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Will

Will manages the business on a day-to-day basis, responsible for a sales and demonstration team; operations and is the primary contact for pre-sales support.

Jan 06
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Winter 2022 Software Updates

By Software Updates
Hello and Happy New Year!

Thank you so much for all your support of Parents Booking in 2022. As we finished 2022, we looked back on a year which has seen millions of parents and teachers connect due to appointments made, either for in-person or video meetings, through Parents Booking. We’re extremely proud of that and excited by all the opportunity to help schools that 2023 brings.

We’re immensely proud of our part in each customer (school)’s success, and we’re committed to continually improving Parents Booking, to help lower parent barriers to access appointments and conversations with teachers, and to make setting up parents’ evenings, events, clubs, trip, interviews and more as simply as possible.

We have been busy, as usual, and the below list is a showcase of new features added over the last few months:

New Features:

Cards on the table, this isn’t new new – it was added over summer, but we wanted to keep it on your radar because from what we have seen across thousands of parents’ evenings, schools who went from video meetings back to in-person meetings are seeing a drop-off in their attendances:
We are certain Hybrid parents’ evenings are the best way to achieve the highest attendance possible. Schools who pay for the video module can now set up Hybrid meetings. Just create a different block of time for each “session” and decide which are video sessions and which are in-person. The video to the right explains more about this great new functionality, and there’s a great guide here too.

New for March 2023: Wraparound Care
This is so new that we are looking for ‘early adopters’ to test it in the knowledge that it is very much ‘version 1’ and might not have all the required bells and whistles, but feedback and feature requests are very welcome. Send those here.
You can now set up wraparound care booking, which is to say breakfast clubs, after-school clubs and similar where the attendance is expected to be different each date. For more information, read this blog post.

Google single sign-on (SSO) for parents. Schools can now toggle on/off the ability for parents to login to their school’s Parents Booking using a Google button that will appear on their parents’ login page. Much like how you have no doubt used Facebook, Google or other ‘single sign-on’ buttons to login to other websites, this should make logging in even easier for parents who have a Google/Gmail email or linked email in Parents Booking.
[Watch 1min demo video here]

Rather than turn this on automatically, it is currently ‘off’ for all schools. To turn this feature on, please go to Set Up School > Preferences and tick “Allow parents to login via Google single sign-on?”

Google single sign-on (SSO) for teachers. More news on the Google SSO front: On our login pages, teachers can now click the “Sign in with Google” button to login to their Parents Booking account, but obviously only where the school has set up the school’s emails with Google accounts, or uses Google to manage their emails. We will be adding a similar Login via Microsoft single sign-on option for teachers soon too.

Two-factor authentication for school Admin users. Schools can now toggle on/off the requirement for Admin users to verify their login using an two-factor authentication SMS/text. So, similar to when your bank asks you to verify the device you are using, and you are who you say you are, Parents Booking can ask Admin users to do the same. Set this up in the Preferences page, and define the mobile number for Admin users in the Usernames and Passwords section of the Set Up School page in the Admin area.
[Watch 1min demo video here]

Rather than turn this on automatically, it is currently ‘off’ for all schools. To turn this feature on, please go to Set Up School > Preferences and tick “Turn on two-factor authentication (2FA) for Admin logins?”

Schools can now create more Admin users. In the school’s ‘Set Up School’ page, in the Admin area, you can now click “Add/Manage Additional Admin Users” in the Usernames and Passwords section, and use this to create more Admin users. Simply create an Admin, and they will be emailed with a link to create their own password. Also, if you input their mobile number, they will also be asked for a 2FA code when they login (if you have turned this feature on, as per the above update).

Parents can RSVP ‘no’ to invites and reminders. Parents will now receive a type of unsubscribe link in their invites and reminder emails which allow them to RSVP ‘no’ to the parents’ evening. This helps make sure they are not reminded again unnecessarily, and will show the school this feedback detailing why some parents have not booked. We will go on to expand this functionality to include parental comments and include these stats in the evening stats in the next version/software update.

You can now hide the “In-Person” / “Video Call text which is shown on the parent and admin/teacher booking pages. We had added this text to help schools display whether a parents’ evening is in-person, by video, or where it’s a mix of both, which session is which. However, some schools didn’t want this text to display, e.g. where they were using Zoom or Google Meet but our pages were saying “In-person”, so a tick box called “Hide “In-Person” / “Video Call” text on booking pages” in Set Up School > Preferences will now let you hide this text if wanted.

Pie charts in Reports section. We plan to show more and more of these, with one great forthcoming new feature being that an Admin can use the pie charts to watch how successful the live video/hybrid parents’ evenings’ attendance is, but, for now, in version 1, pie charts will offer a graphical interpretation of booking data on the Dashboard > Options > Check Stats page, and when you use the Reports pages to check on parents’ evenings which have not taken place yet. You’ll be able to easily see the proportion of parents who have and have not booked, for example.

24hr or 12hr clocks: In some parts of the world the 12hr clock is preferred, so you can now go to the Preferences page and toggle between these two time displays for all parent, teacher and admin views.

Updated Guides: Over the summer we also significantly updated these important guides to reflect lots of new functionality added to Parents Booking over the last year:

 

Read More

Nov 17
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Re-arranging your parents’ evening

By News and Info

If you need to re-arrange your parents’ evening, you can do this easily by following the below steps:

  • Go to Dashboard > Options > Edit the Evening (or Evenings > [Group Name] > Edit)
  • Change the date(s), and also consider changing the booking deadline date/time
  • Before you save these changes, you might want to tick the box below the Reg Classes, at the bottom of the page, which asks if you want to add a custom message to the parents’ confirmation emails. If you add a message explaining the rearrangement, this will appear in the email sent to parents detailed in the step 5.
  • Now save the parents’ evening, and all bookings will be kept in place but the date will have been updated.
  • We would now advise sending parents an updated confirmation email of their appointments, so to do this go to Dashboard > Options > Print, Email and View Teacher Schedules. On this page, click the 4th button on the 2nd row, which sends parents their appointment reminder. This will show the new date of parents’ evenings, along with the message you added in  part 3 above.
  • At the same time, you can click the button on this same web page to email all teachers their appointment schedules again, if wanted.
Aug 14
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Summer 2022 Updates

By Software Updates

Hello and welcome back!

We hope you had a really refreshing summer, and if possible that you found yourself sipping a piña colada on a beach somewhere!

While you were away, we were busy adding more features to help you make this the best year of parents’ evenings yet.

Here’s a quick summary:

We are certain Hybrid parents’ evenings are the best way to achieve the highest attendance possible. Schools who pay for the video module can now set up Hybrid meetings. Just create a different block of time for each “session” and decide which are video sessions and which are in-person. The video to the right explains more about this great new functionality, and there’s a great guide here too.

Free trial of our basic Events and Clubs module through to 1st January 2023. This module usually costs an additional 25p per student, per year, but we wanted all schools (who don’t currently pay for the premium version of this module) to have the benefit of the basic Events and Clubs module, to help them set up events, clubs and their Christmas performances. Read more about how it works here: https://parents-booking.com/events-and-clubs

Custom Groups: If your school sets up and uses ‘Custom Groups’ in its MIS database, you can import these using our Wonde integration (and we’ll add this functionality to other integrations soon).
More info on how to import and use Custom Groups here: https://knowledge.parents-booking.com/importing-and-using-custom-groups/

Parents can RSVP ‘no’ to invites and reminders. Parents will now receive a type of unsubscribe link in their invites and reminder emails which allow them to RSVP ‘no’ to the parents’ evening. This helps make sure they are not reminded again unnecessarily, and will show the school data on why some parents have not booked. We will go on to expand this functionality to include comments and include in the evening stats in the next version/software update.

Teachers can now toggle between their schools. If a teacher works at multiple schools, they can now toggle between those schools without having to log out and back in, providing their accounts use the same email/login information.

Teacher First Name or Initial? Schools who import their data via Wonde can now choose whether to show the the teacher’s forename or initial to parents. This was important for some schools, who wanted to show an Initial rather than Forename. Change this by going to Set Up School > Preferences page.

Updated Guides: We have also significantly updated these important guides to reflect lots of new functionality added to Parents Booking over the last year.

Jul 28
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Importing and Using ‘Custom Groups’

By Software Updates

Schools who create and use ‘Custom Groups’ in their MIS database can now import these into Parents Booking.

Part One – Checking your Custom Groups have imported

Once Custom Groups have been imported, you will be able to see them on the ‘Teachers’ page, by clicking ‘Edit Class Codes’.

The search box on the Edit Class Codes page will then let you search for the Custom Groups.

Please be aware that you can edit the students in Custom Groups in Parents Booking (without this affecting the Custom Groups in our MIS database), but you cannot change the Custom Groups’ names, to make sure there is no confusion between what is in the school’s MIS db and Parents Booking.

If you click “Create New Class Code” on the Edit Class Codes page, this will allow you to create a group of students. This can be used for parents’ evenings OR to set up/include in Events or Clubs that are set up. More on this point later.

N.B. If your school imports its data into Parents Booking via Wonde, Custom Groups will be imported automatically if your Wonde ‘integration’ with your school’s database has access to these groups. If these groups are not importing, contact support@parents-booking.com and we will submit a Wonde support ticket on your behalf to ‘fix’ things so that these Custom Groups start to import.

Part Two – Creating an Event/Club with your Custom Groups

Now you can go to the Events and Clubs tab (if your school does not have this module active, you can contact sales@parents-booking.com for information on how to add these features, and any costs that might be associated) and create a new Event or Club.

When selecting from the ‘Year, Reg and/or Classes’ section, you can search for your Custom Groups and they will be shown. You can select as many of these as required, and all the students in them will be ‘bookable’ by their parents. This means that only the parents of these students can see/book tickets/places for these events and clubs.

If you ever create your own Class Code in the ‘Edit Class Codes’ page (see above, on the Teachers page), these class codes will also be shown as an option when selecting students for your events and clubs.

Mar 10
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Spring 2022 Software Update

By Software Updates

1. New ‘Edit the Teachers’ page design and functionality

This is one of the most complex and sophisticated changes we have made to Parents Booking since it was created. It is designed to help schools set up parents’ evenings in a simpler, more logical way. It should also help schools who have many ‘shared’ classes select which teachers to make ‘active’ for the parents’ evening, and how to manage ‘shared’ classes, e.g. do the parents book 2+ teachers together (for one single appointment) or separately.

Intro: This functionality will work especially well for schools who have ‘shared’ classes if the school uploads not only their ‘Main Class Teachers’, but all teachers for all class codes. If your Admin user un-ticks the ‘Main Class Teacher’ tick box on the Upload Data page (if shown), and runs an automatic data upload, most school MIS databases will then upload all teachers for all classes, making it easier for schools to see which classes are ‘shared’, and giving them all the options they require to set up the appointment booking rules as wanted.

For example, you can set up one ‘shared’ class code to book two teachers together for all appointments, while setting up another class code to only allow parents to book one or the other teacher. You can even set up a class code so parents can book as many of the teachers as they want for this subject.

How does this new page layout work?

  • The new Edit the Teachers page design shows and sorts the data by class code, where these were not displayed before.
  • You can sort the columns alphabetically by clicking column headers, e.g. Subject Name
  • All class codes begin ‘ticked’. Where a class code is ticked, that teacher is a booking option for parents.
  • Un-tick the teacher name(s) beside a class code to ‘deactivate’ a teacher. This will mean they are not shown as a booking option to parents. Press ‘Save Changes’ when finished.
  • You can un-tick or tick teachers even after appointment booking has begun. Teachers who have no appointments will not be shown as being ‘in’ the parents’ evening, whereas teachers who have appointments and are then un-ticked will no longer be shown to parents who login to make more appointments, but will still be expected to attend appointments (unless the school cancels these).
  • You can add a class code to any teacher at any time via the Teachers page. Once you do, use the red ‘Review Changes’ banner at the top of the website (which shows after changes are made on the Teachers page) to add that teacher/class to the parents’ evening, if applicable. The teacher will be added to the parents’ evening as a ‘ticked’ option, meaning they become immediately available to book by parents. If the class code you add to a teacher is already linked to another teacher in the evening, and they are ‘active’ (ticked), you can then choose how to share these appointments.
  • ‘Shared’ classes can be set up to either book the parents’ appointments against all ticked teachers (meaning that a video meeting can feature 2+ teachers with the parent[s]) OR can be set up so that appointments are made separately against one or more teachers. Select the Yes/No options for class codes that are listed against 2+ teachers to determine the rules for this class code’s parent appointments.

This functionality is still very new, and although it has been being tested for months by our developers and testers, we ask you to let us know if you have any issues using it.

If you have parents’ evenings set up already, these should be unaffected by these changes.

We also intend to quickly release a ‘flag’ which shows which of the teachers is the ‘Main Class Teacher’, but this is still in development, owing to our need to code this separately for every school database integration we offer.

2. Share your screen in video meetings

A new ‘share your screen’ icon in the parent and teacher video meeting rooms will allow you to select content (either other tabs in your internet browser, or other open documents on your computer, or your desktop/screen) while in video meetings. Activate and turn off by using the button indicated in these screenshots.

The screen, tab or document you share will then be shown as a new ‘window’ in the video meeting, which can be clicked on to be viewed as the ‘main video source’ by the other participant(s) in the video meeting.

N.B. This functionality only works on laptops and PCs currently, not smartphones or tablets.

3. Blur your background in video meetings

A new ‘background blur’ icon in the parent and teacher video meeting rooms will allow you to blur your background while in video meetings. Activate and turn off by using the button indicated in this screenshot:

4. Create ‘Custom’ Class Codes / Edit Class Codes

A new ‘Edit Class Codes’ button on the Teachers page now lists all of the class codes which have been uploaded to Parents Booking, either from a data import or those which were created by the Admin when making changes to teachers/class lists.

You can use this new page to search for a class code, and add/remove students from those, OR you can use it to create your own ‘custom’ class codes, which you can then add to teachers. Because of the new ‘Edit the Teachers’ page, we want every teachers to have a ‘class code’ for all groups of students they teach, to make it easier for you to activate/deactivate, transfer and share appointments, but in the future the Custom Class Codes you make will also be able to be used to create special parents’ evenings, events, clubs or trips.

5. Other miscellaneous changes

On the ‘Set Up School’ > Preferences button page, in the admin area, we have added a number of features which schools have been requesting:

  • You can hide the ‘Select All’ button which is shown on the parents’ ‘Suggest Bookings for Me’ page. This will help where schools want parents to hand-pick the classes they want to book, or where schools fear parents will just try to book every possible option.
  • Depending on your school’s MIS database, you may not be able to select whether Parents Booking imports the Subject Name or Subject Description field. This is something some Arbor-using schools had asked for.

In the Reports tab:

  • Schools that use the Events and Clubs module will now be able to bulk-download all sign-ups they have received, which is helpful where a school has many clubs or events setup at one time.

In the video meeting room:

  • A new ‘Diagnostics’ button will help a user understand the cause of any connection issues they have, e.g. broadband bandwidth, jitter and other similar connection issues.

If your school uploads CSV spreadsheets and does NOT use SIMS or SEEMIS, there is a new CSV Upload format which we can move you to, which we call “Aspen”, which brings with is numerous improvements, in particular being able to bulk-upload teacher email addresses. Instructions are here, but it is important that you let us know you want to switch so we can change your upload type to ‘Aspen’ in our school management area.

6. We’re working on these changes now / Coming soon:

  • We are prioritising adding more functionality to help schools run a ‘hybrid’ parents’ evening (of video and in-person meetings).
  • We will be refining the red ‘notifications’ banner functionality, expanding the scope of its use and pairing this with a more automatic data import (where we hunt specifically for changes in the school’s database). This is a big job and may take several months to fully release.
  • Very soon we will soon also add an option here to allow a school to choose the teacher naming convention used, e.g. [Title] [Forename] [Surname], or [Title] [Initial] [Surname].
  • One of the most-requested changes of late is being able to search for a student more easily on certain pages, e.g. ‘Login as a Parent’. We are prioritising this change.
  • We will show which is the Main Class Teacher on the new Edit the Teachers page
  • iSAMS and Bromcom schools will soon be shown which is the Main Contact for each student on the ‘Send Invite to Parents’ page
  • Where a teacher works at multiple schools, we will make it easier for them to switch between those schools
  • We will soon add the ‘Pupil Premium’ flag for associated students to the ‘Send Invite to Parents’ and some Reports pages, e.g. Chase Parents, BUT only for schools who want to import and show this in their Admin area.
  • We will add the Buffer Time setting to the teachers’ ‘Create 1-to-1 Meetings’ page
  • Facility to email teachers their appointment schedules in bulk
  • Allow parents to RSVP ‘no’ to invites, so that the school knows the parent will not be attending
  • We are still building a new calendar booking interface for Clubs
  • We are considering building an interviews module, and would welcome feedback from schools who would be interested in this. It would allow a school to set up an event with a calendar interface, ‘interviews’ input their availability, allowing parents to pick dates/times ‘interviewers’ make themselves available, and then convert these appointments into video meetings if applicable.
  • Our next long-term project is a complete admin area website design overhaul. Designs have been agreed and the coding will begin soon. We hope to launch this in summer 2022.
Submit your feature request here
Dec 05
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Create your own Custom ‘Class Codes’

By Software Updates No Comments

As part of a wider movement of changes to make moving groups or classes of students from one teacher to another, a new change has been added this weekend. You can now name changes you make, e.g. adding a portion of a subject, class, year group or reg group for selected students, when adding these to a new teacher.

The benefit of doing this will become more clear very soon, when we release a big software update, but now, when viewing a list of Class Codes in your parents’ evening (E.g. Dashboard > Options > Edit the Tecahers > Download Classes) you will see your ‘customisations’ as well as the class codes that have been imported from your school’s curriculum automatically.

To augment this new feature, we will soon be releasing a new page which will allow an Admin to see a database of all Class Codes that have either been imported from your school’s database, OR created as a ‘custom’ class code using this new feature. You will also be able to add students to Class Codes and review which teachers the Class Codes are “linked” to.

The screenshot below shows where you can create a custom Class Code name for the change(s) you make.

Nov 29
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Creating a Booking Setup for Covid Testing

By EdTech Discussion No Comments

You can use Parents Booking to take appointments for Covid tests. The principle is very similar to setting up a parents’ evening, in that you want different students ‘booked’ into their own unique time. However, in this case you’ll be asking parents to book “Testing Stations” (or similar) rather than teachers.

Below are some instructions on how to set up a very quick Covid Testing booking process.

Step 1: Create the “Testing Stations”

On the Teachers page, create some new “Teachers” and call them “Testing Station 1”, “Testing Station 2”, etc. Create as many as are required. Each of these will provide a different ‘slot’ for pupils to book. So if your capacity is to have 3x students being tested at the same time, per “appointment time”, you’ll need 3x testing stations.

In the Teacher Name, Department and Subjects fields, just input “Testing Station 1”, so its clear what parents are booking. The Email and Room fields can be left blank.

Step 2: Linking Students to the “Testing Stations”

Still on the Teachers page, you now need to “link” students to each “Testing Station”. This is required because, unless you do this, parents will not see the Testing Stations as booking options.

Click a Testing Station’s name to edit it, then scroll down to the ‘Add Students’ button and use the filters to (one-by-one) add the Year Groups or Reg Classes to the Testing Station. If the whole school will need to be able to book an appointment, add all Reg or Year Groups to the Testing Station. If there are Year Groups in the Year Group tab, this would be our suggestion – click one, then click Add Class, and this adds that whole Year Group. Repeat until all students required have been added to the Testing Station. This may take 5 minutes or so.

Repeat the above step for all Testing Stations.

Step 3: Set up a ‘Parents’ Evening’ Specifically for Covid Testing

Moving now to the Evenings page in Parents Booking, create a new “Term/Group”, which we’d suggest calling “Covid Testing” or similar. Click on this group once created and then create a new parents’ evening.

Create the event as you would a parents’ evening, choosing the date, start time, end time and length of these ‘appointments’. You can use the Buffer Time feature to add a gap between one Covid test ending and the next starting.

Remember to keep the evening as a ‘Parents Evening’ and not a ‘Video Calls’ evening.

You can add more dates by pressing the relevant orange button half-way down the page.

In the 2nd screenshot below, you’ll see we are recommending you institute a rule of 1 appointment per student.

Lastly, select the Reg Groups that apply (which may be the whole school) and then save the parents’ evening.

Step 4: Remove Class Teachers from the Covid Testing evening

Your parents’ evening will have imported lots of class teachers, as well as the Covid “Testing Stations”.

Go to Dashboard > Options > Edit the Teachers OR Evenings > Covid Testing > Edit > Edit the Teachers, and then Select All teachers (untick the Covid Testing Stations) and se ‘Delete Selected’ to remove them all. This means parents will only have the Covid Testing stations as booking options.

Step 5: Send Your Invite

You can now invite parents to book slots for students’ testing.

Go to Dashboard > Options > Send Invite to Parents OR Evenings > Covid Testing > Edit > Send Invite to Parents, where you can customise a bespoke invite to be sent out, select the parents you want to invite and send them an invite.

Nov 19
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Mid-Term Feature Release

By EdTech Discussion No Comments

We plan to release a big software update very soon, which will principally change the logic of how to set up the teachers for parents’ evenings (including how to share a parent’s appointment with multiple teachers, to divide bookings between two teachers where they share a class). We’re just dotting i’s and crossing t’s, there are lots of factors to test.

In the meantime we have released the below new features today, with there being no need to delay their release any longer:

1. You can now easily transfer appointments from one teacher to another using the “Share or Transfer Appointments” button in Manage Bookings.
You’ll also see a ‘Select All’ button above each teacher’s schedule to make selecting multiple/all appointments easier.
Sharing appointments means both teachers can join the same meeting. Transferring moves selected appointments from one teacher to another (where the second has free appointments to take these).

2. Parents can request a telephone call rather than a video appointment, where schools allow them to.
Schools turn on this feature when they set up their parents’ evening. The parent is asked to tick a box when making their appointments, if they want to ask for a telephone meeting rather than a video meeting. This is then shown as a notification on the teachers’ appointment schedule.

3. Parents and teachers now have a ‘video meeting help’ button that they can click, from their video meeting room, if they’re having problems connecting to their video meeting.
The instructions provided today will soon be replaced by a new diagnostic tool that Twilio, our video meeting provider, has very recently released.

4. Teachers can now easily see who has not booked appointments with them yet, by clicking the “30 slots available for 28 pupils” type ‘calculator’ on their schedule page.
It is our intention to expand on this by allowing tecahers to send parents a reminder email directly from this pop-up in due course. For now, teachers can use the Manage Bookings > Send Request to Parent feature to directly message a parent.

5. Your automatic data import can be set up to run scheduled searches for new students, and to identify ‘leavers’.
This will not refresh the teachers/classes throughout term, because we don’t want to overwrite customisations you’ve made, but it will help keep on top of the students, adding new students to their teachers and making them easier to add to live parents’ evenings if such a scenario presents itself.
N.B. We still suggest you use the ‘Upload Data’ button before setting up new parents’ evenings, to import the latest database curriculum/class teacher assignments.

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