General Questions
What is ManageBac?
Founded in 2006, ManageBac is the leading online planning, assessment, and reporting platform for over 3,000 IB World schools and the trusted choice of 4 in 5 IB Diploma students. By providing schools with one unified system on a consistent, modern, and mobile-ready interface, ManageBac offers a seamless & integrated experience for coordinators, teachers, students, and parents to manage all aspects of the IB programme.
Why should I choose ManageBac?
ManageBac provides coordinators, teachers, students, and parents with a more efficient alternative to paper forms, Word docs on shared drives, and Excel spreadsheets. It is designed as a turnkey curriculum-first learning platform to support the effective implementation and management of academic programmes such as the IB, IGCSE, AP, as well as over 600 other standards.
ManageBac’s aim is to enhance efficiency in education globally. This includes providing better curriculum-building tools and visible analytics for teachers and administrators, easy access to student work, unit and class calendars, and reporting from our parent and student portals, as well as customizable project-based learning and service learning tracking for students.
What do I need to run ManageBac?
ManageBac is a web-based application that is hosted on our servers. All you need is an internet connection and a modern web browser with JavaScript enabled. We would recommend using Google Chrome for the best experience, but the latest versions of Safari, Firefox, and other internet browsers should all work on both Macs & PCs. ManageBac for Mobile is available for students, parents, teachers, and coordinators with the full equivalency of web functions. You can download ManageBac for your phone or tablet device on the Apple AppStore, Google Play, and five key Chinese AppStores.
How much does ManageBac cost?
ManageBac is provided as an annual subscription service, and the cost varies with the total number of students. For more information and an official quotation, please contact us with your student numbers at sales@managebac.com.
In what languages is ManageBac available?
The ManageBac interface is provided in English, Spanish & Chinese (Simplified) for Students, Teachers & Admins, as well as Arabic, Japanese, French, and Chinese (Traditional) for Parents. All text boxes support Unicode (UTF-8) formatting, allowing for input of international characters in all major languages.
Who is behind ManageBac?
ManageBac was founded in 2006 by three former IB students at the University of Pennsylvania. One of our shareholders, Theodore King, is one of the original founders. Read more here.
What is your relationship with the IB?
We have been granted two licenses by the International Baccalaureate (IB). The first license for the use of forms and curriculum and assessment information, and the second for our integration with IBIS to facilitate automated exam registration. We are not a subsidiary, employee, or affiliate of the IB. To ensure a level playing field, the IB does not endorse any software companies, including ours. Read more here.
Is ManageBac GDPR Compliant? How secure is ManageBac?
ManageBac is committed to keeping your data safe and secure, by using best practices to protect our systems. These range from SSL connections to continuous security review of our source code. We are proudly ISO 27001 certified, as well as GDPR compliant. For further details, refer to our Security and Compliance page.
Setup
What do you need from me to get set up?
We provide a 30 day implementation period upon your school’s purchase of ManageBac. You will be assigned a dedicated Implementation Manager, who will walk you through our set-up process, learn your school’s goals for the upcoming academic year, and tailor your implementation schedule accordingly. They will then be on-call to assist in inputting your school’s data and providing training for your staff during the implementation period. Read more here.
How do I sign-up for ManageBac?
You can sign-up directly on our website here.
How do users access ManageBac?
Users can be sent welcome emails where they can set their own passwords. Email Addresses & Passwords are used to sign in. Each ManageBac school is configured with a unique domain, such as yourschool.managebac.com. Once you have submitted your sign-up request, ManageBac Support will grant access to your account and provide your unique domain, so you can get started within 24 hours. Read more here.
What user types can access ManageBac?
Students, Parents, Teachers/Advisors & Administrators/Coordinators can all access ManageBac, as long as they have been sent welcome emails. We also provide a read-only Observer user type. Read more here.
Technical
What language is ManageBac built on?
ManageBac was built on Ruby on Rails. It is proudly W3C compliant.
Where is ManageBac hosted?
ManageBac is hosted in the cloud across Amazon Web Services data centers in Canada, the US, and China. Your hosting location is dependent on the location of your school and local data protection laws.
Are my files backed up?
Yes, files are backed up in real-time on redundant RAID storage locally, and disk images are backed up daily at the data center. Records are also encrypted and backed up off-site at a separate facility three times each week.
Can I export my information from ManageBac once it is in the system?
You can export student information directly using a series of PDF forms from the Handbook of Procedures, which we have licensed from the IB, or you can export individual data fields in Excel CSV format. You can also download all files submitted by your students.
How secure is ManageBac?
ManageBac is committed to keeping your data safe and secure, by using best practices to protect our systems. These range from SSL connections to continuous security review of our source code. We are proudly ISO 27001 certified, as well as GDPR compliant.
As a condition of our license with the IB, we undergo an annual security audit. For further details, refer to our Security and Compliance page.
Help & Training
Where can I get additional help?
As a ManageBac customer, if you have support-related questions, you can visit the Online Support section. If you have additional questions, please email us at support@managebac.com, or call us at +1 866 297 7022 (or any of the numbers below).
What support do you offer?
Our first-class Customer Success team is situated globally to ensure fast and comprehensive responses to inquiries.
We guarantee a response by phone or email within a maximum of 24 hours, 365 days a year; and during normal business hours, we normally respond within several hours.
Our phone numbers are monitored 24 hours a day, Monday – Friday, and are always answered by a member of our Customer Success team. If a representative is unavailable, all voicemails are called back during working hours within a couple of hours, and within 24 hours on weekends.
We offer free webinars and online training. Read more here.