This article will cover duplicate MyChildAtSchool User Accounts, specifically when a Contact has two or more children in school and receives two MyChildAtSchool account invitation codes.
This guide will explain why this has happened and how to resolve the issue as below
- Scenario for school and parent
- Locate the duplicates
- Remove the duplicates
Access: the minimum permissions required to acces User Accounts are found in the MCAS module from Config>SetUp>Roles and Permissions
See also: How to create MCAS Accounts for multiple Children and How to manage duplicate Contact Records from Others.
Encountering this scenario
The issue is often only identified when MyChildAtSchool is first ‘launched’ in your school, by a Contact has two or more children in school and they redeem the MyChildAtSchool invitation code.
They will have no issues redeeming the first account, but when a Contact goes to log on for the second time, MCAS will tell them that they are using a duplicate Email Address.
The reason why this happens is because the Contact has been created twice on the MIS. For example;
The Contact has one child in school already and they are listed as their Father. Then a younger sibling joins and rather than using the original Contact and adding them to the new starter, a new Contact is created as the Father – Bromcom now treats these as two separate Contacts.
How the Contact will experience this scenario
A Contact will have received two different user names and invitation codes when you send the MyChildAtSchool information out to them. They will be able to log in to the first child and set up their account without any issues.
They will repeat the setup procedure using the second user name and invitation code, but when they save it they will see the following message
Identifying the issue
If a Contact reports this issue, follow these steps Modules > MyChildatSchool > User Accounts
The list of Students that have MyChildatSchool Accounts will appear. Change from Students to Contacts using the radio button at the top.
Then locate the Contact with duplicate accounts. Here you will find that one is now an active account with no invitation code and a recovery email, the other account still has an invitation code.
If you select the account with the invitation code and click to Edit it, here you can see two, out of three siblings attached. On Account Status change it to Disabled.
Save and Close.
Click on the second account, the one with the email.
This account is the registered one in use, there is no Invitation Code as its been used, and you can see when the account was last accessed.
Make a note of the Username – you will need this in the next steps.
No need to make any changes. Click Close.
How to resolve the duplicate Contact issue
From the left hand menu click Others, the Type drop down should default to Contact.
Select the Contact – you can identify the correct one using the Contacts name and matching the Username numbers with the Person ID.
If the Person ID doesn’t appear as in the following image you can add it using the three dark blue bars on the right. Click on them and tick Person ID as an Additional Item.
Click View
Scroll down on their Profile until you get to Linked Students, here you can add the other two children to the correct Contact, by ticking the Grant Access to MyChildatSchool box will add the child to the Contacts active account.
Save and repeat for any other siblings.
Then you will be able to see all siblings are now linked to the correct Contact.
Click Save at the top of the profile page.
How to check it has worked
Modules > MyChildatSchool > User Accounts
Select Contacts – you will see there is just one account there for the Contact, rather than two as there were previously.
Click to Edit it and you will see all three siblings are now on the same account, this will mean when the Contact logs in to MyChildatSchool they will be able to select their different childrens profiles from the image and drop down name box on the left.
