Overview

The Conferences module allows schools to manage conferences between different members of the school community.

You can create as many cycles as needed and this process is managed on the Conferences page under the Community menu (two-people icon).

     

Permissions

Staff with the PstAdmin permission are able to create/edit/delete Conference cycles. 

For information on permissions in Compass, please refer to the 'Permissions' article from our Knowledge Base.

Steps to Create a Conference Cycle

1. Create the Cycle
2. Add Cycle Information to the Basic Tab
3. Add a Description
4. Add Classes
5. Enrol Students in the Cycle
6. Add Staff
7. Generate Timeslots
8. Manage All Staff Unavailable Timeslots
9. Allow Staff to Allocate Their Unavailable Timeslots
10. Add Custom Groups (Optional)
11. Open the Cycle for Bookings
    
    

Step 1 - Create the Cycle

To create a new Conference Cycle click the '+Add Cycle' button at the top of the page.

    

Step 2 - Add Cycle Information to Basic Tab

On the Basic tab, add the information pertaining to your new cycle for each field.

Fields:

Cycle Details Section

Title	Enter a title for this cycle that will help parents or students know what this is for, and that you can differentiate from other cycles you run in the future.
Target	This defines who can book with the staff members. You must select either Parents or Students from this dropdown menu.
Staff Access	Here you can select if staff can view or edit their timeslots for this cycle. There are three statuses here Closed, Open, and Read Only. 'Closed' means staff cannot access the cycle, 'Open' means staff can access and set their unavailable timeslots (if you've given them any), and 'Read Only' means they can check their timeslots and bookings, but make no changes. During the setup process it is recommended you keep this setting on 'Closed' until the setup is complete.
Parent/Student Access	This determines whether or not parents/students (depending on the Target you selected) can see the cycle and make bookings. 'Closed' should be used during the setup process, 'Open' used when you're ready for attendees to make bookings, and 'Read Only' selected when the booking time is over but you still want attendees to be able to check their bookings.  During the setup process it is recommended you keep this setting on 'Closed' until the setup is complete.
Enrolment Bounds	This should be a snapshot in time of when the students were enrolled in the classes with the teachers that they or their parents should meet with during this interview cycle. If your students move classes at the start of the semester (e.g. while deciding on electives), it's recommended to select dates after their schedules have been finalised. These bounds should be only a few days long, they do not need to encapsulate the entire term or semester.
Lead Teacher	To set the designated Lead Teacher for classes in the cycle, choose 'Current Lead Teacher' to allocate the Lead Teacher currently (as of today) set for classes, or choose 'Lead Teacher during Enrolment Bounds' to have the cycle reflect for each class the Lead Teacher at the time of the set Enrolment Bounds.  This determines which teacher is initially set as the Lead Teacher for each class in the cycle however you can adjust the classes individually later in the process if needed.
Allow Staff to book from own booking sheet	Ticking this will allow staff (when the cycle is set to 'Open' for staff) to manage their own bookings.  This will mean they can make/remove bookings for parents/students who are eligible to book with them.  Leaving this unticked will mean only staff with either PstPower or PstAdmin permission level can manage their own bookings.
Show conference booking on Staff schedules	Ticking this will show any conference bookings for this cycle on the staff member's schedule and calendar.
Automatically update parent access to:	If you want to schedule when Parent Bookings close, use this field.  Set the Status you want it to update to and the date you want the update to occi

Booking Options

Timeslot Duration	Set the number of minutes that each booking timeslot will be for.  It is important to be accurate as once you click 'Save' on this tab, the Timeslot Duration cannot be changed for a cycle.
Default maximum unavailable timeslots	This is the default number of 'unavailable timeslots' that will be given to Staff when you add them to the cycle. Unavailable Timeslots allow staff to book themselves out for periodic breaks or if they aren't able to be at the Conferences for the entire time. These timeslots are in addition to any arranged tea/dinner breaks that the school may set for the whole staff. You still will be able to provide individual staff members (e.g. Principal Class, Coordinators, etc.) their own number of unavailable timeslots from the Staff tab once a cycle has been created but in this setting, it is the number of default maximum unavailable timeslots that the majority of staff will have.
Maximum bookings per household, per staff member, for each student OR Maximum bookings per student, per staff member (depending on your Target settings)	If a student is associated with a staff member multiple times (for example they are enrolled in multiple classes taught by the same teacher), how many bookings should the household/student (depending on your Target setting) be able to make with the staff member? You can leave this value blank if you want them to be able to book with the staff member as many times as they are associated with them. If a user tries to book too many times they will recieve the following message (with the allowed number of bookings indicated).
Maximum bookings per household, per cycle OR Maximum bookings per student, per cycle (depending on your Target settings)	This allows you to limit the number of bookings the household/student (depending on your Target setting) can make within this cycle. Leave blank to allow the household/student to book with as many staff as they have available to them. Alternatively, if you want users to pick just one staff member to meet with or another amount, select this number using the up and down arrows.
Allow back to back bookings	Leave this ticked if it is okay for attendees to book back to back timeslots.  If you do not want to allow back to back bookings, untick this option.  This can be useful if you want to ensure attendees allow enough time to move to different locations between bookings which helps keeps bookings from getting behind schedule.  Please note, the back to back booking refers to bookings in relation to individual students; for families with more than one student at the school, when 'Allow back to back bookings' is not ticked, they will be able to book a timeslot for one of their students and the following timeslot for another of their students.
Minimum timeslots between target bookings	When you untick 'Allow back to back bookings' you can access this field.  Set the minimum number of timeslots that must be allowed between an attendee's possible bookings ie If you have 5 minute timeslots and you set the minimum timeslots between bookings to be '1', if an attendee books a conference with a staff member for 4pm, they would not be able to book their next appointment with any staff member at the 4:05pm timeslot, the soonest possible subsequent booking for that. attendee would be 4:10pm.
Interpreters Available	If your school will have any interpreters available on the day type or select the languages available from the dropdown menu, and click the 'Add Interpreter' button. When attendees book they will be able to select an interpreter based on the options you add here.

 

Note: If you see a warning icon next to 'Target when set as 'Parent', you can hover over the icon and see what the warning pertains to. 

     

It will generally occur when more than 60% of parents at your school do not have an associated address.  You can still proceed to create the cycle however until addresses are included against parent users, they will not be associated with a student and therefore will not be able to make bookings. 

If you are not adding a Description click 'Save'.  If you are adding a Description, click to the 'Description' tab.

Step 3 - Add a Description

In this large text box enter a description of the interviews and/or instructions for your parents or students.

     

Click 'Save'.  This will save the settings you made for the cycle on the 'Basic' tab and the content you added to the 'Description' tab.     

The Description content will display to the target group when they go into the cycle to make their bookings. See below for an example of how this appears to the Target group when first entering the interview booking screen.

     

Step 4 - Add Classes

Step 5 - Enrol Students in the Cycle

Click to the 'Enrolments' tab.

     

For the intended Targets (parents or students) of the cycle to be able to make bookings, the applicable students need to be enrolled in the cycle.
Click 'Add Enrolments'.

     

Use the available options in the pop-up to add the students for this cycle. 
You can add individually by typing the student's name in that field and clicking the associated 'Add' button, or by Group/Class based on your selections from the available drop-down lists.  Clicking 'Advanced' will give you additional options.
Continue to use the Add options until all your students for this cycle are added.

     

The 'Enrolments' tab of your cycle will update to show the added students.

     

If you need to remove any added students, select the applicable students and then click 'Selected' and then 'Remove Enrolments'.

     

Step 6 - Add Staff

Click to the 'Staff' tab and then click 'Add Staff'.

     

In the pop up, you can add staff individually by typing their name in the 'Add Individual' field and clicking the associated 'Add' button.  To add all staff, click the 'Add' button aligned for 'Add All Staff'.
You can also click 'Advanced' for some additional options when adding staff.

When you have added the required staff, click the red cross in the top right corner of the pop-up to close it.

     

You will then see the staff you added showing on the Staff tab.

     

If you need to remove any staff from the cycle at this point, select them and click 'Selected' and then 'Remove Staff'.

     

If you need to adjust the allocated Unavailable Slots for all or some staff, select the relevant staff, click 'Selected' and choose 'Set Unavailable Slots'.

     

Set the number you want to allocate for these staff and click 'Save'.

     

You will see this information update for the selected staff in the 'Unavailable Slots' column.

     

If you want to add a Title, Location, Comment or the Unavailable Slots for a specific staff member, click the edit pencil icon for that staff member and add this information.  The Title allows you to indicate the role of the staff member and the Comment field can be used to convey information to the attendees as it is displayed to the parents/students when making a booking.

     

To bulk set the Locations (where the conferences will be held for the staff members), select the applicable staff that the location will apply to and then click 'Selected' and choose 'Update Locations'.

     

Type in the Location and click 'Save'.

     

This will update the Location for these staff members and when parents/students make bookings, they will see the location for the booking.

     

Tip: If you have the Titles and Locations set in a previous cycles, you can import that information into this Conference cycle by clicking the 'Import Locations and Titles option'.

     

Online Conferences: If your school needs to conduct conferences online via video (i.e. Webex/Zoom etc) you can use the 'Location' setting for each teacher to add the link to their video conference meeting. 

     

Each teacher would have there own online 'meeting' created in the program your school uses and have the waiting room or 'lobby' feature enabled.  Parents would click the 'Location' link at their scheduled time and enter into the virtual waiting room.  The teacher can then grant access for that parent and proceed with the conference.  When one parent concludes and leaves the meeting, the teacher can grant access to the next parent from the virtual waiting room.  This allows you to have one overall meeting per teacher created with multiple parents entering one booking at a time.

Put content in both the 'Face to Face' field and the 'Online URL' field if you want to give parents the option of online or face-to-face conferences.

Step 7 - Generate Timeslots

Click to the 'Timeslots' tab.

     

Click 'Add Timeslots'.

Select the date for the Conferences (or the first date if across multiple days) and put in the times you want to create timeslots between.  You will see the duration of each timeslot noted (based on the information you entered when first creating the cycle) and there will also be a calculation of how many slots will be created.
Click 'Add Timeslots' on the pop-up.

      

You will see the timeslots populate on the tab.

     

Continue to add the required timeslots in batches until you have all the slots for each day of the cycle added.  Click 'Close' to remove the pop-up.

Step 8 - Manage All Staff Unavailable Timeslots

If you do not need to mark any timeslots as Unavailable for All Staff, proceed to Step 9.

If you need to mark some timeslots as unavailable for all staff - i.e. for meal breaks - you can do so at this point by selecting the applicable timeslot, or timeslots, and clicking 'Selected' and then 'Bulk Edit Timeslots'.

     


You can add a reason in the 'Comment' field and then untick the 'Bookable' box.  Click 'Save' to update the selected timeslots.

     


Timeslots that you bulk update for all staff as 'Unavailable' do not count towards the number of Unavailable timeslots you have allocated to staff.

     

Step 9 - Allow Staff to Allocate Their Unavailable Timeslots

If you have not allocated a number of timeslots to staff for them to mark themselves as Unavailable for, proceed to Step 10.

If you have allocated staff a number of timeslots that they can set as Unavailable, at this point you need to open the Conference cycle to staff so that they can select their Unavailable times.

To open the cycle to staff, click to the Dashboard tab and then click 'Cycle Settings'.  Set the 'Staff Access' field to 'Open', and click 'Save'.

      


Advise staff - via email or a newsfeed post - that the cycle is now open to staff for them to set their unavailable timeslots.  We recommend giving staff a time frame to complete this action as you will need to set the staff access to 'Read-Only' before opening the cycle to parents/students to ensure staff are not making changes to their available timeslots while bookings are being attempted.

When staff have had the given time to add their Unavailable timeslots, go into the cycle and into Cycle Settings (on the Dashboard tab), and update the 'Staff Access' field to 'Read-Only'.  This will allow staff to view any bookings made with them but not edit their Unavailable timeslots.

Step 10 - Add Custom Groups (Optional)

If you only require bookings to be made in relation to staff and the classes they teach, please proceed to Step 11.

If you want to create some custom groupings between staff and a set of students outside the standard class grouping (i.e. to allow for bookings with Career Advisors, Year Level Coordinators, Student Leaders etc) please access the 'Creating Custom Conference Groups' article from our Knowledge Base to complete this step before proceeding to Step 11.

Step 11 - Open the Cycle for Bookings

You are now ready to open your cycle for Bookings!

To do so, go to the Dashboard tab of the cycle and click 'Cycle Settings'.  Your 'Staff Access' should be set as 'Read-Only'. 

Set the 'Parent Access' (or 'Student Access' if the cycle is targeted at students) to 'Open'.  Click 'Save'.

     

This will open the cycle for Bookings and the students/parents who have been targeted for this cycle will have a notification on their Dashboard advising them of the cycle available for their bookings.

We recommend sending a communication to those who can make a booking - either via email or a newsfeed post - to advise them of the cycle and the timeframe they have in which to make bookings.

When the booking period has concluded, click into the cycle and onto the Dashboard tab.  Click 'Cycle Settings' and set the Parent/Student Access to 'Read-Only'.  This will allow the parent/student to see their bookings but not make any further bookings.