Chronicle Administration

Chronicle Administration

Overview

The Chronicle module allows staff to record entries regarding student behaviour, wellbeing, attendance and anything else you like, in order to maintain a collaborative student record across the school. Chronicle is highly customisable to make it work for your school's needs.

     

Paper forms you are using to record student behaviour (ie Yard Duty Incident Reports etc) can be set-up as a Template within Compass to allow staff to easily record the information digitally and have it retained ongoing for the associated student.  This allows a more centralised recording system and removes the administrative burden of paper forms. 

Chronicle Administration is where you can configure Templates, Fields and Category options to suit your school processes and recording requirements.

These include options such as:

  • Customisable Permission levels to define who can view/edit Chronicle entries and settings, which allows schools to restrict which staff members can view confidential information regarding a student;
  • Allocation of merit and demerit points depending on the observation template - as well as automatically triggering observations relating to points achieved or lost;
  • Notification and Approval chains defined per template (where required);
  • Associating templates to Group Activities (e.g. for automatic detention allocation);
  • The ability to lock a number of these options at the template level to standardise processes, staff accessibility, rating schemes and parent/student information access throughout the school.
  • Management of School Letter templates (please refer to the 'School Letters' article from our Knowledge Base for details on this aspect)

Permissions

Chronicle has four main associated permissions, three relate to the level of access to create/view entries and one is for administrative access to set up and manage templates.  

The access permissions work based on levels, if you have Level 1 access you will only see Level 1 content; if you have Level 2 access you will see Level 2 and Level 1 content;  if you have Level 3 access you will see Level 3, 2 and 1 content.

ChronicleUser (ChronicleL1)Allows user to create Chronicle entries from templates allocated to Level 1 and view any entries for students set at Level 1 access.  User will also be able to edit their own entries.
ChroniclePower (ChronicleL2)Allows user to create Chronicle entries from templates allocated to Level 1 or 2 and view any entries for students set at Level 1 or 2 access.  User will also be able to edit their own entries.
ChronicleAdmin (ChronicleL3)Allows users to create/edit/delete entries of any Level.
ChronicleConfigureAllows user to access the Chronicle Administration tab where Templates are managed.  They can add/edit/delete Chronicle Templates.

This article will focus predominantly on the functionality for users with the ChronicleConfigure permission.

Please Note: Templates set up for use in creating entries of a sensitive nature may be structured to allow Level 1 users access to use the Template but entries created from this Template will be set at Level 3 for visibility.  In cases where a user creates an entry that is set to be visible only to staff with a higher level of access than their own, they will still be able to view their entry.

An example may be where a significant wellbeing issue may have been observed by a staff member with Level 1 Chronicle access.  They are required to make an entry on the applicable student's profile.  The entry type is set to be visible only to staff with Level 3 access.  The staff member who created the entry will still be able to see it, even though it is at a higher visibility access than they have because they created it.

Chronicle entries also have the ability to be set as accessible to specified users or specified role groups regardless of the person's specific designated Chronicle permission level. 

In situations where an entry's security settings have multiple inclusions for a single staff member of varying access, the higher access will be observed i.e. An entry is set as not accessible for ChronicleL1 users but set as accessible for users in the Wellbeing Role group, for any staff who are in both ChronicleL1 and Wellbeing, they would have access to the entry.


Chronicle Administration

To access the Chronicle Administration tab, navigate to the Organisation Menu (grid icon) and click 'Chronicle'.  This will take you to the Chronicle page.  From here, click to the 'Administration' tab. 

     


Here you will see three sub-tabs, Categories, Fields and Templates.
   

Categories Tab -
 
All Templates you have for Chronicle at your school are organised into Categories.  You can have as many or as few Categories as you choose.  They allow you to group different Templates together.  You are able to run reports and monitor students based on the number of entries or points accumulated by a student per Category.  The 'Categories' tab is where you can create/edit/delete Categories.

Fields Tab -
 
Fields are used within Templates to determine what information staff are required to record for that type of entry (i.e. Incident Location, Details of Incident, Meal Type Not Provided, etc)  You can create as many fields as required for your templates.  Once a field is created, it can be inserted into any applicable Templates.  The 'Fields' tab is where you can create/edit/delete the available Fields for your Chronicle Templates.

Templates Tab - Templates are used by staff to create Chronicle entries.  The Template determines the type of entry, the required information to be completed for the entry by staff and who can see entries of this kind.  You can have as many Templates as required and these are managed on the 'Templates' tab.

There are a number of default Categories, Fields, and Templates available when you start using this module. These are created by Compass to assist you with the setup and to allow staff to begin using Chronicle to record observations straight away. 

When configuring Chronicle, it helps to keep in mind that Templates are made up of Fields, and Templates are organised by Categories. This makes summarising, reporting, and tracking certain student observations very clear and simple.

Settings

Schools have the option to configure some settings for Chronicle.  To do so, on the Chronicle page, click 'Settings'.

     

 

Chronicle Parent AccessEnabling this allows parents to view any Chronicle entries their child has that are set as 'Visibile to parent/student'.
Chronicle Personal TabEnabling this option will add an additional Chronicle entry list tab as a sub-tab to a student's Personal tab on their profile page.
Enable Points CompensationIf you want the option to have automated point compensation for Categories, enable this.  Please refer to the Categories section further below in this article for more details on this functionality.
Chronicle Approval Chain GroupsEnable this to allow staff grouping in the Approval Notification Chain for Chronicle entries.  Please refer to the 'Creating a Chronicle Entry' article from our Knowledge Base for information on Notification Chains.
Chronicle Points Carry Over School YearsEnabling this allows you to carry any points from Chronicle entries a student may have to be included in associated Trigger tallies you have in place rather than only points from entries in the current School Year.  For information on Triggers, please refer to the 'Chronicle Triggers' article from our Knowledge Base.
Default Sickbay Attendance CodeThis will default the attendance note code that displays when departing a student from sickbay. Staff can edit at the time of entry.


When you have made your changes to the Settings, click 'Update' to save.

Managing Categories

To manage the Categories for Chronicle, on the Chronicle page (under the Organisation menu), click to the 'Administration' tab and then on to the 'Categories' sub-tab.  Here you will see all the existing Categories for your school.  You can see the visibility settings for each Category listed in the columns.

     

Creating a new Category
To add a new Category, click 'Create Category'.

     
 
When creating a Category you must assign it a unique name. You can also configure the visibility of the category in the Summary and in the Graph by user type.  Simply tick the applicable boxes to enable.

     



Example: When Summary visibility for a Category is enabled for the Staff user type, they will see any entries within that Category included in a student's Chronicle Summary on the student's profile page.  

     


Example: When Graph visibility is enabled for a Category for Staff users, they will see any entries within that Category included in a student's Chronicle graph on the student's profile page.

     

If the new Category is not going to have associated Templates that use a point system, leave the 'Point Compensation' field unticked.

If however Templates within this new Category are going to accumulate points for students, and you need to reset student points at a set interval for this Category, tick 'Points Compensation. The Points Compensation option allow you to set the points for that Category to a particular amount on a regular basis, e.g. Reset the points to 0 every 4 weeks on a Sunday. 
Fill in the required details for the compensation frequency you need to be applied to this Category (please refer to the 'Points Compensation' section further below in this article for more information).

     

The next section relates to Triggers. Triggers allow the automation of processes within the school such as enrolling students in detention sessions once they reach the nominated points threshold.
Triggers can only be created by Category and are based on the points assigned to that Category. 

It is not necessary to define a trigger for every Category created. These are options available if your school decides to include this in standard processes and can be left blank otherwise.

     

If you are not using the Triggers function for this Category, click 'Create Category' and your new Category will be added to the list.

If you are wanting to have Triggers for this Category, please refer to the 'Triggers' article from our Knowledge Base for details.

Editing an Existing Category
To edit an existing Category, on the Chronicle Categories tab, locate the one you want to edit and click the associated edit pencil icon.

     

Make your changes and click 'Save Category' to update. 

Note: If you change the Category name, any existing Chronicle entries that were under this Category will show under the updated Category name on student profiles and in Chronicle reports.


Deleting a Category
Categories in the list that can potentially be Deleted have a red cross icon.  Any Categories listed without this icon are required for specific Compass functions and cannot be removed.

To delete a Category, click the associated red cross icon.  

Important: Deleting a Category will permanently remove it.  Any templates that were associated with the Category will remain but will need to be assigned a new Category.  You can locate these templates at the bottom of the list of on the 'Templates' tab.


Points Compensation

The Points Compensation option allow you to reset the points for that Category to a particular amount on a regular basis, e.g. Reset the points to 0 every 4 weeks on a Sunday, reset the points to zero at the end of each term etc.

Within each categories' settings, you will have the option to enable Points Compensation.

     

Ticking the box to enable will reveal additional settings.

     

Compensation Visibility -
Ticking the box for Parents and/or Students will mean that they will see the Chronicle entry listed on the student's profile of the points being reset.

Compensation Options - 
There are two types of compensation methods for you to choose from, Frequency and Periodic.
Frequency will reset points at a recurring time i.e. you may haved a program that is allowing students to collect House points for a four week period, you can use the Frequency method to have student points reset to zero every four weeks.
Periodic will reset the points on a set date.  Via this method, you can set up multiple date periods for the points to be reset i.e. if demerit points are to be reset each term you can add the date period for each term.


Frequency Example - 
Students are given points for various activities toward an overall House award across a four week period.  At the end of every four week period, student points are to be reset to zero for the House Challenge to recommence.

Number to set to
Here you set the point amount students are to be reset to i.e 0
Frequency
Set how often by number of weeks the point compensation is to occur i.e. 4
Last Compensation Date
Once the point compensation has completed it's first cycle, you will see the last date on which the compensation occurred.  This allows you to ascertain where you are within a cycle at any time.
Next Compensation Date
This field will show the date of the next scheduled compensation.
On Day
Select the day of the week you want the point compensation to occur i.e Saturday.  Please note that the compensation will occur at the beginning of the set day.


     



Periodic Example - 
Students are given points across each term towards an overall House award to be given out each Term.  At the start of each term, student points are to automatically be reset to zero.

In the Compensation Periods section, set the date range to encompass all of Term 1.  In the 'Number to set to field' set it as zero.  Click 'Create Period'.

     

You will see it added as a compensation period. 

     

Continue to create compensation periods for each Term.

     

Once all your compensation periods are added, you will see the status for each.  If you are setting up compensation periods after the date has passed, you will see it with a Pending status and the option to 'Trigger Now'.  You will need to manually trigger the compensation for this period as it is in the past.  To do so,  click the blue circular arrow icon to immediately process the point compensation for that period to catch the process up to date.

Note, this will not reset any points that a student has sinced received in the 'Current' period, only those accumulated in the specified period being manually triggered (i.e if a student had accumulated 5 points in Term 1, and 2 points to date for Term 2, the point compensation being triggered now for Term 1 will adjust the student to no longer show a total of 7 points but a current total of 2, reflective of points gained in the current period only).

     

If you have set up the compensation period ahead of time, you will see it show with a Future status.  If you have set up a compensation period that encompasses today's date, it will show with a Current status.

     

At the end of each period, Compass will automatically trigger a point compensation and reset student total's to zero (or whatever you have set the points to be).

Fields

Fields are used to construct templates.  They are the areas into which staff put their data for the Chronicle entry they are making.

     

The 'Fields' sub-tab under the Chronicle 'Administration' tab is essentially your school's bank of possible fields that can be used when creating Chronicle Templates.  You can have as many fields as you need.

To make it easier to locate Fields when creating a Template, Fields are categorised.  This allows you to filter the list of possible Fields by categories.

     


There are a range of standard Field Categories included in your school's initial list however you can add more as needed.  To do so, click the 'Create Field Category' button and type in the name of your new Field Category.  Click 'Update' and it will be added to your list.

     



Creating a Field

To create custom fields, select the 'Fields' tab within the Chronicle 'Administration' tab, then click on the 'Create Field' button at the top of the table.

     

In the pop-up, enter the details for the new Field.

     


Field NameThe name that will be displayed within the fields list and on Chronicle templates.
Field TypeAllows the school to specify how the field data is to be collected (free type text field, checkbox etc). Further details are found in the following table.
Field CategoryThe group in which the field is to be placed for when staff are using the Field Categories to filter the fields when creating a new Template.
PlaceholderThis is the placeholder used to insert the field input into letters, emails and SMS messages sent through the Chronicle template. This field must be unique, not contain any special characters, and must start and finish with curly brackets. We generally recommend using the Field Name as the Placeholder for easy identification.   For example: {Overview}. It may help to think of this placeholder in the same way as a merge field is used in MS Word.
DescriptionThe field description appears as a text prompt in the field before it is completed by a staff member and can be used to provide an example of what sort of information is required to be entered.



Field Types:

TextCaptures one line of text. Designed for smaller information like names, places, etc
Text AreaCaptures a large amount of text. Good for descriptions and other large inputs.
DateCaptures a single date. This is good to use for recording the date of an event or similar.
TimeCaptures time data.
CheckboxCaptures a yes/no condition. (See below for further information.)
On-Campus LocationProvides a list of rooms from Compass to select from.
Dropdown ListSelect an option from a pre-defined list.
Grouped CheckboxSelect multiple options from a list of checkboxes. (See below for further information.)
Display FieldDisplays information on the Create Chronicle Entry window for staff information only such as tables or images; they cannot input information into this field.
Teaching StaffProvides a dynamic list of all active teaching staff to select from. This excludes generic CRT accounts.
Number FieldEntry of a single number between a customisable minimum, maximum, and incremental arrows.



When you have added all the information for the new Field, click 'Create Field' to save.  The Field will be added to your school's list of Fields for use ongoing when creating Templates.

Editing Fields
​You can edit fields by locating them in the list and clicking the associated edit pencil icon.  Click 'Save FIeld' to save your changes.

     

Please Note: Edits made to an existing field will only affect new Templates that the field is then added to.  Any Templates (and subsequent Chronicle entries made from the Template) that already contain the field will not reflect the changes you have made to the Field unless you open the specific Template, remove and re-add the Field.


Deleting Fields
To delete a field, click the associated red cross icon.
Please note, deleting a field will remove it from being selected ongoing for use in any templates.  Existing Templates that already contained the field will still have use of the field unless you edit that specific Template to remove it.

Templates

All Chronicle entries are made from Templates.  You can access the available Templates for your school by going to the Chronicle page (under the Organsiation menu) and clicking to the 'Administration' tab.  From here, click the 'Templates' sub-tab.

     

For each Template listed you will see a series of columns that give you some key summary information about the Template.

Creating a New Template
For details on how to create a new Template, please refer to the 'Creating a Chronicle Template' article​ from our Knowledge Base.

Editing a Template
To edit an existing Template, locate it in the list and click the associated edit pencil icon.

     

Make your changes and click 'Save Template and Close' to update.

Please note that any changes you make will only apply to any entries created ongoing from the Template.  Any existing entries that were created from the Template will remain unchanged.

Deleting a Template
You can delete a Template by locating it in the list and clicking the associated red cross icon. 
Some Template are unable to be deleted as they are required for system based processes such as Attendance Notifications, Sickbay etc.  These will not have a red cross icon available.

Please note that when you delete a Template it will no longer be available for use however any existing entries that were created from that Template will remain.

Setting a Default Template
You can set one Template to be the Default Template for your school.  This will mean that whenever staff choose to create a Chronicle entry, the Default Template will load (staff can still use the Template drop-down in the entry to choose another Template).  
This is useful if staff are predominantly adding entries of a particular type however, if staff are adding an array of entry types it is best to not have a Default Template set to ensure staff select the correct Template for their entry.

To set one of the school Templates as the Default, locate it in the list of Templates and click the grey cross icon.  It will change to a green tick icon to indicate the Template is set as the school's Default.

     

     

To update a Template to no longer be set as the Default, click the green tick icon and it will update to the grey cross icon.




Templates for School Letters

Each of the three School Letters (the Parent Account Information Letter, the Not Present Unexplained Letter and the Flags Letter) are set-up or edited in the Chronicle module.

For information on editing these letters or issuing them, please refer to the 'School Letters' article from our Knowledge Base.






Compass Content

Compass Content is a marketplace for additional content.

From time to time, we will add new default templates to the marketplace. This is a great place to download original versions of any of the Compass default templates that you may have customised or removed.

To access Compass Content, navigate to the Administration tab > Templates sub-tab > Compass Content (1). Select the template you would like to add to your Chronicle templates (2). Click Install (3). You will be asked to confirm the install, then notified of the success of the download.





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