Parent Portal
Overview
If your school has the Parent Login module enabled, parents will be able to access your school's Compass parent portal. Within the portal, parents can view information pertaining to their child/children, complete various actions (i.e. enter attendance notes, consent/pay for events etc) and access information posted to them by staff at the school.
Functionality for parents within the Compass parent portal includes the ability to:
- Monitor their child's attendance, and enter in explanations for late arrivals or absences.
- Communicate with their child's teachers and update their family contact details.
- Monitor homework, assessment tasks and view outstanding learning tasks.
- Download and view their child's progress and semester reports.
- View 'My News', a news feed of school announcements, alerts and updates.
- View their child's timetable and the school calendar.
- Book conferences.
- Pay and provide consent for events, excursions and school fees
- Make Canteen orders
- Order Photos
Please keep in mind that your school may not be using all of the modules indicated in this article, and your school may not have turned on access to parents to all functions within the portal.
Our Support Team can assist you with more specific information on what your parents should be able to view, and how you can enable additional features and modules.
Please note - the intended audience of this article is staff at the school. On the right-hand side of this page under the heading 'Sub-Articles' you will find an article titled 'A Parent's Guide to Compass' that is aimed at parents. The 'A Parent's Guide to Compass' article is not available to parents on their portal, but you're welcome to download the file and distribute it to your parent community. We recommend only sharing 'A Parent's Guide to Compass', and not this staff-focused article.
Tip: Users with the 'Impersonate' permission will be able to log in as student and parent users. This functionality can be used to view features and modules as a parent/student user to make sure that they are consistent with your school's processes and expectations. For more information on this, please see the Knowledge Base article on Impersonation.
Logging into the Parent Portal
Every family will have a separate account to log in to the Compass Parent Portal.
To provide parents with their login information, you can generate Parent Login Letters through the People Management page in Compass. For more information on this, please see the Knowledge Base article called 'Parent Accounts'.
When parents login for the first time, they will be prompted to change their temporary password to one of their choosing.
Once they have changed their password, parents will be prompted to confirm their contact information.
Parents will not be able to navigate within the portal until they have confirmed/updated their contact information. This is to ensure that any communication sent via Compass to a parent email or mobile phone is delivered effectively.
If a parent wishes to update their email address or mobile phone number after their initial log in, they can do so by navigating to the Tools menu (the cog icon, next to the parent name in the top right corner), and selecting 'Update my Details' from the drop-down menu. When a parent completes this online form, this will trigger an automated email to the school, so that this contact information can be updated in any other student management systems that the school might use.
If the parent wishes to update contact information other than their mobile number or email address, they will need to contact the school directly, as this information needs to be updated in the school's SIS (e.g. CASES21, Denbigh, Integris, etc.) and synced across to Compass.
If a parent has forgotten their password, they can re-set their password through the login screen, by clicking on the 'Cannot access your account' link.
This link will then take them through the password recovery process which includes the user being sent a confirmation code via their selected method (email/sms) that they will need to enter (the code is valid for 5 minutes).
Please note, Compass will check the entered contact information against the details stored in Compass before the reset process proceeds; if the parent enters an unknown email address or phone number, or details that match multiple users in Compass, they will not receive a reset confirmation code but will be advised to contact the school office (the reset will need to be actioned by a member of staff).
The Home Screen
When logged in to the Compass Parent Portal, parents will be brought to the home screen.
To navigate back to this screen at any point, parents can click the home icon in the top left corner of the screen.
On the home screen, parents will be able to view any children they have at the school on the left hand side of the screen, and on the right, any alerts or notifications specific to their account, followed by any News Feed Items that have been targeted to the applicable parent audience.
Underneath the student names are links from which parents can access:
- The student's profile page
- Email functionality
- Attendance pages customised for their children, where notes/approvals can be entered
- Academic reports for the student
- Parent/Student/Teacher Conference bookings
- Any overdue Learning Tasks that the student has not yet submitted.
- Photo Orders
At the top of the 'My News' section, any applicable reminders or notifications will appear. These may include:
- Outstanding absences or late arrivals that require a note or approval
- Course Confirmations or payments that need processing
- Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences that are available for booking
- Excursions or Events that require consent and/or payment
- School photos that are available for purchase
- Semester Reports or Progress Reports that are available to download.
Below any notifications, any News Feed items that have been targeted to a parent audience that includes the parent will display. The items displayed here will depend on how your school is using the News Feed module.
Menus and Functions
Along the top of the screen there are various icons, and from these icons the parent can navigate through the Compass portal.
The Home icon will take them back to the Home page.
The Calendar icon will take parents to the school calendar, where they will be able to see the schedules of their child/children, as well as any school events or activities that have been entered to the calendar.
The Pencil icon will bring up the Teaching and Learning menu, from which parents can access Learning Tasks and School Resources.
The Grid icon will bring up the Organisation menu, where they can access Events and Course Confirmations/Payments
The People icon will bring up the Community menu, where parents can access Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences, School Photos, Canteen and School Documentation.
The Star icon will bring up the Favourites menu, where any websites that the school has added for parent access will be linked.
Please note, future parents are only able to view the Home, Grid, and People icons, they are unable to view the Calendar, Pencil, and Star icons until their child commences at your school.
To the right of the screen, the parent name will display, with the Cog icon, which will bring up the Tools menu, from which they can access Payments, their Files, reset their password, update their contact details, and log out.
Clicking on the parent name will take the parent to their profile page.
Adding a Note or Approval
Parents can approve their children's unapproved absences or late arrivals. They will receive an alert on their Compass home page letting them know that their child/children was marked late or absent and there is no note/approval on the system for it.
Clicking on this notification will allow them to add a Note or Approval for one or more absences.
To add a note or approval, they can select one or more of the absences listed, add in further details and then select the "Explain with Note/Approval" button. Parents have a modified list of the options that the school has when adding a Note/Approval.
Please note that parents also cannot edit their notes or approvals once they've been saved,and will need to contact the school if changes need to be made.
Clicking on this notification will allow them to add a Note or Approval for one or more absences.
To add a note or approval, they can select one or more of the absences listed, add in further details and then select the "Explain with Note/Approval" button. Parents have a modified list of the options that the school has when adding a Note/Approval.
Please note that parents also cannot edit their notes or approvals once they've been saved,and will need to contact the school if changes need to be made.
Adding a Note/Approval for a future absence
Parents can also enter notes and approvals in advance, if they know their child is going to be absent from school.
To do this from their Home page, they can click on the 'Add Attendance Note/Approval' link listed underneath the name of the relevant student.
This will take them to the Attendance screen, with a pop-up window to enter details of the note or approval. Parents can then select the applicable date range - in the future if required.
If your school has a maximum threshold for the number of days a note can encompass and a parent adds a note that exceeds the maximum, they will see a warning and not be able to save the note. A designated email for your school will display and you can include a linked url for parents to access any required form for completion. Please contact Support to discuss this setting for your school.
Example:
If your school has the 'Details/Comment' field set as mandatory, the parent will not be able to save the note if there is not at least 10 characters in that field.
If your school has a threshold in place to trigger reviews of notes that exceed a certain number of days, parents will see this notification for notes being entered that exceed that set threshold. They will still be able to save the note.
Please refer to the 'Attendance Settings' article and the 'Attendance Notes' article from our Knowledge Base for further details on thresholds and the review process.
Emailing Staff
Parents can email the teaching staff of their children at the school.
From the Home page in their Parent Portal, one of the links underneath their child's name will be an option to email their teachers.
Clicking this link will open the email pop-up window, with all of the teachers for the student listed as recipients. Parents can select the red cross next to each recipient to remove them from the email. They also have the option of adding any other staff members at the school, using the 'Add Recipients' button at the top right.
Consenting/Paying for an Event
Parents will receive a notification on their home screen when there is an event that requires their approval or payment.
To provide the consent/payment required, parents can click the notification. This will take them to the Events page, where they can see all events that require their consent/payment, and those that they have already consented to/paid for.
Parents have the option of completing the consent/payment online, or by printing the consent form and handing it in to the office.
Please note that in order to process payments online for Events, schools must have CompassPay merchant facilities enabled and set up.
Parent-Facing Functionality
Within Compass a number of modules have aspects that can be turned on or off as visible to parents. Please see below for a comprehensive list of things parents can see in Compass, and how that visibility is managed:
| Attendance - Parent Approving Absences/Lates | Can be turned on/off |
| Attendance - Show Unexplained Late alerts on parent homepage | Can be turned on/off |
| Attendance - Parent Access | Can be turned on/off |
| Chronicle - Parents can see Chronicle posts made visible to Parents and Students | Can be turned on/off |
| Events - Online Payment & Consent | Can be turned on/off |
| Parents Emailing Staff Members | Can be turned on/off |
| Parents can login to the system | Can be turned on/off |
| Parent Email & Mobile locked for Import | Can be turned on/off |
| Display Analytics tab for Parents | Can be turned on/off |
| Progress Reports Cycles | Parents can see any cycles with a Published status |
| Semester Reports Cycles | Visibility managed on a per-cycle basis |
| Learning Tasks | Visibility managed on a per-task basis |
| Insights | Visibility managed on a per-cycle basis |
| Calendar layers | Visibility manged on a per-layer basis |
| News Feed Posts | Visibility managed on a per-post basis |
Please speak with the Compass Sponsor at your school if you would like to discuss what your school has setup. If you are the Compass Sponsor and have any questions, please feel free to contact the Compass Support Team.
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