Overview

This article details the steps to create a Course Confirmation Template that includes Per-Subject Charges.  These templates allow schools to collect payment and agreement data from parents in relation to their child's school fees, that student's specific per subject related costs, user agreements and other school payment items such as sporting academies etc.

Per-Subject Charges are costs to students based on their specific subject selections for an Academic year.  To ensure parents are not paying for these annual subject costs more than once in a year, Per-Subject Charges should only be enabled once per student in one applicable Course Confirmation template within each Academic year.

Example: If within an Academic year you run a Course Confirmation template for Year 7 students that encompasses essential item charges and the Per-Subject Charges, and you also run a Course Confirmation template for Year 8 students that encompasses essential item charges and the Per-Subject Charges, if you had to then run an additional Course Confirmation template for a Year 7-8 Football Academy, because the Academy template would include students who have already been included in the Year 7 and the Year 8 essential items templates, you would not include Per-Subject charges in the Academy template or these students would be required to pay the Per-Subject Charges twice, once for each template they had been included in.

If you are needing to create a standard Course Confirmation Template that does NOT include Per-Subject Charges, please refer to the 'Creating a Course Confirmation Template' article from our Knowledge Base.

Permissions

To create and administer Course Confirmation templates, you will require the CourseConfAdmin permission.

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

Steps

To create and issue a Course Confirmation template that includes Per-Subject Charges, you will need to complete the following:

1. Import Student Subject Selections
2. Create a new Template
3. Add in the Basic Template Information
4. Add Payment Items
5. Add Conditions if applicable
6. Add any required Agreements or Questions
7. Enrol students in the cycle
8. Open to Parent Access for completion

1 - Import Student Subject Selections

Course Confirmations templates allow you to issue Per-Subject Charges, which are only applied to students who are studying the relevant subject. 

The Per-Subject Charges should only be used once per Target Academic Year, per student. If a student has been added to multiple templates within one target year the per-subject charges should only be enabled in one of these templates.

If this is turned on for multiple templates for a student in the same target year, the family will be required by Compass to pay the Subject Charges in both templates.

To be able to use Per-Subject Charges in this template, you will first need to ascertain if student selections for the Target Academic Year that this template is going to be referencing have been imported (if other templates have already been created for this year, the student selection file may have already been imported). 

For details on how to check, please refer to the 'Checking for Imports' section of the 'Importing Subject Selections' article from our Knowledge Base.

If they have already been imported, you can proceed to the next section 'Create a new Template'.

For details on how to import them, please refer to the steps in our 'Importing Subject Selections' article.

Once you have the file imported, you can proceed to the next section below 'Create a new Template'.

It is important to note that student Subject Selections are imported against a Target Academic Year in Course Confirmations, not against an individual template. This means that you import one set of Subject selections which multiple templates can then refence for that year. 

     

As such, once the subject selections have been imported, and enabled for at least one template and issued to parents for payment, no further subject selection files should be imported for that same Target Academic Year.  Doing so will alter any subject related amount information for students in existing templates referencing the file.

2 - Create a new Template

To create a new template, go to the Organisation menu (grid icon) and click 'Course Confirmation/Payments'.  This will take you to the Course Confirmations page in Compass.

Click 'Add New Template'.
     

A new template will open showing the 'Basic Template Information' tab.

     

3 - Basic Template Information

Work through the 'Basic Template Information' tab to add the applicable information for your template.

Template Name	This is the name of the template that is displayed to parents. It should be a clear title that explains what the Course Confirmation entails. Example: '2020 - Year 7-9 Fees', or 'Yr 7 Laptop Program 2020'
Open to parents?	This setting determines whether parents are able to see the Course Confirmation template and make payments through the Compass portal. At this point in the process, leave the box unticked as this setting should not be turned on until the entire template has been set up and is ready to be published to parents.
Target Academic Group	Every template needs to be assigned to a Target Academic Year as this defines the period for which the charges/agreements are relevant.  Select the applicable year for this template from the drop down.  Example: A template for students in Yr 10 in 2019 who are paying their schools fees to go into Yr 11 in 2020, should have a Target Academic Year of 2020. Note: If the year you require is not in the drop down, please contact our Support Team to have this added for you
Introductory Comment	Add in the applicable introductory comments.  This comment is displayed at the beginning of the Course Confirmation process to parents. It is designed to convey information regarding the confirmation process, and can outline information such as due dates and school specific details. Some schools choose to use this space to explain the different fees (essential items and voluntary contributions), as well as describe projects the funds have previously gone towards or will go to in the future.
Allow offline completion?	Selecting this tickbox allows parents to print the fee schedule from their portal and pay in person at your school. The form includes details of the payment items, school, student and parent details, as well as credit card fields to fill out. Leave it unticked if you want to only allow completion online through Compass.

Click 'Save'.

     

The information you have added will be saved and the additional tabs will then be accessible.

     

Click to the 'Payment Items' tab.

     

4 - Payment Items

   

Payment Items - Payment Plans

For schools who have the Payment Plan module, the Payment Plan section will display on the 'Payment Items' tab.  This gives you the option to set up a series of defined instalment dates that parents can choose to pay via.

     

If you do not want to allow payment via instalment for this template, leave the 'Allow parents to pay via a Payment Plan' box unticked and proceed to the 'Pre-Subject Charges' section on the template page (refer to the following section 'Payment Items - Per-Subject Charges' below in this article for details).

To allow payment via instalments as an option, tick the box.

This will display some additional fields for completion.
     
 
As you are including Per-Subject Charges (subject levies) in this template, you will need to select the applicable option depending on how you want to structure the instalments.

You then need to add the instalment dates.  To do so, click 'Add Instalment Date'.

     

In the pop-up, add the date of the first instalment and click 'Insert'. 

Note: If you selected 'Fixed instalments with charges calculated by a percentage of the total' you will also need to type in the percentage of the total that this instalment will be for.

     

The Instalment will then be added.

Click 'Add Instalment Date' again to add the next instalment date and percentage (if applicable).  Continue to do so until all your dates and percentages (where applicable) are added.

     

Note: When using the 'Fixed instalments with charges calculated by a percentage of the total' option for which you set the percentages, if the Charge Percentage total does not add up to 100% and you try to save the template, you will see a warning.

          

If you need to adjust the percentage, click the associated edit pencil icon.
     

To delete an instalment, select it and then click 'Delete Selected Instalment Dates'.
     

Please Note: Editing or deleting Instalments once the template has been published to parents will impact parent payments so we do not recommend doing so. In cases where changes must be made, please proceed with caution and you are welcome to contact our Support Team for assistance.

Payment Items - Per Subject Charges

Per-Subject Charges relate to student subject selection.  As you want to include these in the template you are currently creating, tick the 'Enable per subject charges' box.
     

For information on creating a template that does NOT include per-subject charges, please follow the process detailed in the 'Creating a Course Confirmation Template' article from our Knowledge Base.

Payment Items - Other Charges (Template-Wide)

'Other Charges (Template-Wide)' are items that are to be paid for by the parents of each student included in the template.   

You can add payment items with a set amount that cannot be adjusted by the parent and are therefore not optional for payment,  and you can also add payment items that have a suggested amount that can be adjusted by the parent (Building fund donations etc).
     

To add a payment item, click on the 'Add Payment Item' button, and then complete the details for that item in the pop-up.  Click 'Insert' when you have added the content.

     

Continue to add all the payment items you require.
     

You also have the option to copy payment items from other existing templates.  To do so, select the template in the drop down that you want to copy items from and then click 'Copy'.
     

This will copy in all items from the selected template.  If you need to edit any of the items, click the associated edit pencil icon.

     

If you need to remove any of the items, select them and then click 'Delete Selected Payment Items'.

     

Please Note: Editing or deleting any payment items once the template has been published to parents is not recommended as it will impact parent payments.  If changes must be made, please proceed with caution and you are welcome to contact our Support Team for assistance.

When all your items are added, click 'Save'. This will update the template and take you back to the 'Basic Template Information' tab. 

     

Click to the 'Conditions' tab if you are adding these to the templat, if no conditions are required, click to the 'Agreements and Questions' tab.

5 - Conditions

Conditions are optional and can be set up in the template to ensure requirements, such as paying outstanding fees from the previous year, are completed before a student can proceed with this new Course Confirmation. Conditions can also be used to help facilitate the preparation process for the upcoming school year, for example students may need to complete a course counselling session or return all library books before the parent can confirm their enrolment for next year.

By default when a 'condition' is created in a template all students are set to 'Not Completed' for that condition. Until the condition has been marked as 'completed' for a student, their parent will not be able to complete the Course Confirmation process.

If you do not want to implement any conditions for this template, proceed to the next step on 'Agreements and Questions'.

To add Conditions, on the 'Conditions' tab, click 'Add Condition'.

     

Add in the required information for the condition in the available fields.

     

     

6 - Agreements and Questions

Agreements

Examples of agreements that could be included in a Course Confirmation template include an ICT usage agreement, uniform policy or restorative practices agreement.

     

If you do not need to add any Agreements or Questions for this template, please proceed to the next section 'Selected Students'.

To set up an Agreement, click 'Add Agreement'.

     

In the pop-up, add the content required for this agreement.

     

     

Please Note: Deleting an agreement once the template has been published to parents will cause any already processed agreement data to be deleted also.  Please proceed with caution when editing or deleting agreements.     

Continue to add the required agreements for this template.

Additional Questions

Additional questions can be associated with an agreement, or not. Any questions that are associated with an agreement will be displayed on the agreement page below the content of the agreement but above the digital signature section.

Any additional questions not associated with an agreement will come up after the agreements have been completed, on a separate page.

When parents provide answers to the additional questions they are typed into a free text box, which allows freedom for schools to ask open ended questions.

If you do not want to include any questions for this template, proceed to the next section 'Selected Students'.

To add some additional questions to this template, click the 'Add Additional Questions' button.

     

In the pop-up, add the information for this question.

     

Click 'Insert' and the question will be added to the list for this template.

     

Continue to add questions until all you require for this template are listed.

     
     

Importing Agreements and Questions from existing Templates

     

7 - Selected Students

Example: If the template is for students who are going to be in Year 9 for the 2020 Target Academic Year, if issuing this Course Confirmation in preparation to parents in 2019, you would add the current Year 8 students to the template.

     

Use the available fields to add the applicable students for the template. 

You can keep adjusting the filters to add all the required groups of students needed i.e. if you were adding Year 8 and Year 9 students to a template, set the 'Add by Group' to 'Year 7' and click 'Add', then set it to 'Year 8' and click 'Add' again.

     

Please Note:If you are attempting to add by a newly created Form group and it is not showing in the Form drop-down list, it will likely be because there are no student milestones set as currently 'Active' for that form group.  In this instance, you will need to use the 'Bulk Add ID Codes' field to add the applicable students who are in the new form.

The students will then be listed showing their basic details and their current status in relation to the template.

     

If you need to remove any students you can select the applicable one/ones and then click 'Delete Selected'. 

     

Alternatively if you have added the wrong group of students entirely you can click the 'Delete All' option to remove all students from the template.

     

Please Note: Deleting students from a template once the template has been published to parents should be be done with extreme caution as it will remove Completion status information that may have been recorded.  Students who have completed payment for the cycle via CompassPay are unable to be deleted.

Include Future Students

This option allows you to add Future Students into the template.  

     

Ticking the 'Include Future Students' will filter for only students with a 'Future' user status.  You will see a total of future users the filtered settings apply to and you can then click the associated 'Add' to bring the applicable Future students into the template.

It is important to remember that when you tick the 'Include Future Students' it will only add any applicable Future students.  It will not add current active users AND applicable Future students in the one click.  
To add current students, set the applicable filter and click 'Add'.  To then add any applicable Future students, set the filters, tick 'Include Future Students; and then click 'Add' again.

Please Note: When creating a template for specific year levels for next year's fees and the template is going to be issued for payment in the current year (i.e. 2020 fees to be paid at the end of 2019) you will add active students based on their 2019 year level and Future students based on their 2020 year level i.e. If the Course Confirmation template is for students who will be completing Year 9 in 2020, you would add the 2019 Year 8 active (current) students into the template and then use the 'Include Future Students' option and set the 'By Group' to be 'Year 9' to add any future Year 9 students to the template. 

When you have added all the required students to the template, click 'Save'.

You are now ready to publish the Course Confirmation template for parent access.

8 - Open for Parent Access

When you have added all the applicable content to the template and you are ready for parents to have access, click into the template and on to the 'Basic Template Information' tab.

Tick the 'Open to Parents' box and click 'Save'.

     
     
This will cause a notification to show on the applicable parents' dashboard alerting them of the template requiring their action.

If at anytime you need to stop a template from being accessible to parents, click into the template and untick 'Open to Parents' and then click 'Save'.  You can tick or untick this option as often as needed.