave. South, Kent, WA 98064
1-800-422-5019