Parents evenings
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Additional Module |
Parents Evening is an additional module in Insight. It allows users to make bookings with staff for parents evening on a first-come first-serve basis. The parents evening additional module is a bundle, which also includes events and student events.
As Parents Evening is an additional module of Insight, a separate charge applies. Please contact sales@tascsoftware.co.uk for further information.
Contents
Configuration
The following role options are required to configure a parents evening:
Manage > Parents Evening (On)
Manage > Parents Evening > Allow access to event management (On)
Creating a Parents Evening
To create a new parents evening go to:
Manage > Parents Evening
Click the Add button at the top of the page. A new page will open with four tabs.
Details Tab
Enter the name of the Parents Evening in the Description field. The Status should remain set to Design for now. Do not select the Relax During option for now either. See the Advanced Configuration section below for information regarding this setting.
Enter the Date for the Parents Evening. By default, Insight will use this date to determine which classes the pupils are in.
In some cases you may want to use a different date to determine which classes the students are in. For example, if the parents evening takes place soon after the students have rotated technology classes, then you may wish to use a date earlier than the Parents Evening so that parents make bookings with the students' previous teacher. If this is the case, enter the date you wish to use in the Academic Date field and Insight will use this to determine which classes the students are in. Otherwise, leave the Academic Date field empty.
Enter the Start Time and End Time for the Parents Evening. The Slot Length is the number of minutes that each appointment will last. If you want to force parents to have a break immediately before and after each appointment, see the Advanced Configuration section below.
The Limit Number Of User Bookings To will prevent a parent making more than this number of bookings, even if their child has more classes than this. Leave the Sort Bookings List By Relationship option unticked. Insist Priority 1s Make Bookings means that only Priority 1 contacts will be able to make bookings for the Parents Evening.
The Allow Parental Agenda Setting will allow parents to type a note when they are making a booking. Staff members will be able to see these notes on their list of bookings prior to the Parents Evening.
Upload a Guidance Document if required. Many schools will upload a Floor Plan for parents to download. This can be done at a later point.
Students Tab
Select the year group(s) of students who will be attending the Parents Evening.
Staff Tab
Select Academic Supervisors if you want parents to be able to make bookings with class teachers. When this option is enabled you can also use the Restrict To Main Class Teachers option, which means that parents can only make bookings with the "Main Class Teacher" for each class. (Note the Main Class Teacher is defined in SIMS and is not necessarily the teacher who takes the class most often).
Use the Include Tutors option to allow parents to make bookings with the students' form tutors. Similarly, use the Include House Supervisors to allow parents to make bookings with the Heads of House.
The Include SIMS User Defined Groups option will display a list of User Defined Groups from SIMS. Select any groups to include in the Parents Evening. The parents of the students in that group will be able to make bookings with the supervisor of the group, just like an academic class.
On the right side of the page Insight will display a list of the staff who will be available during the evening. If you do not see a list of staff, check that the Insight SIMS User has the correct academic year set in SIMS.
Exclusions Tab
This tab is used to exclude registration groups from the Parents Evening. This is typically used by large schools that have two separate evenings for each year group. Click Select Some Options to see a dropdown and select the registration group(s) to exclude.
Excluding Classes / Subjects / Teachers
Excluding Subjects
Entire subjects can be excluded from Parents Evenings if desired. To do this, go to:
Manage > Preferences > Parents Evening
There is a setting here called Do not use these subjects in parents evenings. Type the name(s) of the subjects that you want to exclude from your Parents Evening. If there are multiple subjects, separate them with a plus symbol.
Once you have done the above, go to:
Manage > Parents Evenings
Select your Parents Evening and click Edit. Then click Save at the top right. This is required after you have made any changes to the list of excluded subjects on the Preferences page.
Excluding Individual Classes
This is done on the Manage Parents Evening page (Manage > Parents Evening). To exclude individual classes, the Parents Evening cannot be in Design mode. If the Status of the Parents Evening is Design, select the Parents Evening and click Edit. Change the Status to Closed To Parents then click Save. This means parents will be able to see the Parents Evening, but not make any bookings.
You will now be back on the Manage Parents Evening page. Select the Parents Evening and click the dropdown next to the Edit button.
Click Schedule and you will be taken to a new page. There is a dropdown at the top-left of the page that currently reads "All Students". Click on this and select the class you want to exclude. A button will appear next to the name of the class. If the button shows a Thumbs Up then the class is available for the Parents Evening, if the button shows a Thumbs Down then the class is excluded. Click the button to toggle between available and excluded. Click Close at the top-right when you are done.
An individual staff member can exclude themselves from a class without excluding the class for other teachers. To do this, they must log in to Insight and follow the steps above, while they have the following Role Options enabled:
Manage > Parents Evenings (On)
Manage > Parents Evenings > Allow unavailable and break booking (On)
Manage > Parents Evenings > Allow access to multiple staff (Off)
Excluding Teachers
Teachers can be removed via the Manage Parents Evening page (Manage > Parents Evening). Select the Parents Evening and click Edit. Go to the Staff Tab and click on a staff member's name to exclude them. Click Save at the top-right when done.
Making Bookings for Students
Go to the Manage Parents Evening page (Manage > Parents Evening). Select the Parents Evening then click the dropdown next to the Edit button. Click Schedule and you will be taken to a new page.
You will see a list of students on the left side of the page. Click on the student's name, for whom you want to make a booking. The grid on the right of the page will then highlight the teachers of that student. Find the teacher that you want to make the booking with and click in the column for the desired time.
Columns will be coloured grey if the student already has a booking in that timeslot.
Alternatively, click the grey circular button towards the bottom right of the page (after selecting a student). This will open a window showing all of the timeslots available for a student, with a dropdown next to each timeslot. Use the dropdowns to select a staff member with whom the student will have an appointment. This window will not tell you which staff members teach the student.
Advanced Configuration
Force a Break Between Parents' Appointments
You can force parents to have a break before and after each of their appointments. Each break will last the same amount of time as the appointments do. To enable this, go to:
Manage > Preferences > Parents Evening
The preference called Force a break between parents appointments must be turned on.
Assign Breaks for Staff
The following role options are required to add breaks to a parents evening:
Manage > Parents Evening > Allow unavailable and break booking (On)
Go to the Manage Parents Evening page (Manage > Parents Evening). Select the Parents Evening then click the dropdown next to the Edit button. Click Schedule and you will be taken to a new page.
To add an individual break for a staff member, first click on Break (from the list of students on the left) then click on the slot where you would like to add a break.
Breaks can also be added in bulk. These breaks can be staggered so that 5 staff have a break during one slot, another 5 staff have a break during the next slot and so on. To do this, first click on Break (from the list of students on the left) then click on a column header. Select Stagger in the next window.
Choose the slots for which you would like the breaks to begin and end (e.g. breaks begin during the 5th appointment and finish by the 10th).
Allow Parents to Make Bookings Only During Certain Dates (the Relax During setting)
You can configure Parents Evenings so that users can only make bookings during a specified date range. This is often used by schools to make bookings on behalf of 'high priority' students/parents, before any other users have reserved any of the appointments.
Go to the Manage Parents Evening page (Manage > Parents Evening). Click on the Parents Evening and click Edit. Set the Status of the Parents Evening to Closed to parents. Enable the Relax during option, then enter the date range between which you would like users to be able to make bookings. Click Save when done.
Changing the Icons Used for Subjects on the Booking Page
When users are making bookings, they will see an icon for the subject of each class. These can be changed if desired. To do this, log on to the IIS server that hosts in Insight and go to the Insight installation folder (typically C:\inetpub\wwwroot\INSIGHT).
Open the _Personalisation folder and look for a file called builtInIcons.txt. Open this text file to see a list of the names that Insight uses for icons e.g. the name of the icon shown for Maths is "calculator". To replace the default icon used by Insight, copy a 32x32 png file into the _Personalisation folder using the name of the icon you want to replace e.g. calculator.png
Staff / Teacher Usage
Staff require the following role options:
Manage > Parents Evening (On)
Making Bookings for Students
To make bookings for students, go to:
Manage > Parents Evenings
Select the Parents Evening and click Schedule. You will be taken to a new page. On the left side of the page you will see a list of all of the students. Select the student you would like to make a booking with, then click next to the time that you want the appointment.
You can click in the Notes column to add notes to any appointment. When doing so, you have the option to Share With Parents. If you do not select this option, the notes will be visible only to you and admin staff.
Click Close at the top-right when done.
Download a List of Appointments
This is done via the Manage Parents Evening page (Manage > Parents Evening). Select the Parents Evening then click the Share button at the top-right then select Report. Decide whether you want to see student photos or not, then the report will open. If the report does not open, you need to disable your pop-up blocker.
You can also have Insight email the bookings to you. To do this, follow the same steps as above, but click Email rather than Report.
Mark Attendance
You can use Insight to record whether each of your appointments was attended. This obviously can not be done for Parents Evenings that have not happened yet.
First go to the Manage Parents Evening page (Manage > Parents Evening). Select the Parents Evening and click Schedule. The furthest right column is used to record whether each appointment was attended. Click the button to toggle between Not Attended (the cross) and Attended (the tick).
Parental Usage
To book Parents Evenings appointments, users require the following role options:
General > Parents Evenings (On)
General > Parents Evenings > Allow Non-Teachers (Off)
General > Parents Evenings > Allow User Bookings (On)
Making Bookings
Users access the Parents Evening page via:
General > Parents Evening
Users will see a list of available staff on the right of the page and a list of their own bookings on the left. A list of available appointments will appear next to each staff member's name. Users click on an appointment to reserve it. A green tick will appear next to each staff member that the user has an appointment with.
If a booking has been made by a staff member on behalf of the user, a Confirm This booking? option will appear beneath the appointment.
If the Allow Parental Agenda Setting option was enabled (see the Configuration section above) then users will see an Agenda button. Clicking this allows the user to type a comment which will be visible to the staff member.
Downloading Documents
Users can download a list of their appointments by clicking the Download button at the top right of the page and selecting Bookings.
If a supporting document was attached to the Parents Evening (see Configuration section, above) then users can download the document by clicking Download then Guidance.
Additional Features
Sending Appointment Lists via Email
To email appointment lists, go to:
Manage > Parents Evenings
Select the Parents Evening and click the Share button, then Email. A window will appear in which you can select the recipients. Once you have selected the recipients, click OK to send the emails. Each recipient will receive a PDF document showing their appointments.
Note that Insight can only send emails if the settings in the Manage > Preferences > Email section have been entered correctly.
Reporting on Attendance
To email appointment lists, go to:
Manage > Parents Evenings
Select the Parents Evening and click the Share button, then Attendance. This will open a report giving figures regarding the attendance to the selected Parents Evening.
The report has two sections, one for bookings by parents and the other for bookings by students. Bookings made by staff members are recorded against the student, therefore these bookings will not appear in the Parents Section.
