Overview

Letters are created in Compass using the Chronicle module and are set up as a generic template with fields that populate with information such as Parent Address, Student Name or Date when the letter is generated for a particular student or parent.

This article covers aspects that relate to School Letters and the three letters that fall under that category:

• The Parent Account Information letter (Parent Login Letter)
• The Not Present/Late: Unexplained letter
• The Flags letter

Prior to setting up your School Letters, you will need to create at least one Printing Template (please refer here to the article 'Printing Templates').

Permissions

To set up the School Letter templates, you will need to access the Chronicle Administration tab; this requires the permission 'ChronicleConfigure'. 

To generate the Parent Account Information Letter you will need access to People Management which requires the 'UserRecordsAdmin' permission.

For both the Not Present Late Unexplained Letter and the Flags Letter, to generate either you will need access to the Attendance page and will require the 'AttendanceBase' permission.

For assistance with permissions please speak with your school's Compass Sponsor.

Creating or Editing the School Letters Content

Each of the three School Letters are set-up or edited in the Chronicle module.

Navigate to the Organisation menu (grid icon) > Chronicle > Administration tab > Templates tab

Click on the Edit button (pencil icon) at the right of the letter you would like to set-up/edit.

     

In the pop-up window that opens, navigate to the Communications tab.

You will first need to select a Printing Template (please refer to the 'Printing Templates' article for further details) 

     


You can now enter/edit the letter content in the letter field, using any of the formatting options available.

You can also use any of the Placeholders from the 'Add Placeholders' field on the right-hand side. These placeholders allow you to create a generic letter that will populate with personalised information relevant to the student or parent the letter is generated for. For example, the placeholder {studentFirstName} will populate the letter with 'Harry' in that place.

Simply place your cursor in the location in the letter where you would like the placeholder to sit, then click on the Placeholder from the Add Placeholder menu to insert it into your letter. You can then add punctuation to follow the placeholder text, and remember to add spaces between consecutive placeholders.

     

Once you have completed writing/editing your letter, you can generate a sample letter by clicking the 'Generate Sample Letter' button at the bottom left of the window.

Click 'Save Template and Close' to save your letter template.

Please Note: For the 'Not Present/Late Unexplained Letter', you can use the Parent Email communication rather than a letter if you prefer.  This means that the parent email will automatically be issued whenever the student receives an entry of this nature and attendance staff will no longer have to print and issue the information to parents via standard mail. 

Generating Parent Account Information Letters

This letter should be used for conveying parent login details to parents. This letter will print with the parent's username and a temporary password, which they are prompted to change on first login.  If the parent has already logged in and set a new password, their new password will not display on the letter - only temporary passwords will display, this is for security reasons.

Parent Account Information Letters are generated from the People Management page in Compass.  Please refer to the 'Parent Accounts' article from our Knowledge Base for detailed instructions.

Generating Not Present/Late:Unexplained Letters

These letters allows parents to explain instances where a student was marked Not Present or Late on a classroom roll and no other explanation has been provided. 

Typically these letters are used in the period between the school beginning with Compass but before giving parents access to the portal, where they can explain absences and lates easily online themselves.
These letters are also useful for the instances where a parent may not have access to the Internet.

Generating for all students or a cohort of students

To generate these letters for all students or a cohort of students, navigate to the Organisation menu (grid icon) > Attendance. In the Attendance Dashboard, select 'Not Present/Late Letters'.

     

In the next screen, you can select the date range for which these letters will be generated, then select a group of students filtered by Year Level, Form Group or House. If you do not choose a filter, Compass will print letters for all students across the school.

You can then select if the letter will include Not Present, Lates or a combination of both, and if the letter will generate for the primary household or all households (i.e. for a split family). 

     

You can use the Days Threshold to filter for a period of days and also only include Consecutive Days if required.

     

You can also select 'Create Chronicle Entry' if you wish to have a record of this letter generation appear on the student's Chronicle page for parents to view later.

     
 
   


If you want to include all Not Present Unexplained absences, both full and partial days, yet you want instances of full days to show as one line per day on the letter rather than each period having a line, you can click 'Letter Options'.

     

Then in the pop-up, tick the 'Slim Unexplained Letters' option. 

For example, if a student was absent unexplained all day on a Monday and for Period 1 and Period 4 on the Tuesday, the standard letter would print the six periods as a line each under Monday and the two periods as a line each under Tuesday. 
By ticking 'Slim Unexplained Letters'  the Slim letter would have one entry for the Monday as a whole day absence.

You then have a choice how the two periods for Tuesday display; if you want them to display as one line also, you would have the minutes set to encompass the gap between the periods (if they were 90 minutes apart you would have the minutes as 91).  If however you wanted the two periods on Tuesday to show as a line each on the letter, you would set the minutes to something less than the gap between them, like 10.

  

  
Sample of Slim Letter:

The partial absence shown is when the Time Gap was set to encompass the time between the two periods so that they show as one line on the letter.

  

Once you have made all your selections, click 'Create Letters'.  Compass will then generate the letters to a single pdf file ready for printing.




Generating for an Individual Student

To generate a Not Present/Late: Unexplained letter for a specific student, navigate to that student's page by typing their name into the Compass Search Bar and select the desired student.

Click on their Attendance tab > Unexplained sub-tab
On the Unexplained sub-tab, you will see a list of all of the unexplained absences and lates the student has accrued during the year. Click the 'Print Unexplained Letter' button at the right of the screen and then select the appropriate option to print a letter containing the dates and times of the absences. 

     

     

You can select 'Create Chronicle Entry' if you wish to have a record of this letter generation appear on the student's Chronicle page for parents to view later.

You can also click 'Letter Options' to check the current settings for you school as to whether the letter will print in the Standard format or the Slim format (refer to the previous section on 'Generating Attendance Letters for All Students or a Cohort of Students' for details on how the Letter Options function).

  


Once you have made all your selections, click 'Create Letter' to generate the letter to a pdf file ready for printing.

  

Issuing Not Present/Late:Unexplained Letters via Email