Customer Stories
From Complexity to Customization: How Pacific Summer Runs 60+ Academic Programs Efficiently with Jumbula
2 years
on Jumbula
2 sessions
saved per camp session
1,700+ students
enrolled annually
About the Pacific Summer High School Institute
The Pacific Summer High School Institute is a two-week, residential, pre-college program hosted by the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. It serves over 1,700 students each summer across two sessions and offers 60 different individual programs.
“We use Jumbula 4+ hours every day for everything — really. It’s tailored to our kind of program.”
Balint Sztaray, Director, Pacific Summer High School Institute
The Pain Points That Led Pacific Summer to Jumbula
Coordinating a two-week residential program for more than 1,700 students — across 60 different classes and two summer sessions — required the Pacific Summer team to manage complex tasks, including registration, tuition, forms, rosters, and attendance tracking.
Before switching to Jumbula, these processes were handled through disconnected systems and manual tools, which made daily operations time-consuming and difficult to scale. The team faced specific challenges, including:
- Helping students select the correct class and session
- Managing different tuition levels and payment types
- Collecting and tracking required forms across participants
- Taking accurate attendance across multiple staff devices
Without a centralized platform, nearly every step—from enrollment to communication—required extra time, workarounds, or manual tracking
The Switch to Jumbula and What Changed
Pacific Summer needed a system that could handle the many moving parts of their program — from class selection and tuition to attendance and forms. Jumbula stood out by offering a centralized platform and implementing custom features that supported the program’s structure.
The team now uses Jumbula to manage registration, session selection, tuition labels, forms, rosters, and a two-layer attendance model — all in one place.
“The integrated approach that implements everything — program/session selection, registration, different tuition labels, payment, forms, rosters, attendance — it’s all there.”
Balint’s staff also relies on features such as custom reports and a webhook integration with Zapier, which help reduce manual work and support daily operations. The platform is used more than four hours a day by the team.
Some areas are still evolving. Staff can now look up participant data when assisting families, and they plan to make greater use of Jumbula’s email tools in future sessions. Balint also noted that some families find post-enrollment navigation confusing, and that attendance reporting can be inconsistent when multiple staff use different devices.
“Navigating the website after enrollment is somewhat counterintuitive… attendance reporting can be rickety, especially when more than one device is used.”
Communication and Internal Feedback
While the platform has brought major improvements to operations, communication features are still evolving. Staff can now quickly look up participant data when contacting families, and they plan to expand use of Jumbula’s email tools in future sessions.
Balint also shared candid feedback that’s guiding future improvements:
- Some families find post-enrollment navigation confusing (e.g., locating next payments or required forms)
- Attendance tracking across multiple staff devices can be inconsistent
- Additional real-time features and integrations would enhance workflow even further
Advice for Other Programs
“Yes — for a program similar to ours, it’s a great platform.”
Pacific Summer uses Jumbula daily to manage the many moving parts of a large, complex academic program. Balint recommends the platform to other institutions running multi-track or pre-college programs that need flexible registration and data tools, especially when off-the-shelf solutions fall short.
Looking Ahead
As Pacific Summer continues to evolve, Balint and his team are exploring further integrations — including future connections to tools like Slate and Canvas, as well as deeper functionality for editing existing records and improving family-facing navigation.
“New and more sophisticated integrations would be nice… Connectivity to Slate or Canvas would be great!”
