Access: The permissions required to create a Parents Evening are found in the Diary Module of Config>Setup>Roles & Permissions. Each tick box on the right determines what can be seen/accessed on the page by users with the Role you are editing.

In this guide, we will cover how to do the following:

• Create and Edit a Parents Evening to include publishing to MyChildAtSchool
• Manage Bookings
• Outstanding Bookings
• Auto Allocate
• Re-Set Allocations

Create and Edit a Parents Evening

From the left Menu, go to Modules>Diary>Parents Evening

When the page loads, you can tick the box to Include Past Parents Evenings and see how they were set up (if you wish).

Select a past Parents Evening and click Edit to open it, alternatively you can press Delete to completely remove the Parents Evening from the system if it was made in error and no bookings were ever made against it.

To create a new Parents Evening entirely, click New.

When creating a new Parents Evening for the first time, the following 4 sections will need completed;

• Parents Evening Details – when the Parents Evening takes place.
• Event Scope – which students the Parents Evening is for.
• Event Location – where the Parents Evening is located.
• Interview Allocation Rules – define rules for siblings and separate parents/carers.

Parents Evening Details;

• Name: This is the name of the Parents Evening that will be visible to Administrators and Parents when booking appointments on MyChildAtSchool for example Year 3 Spring 2021

• Date: This is the date the Parents Evening is being held.
• *Start Time: This is the time the first booking slot will start.
• *End Time : This is the time the last booking slot will finish.
• Booking available: This is the date and time when the parents will be able to view or make bookings on MyChildAtSchool.
• Booking deadline: This is the date and time after which the Parents Evening will no longer be visible to parents when viewing or making bookings on MyChildAtSchool.
• Enable Parents Evening: When selected this makes the Parents Evening visible on MyChildAtSchool as defined in the Booking available date and time. When selected this will allow the option to select View Only where parents can see appointments that have been made by the school and Send Push Notification which will send a message informing Parents that the Bookings are available.
• View Only: This makes the Parents Evening visible but not interactive to Parents, meaning they can only see the available slots but can’t book anything on MCAS yet.
• Send Push Notification: This will send an MCAS Push Notifications to the Parents of all Students included in the scope of the Event. This is ticked by default and will need to be unticked before you Save the Parents Evening if you don’t want Parents to be notified straight away.

*Note when selecting the Start and End Time for the Parents Evening this must be enough time to accommodate the number of students within the defined interview length. For example a Parents Evening with 50 children with a 5 minute interview each covered by 2 members of staff will be 125 minutes or 2 hours and 5 minutes long.

Event Scope;

• Year Groups: The Year Group/s you select here, mean the Event opens up to Students in those Year Groups. Select at least one Year Group
• Subject Groups : You can select one or more specific Subjects if required, such as French for example if the Parents Evening is only for Students studying French.
• Class Groups: You can select one or more Teaching Classes if the Parents Evening should only be available to Students in certain Classes and you have many to choose from.
  • Note: Subject Groups and Class Groups can be left blank. At least one of the 3 Groups from Year, Subject or Class must be selected to create the Parents Evening.
• Interviews: Select the role of who is conducting the interviews/appointments. These have to align with your Group selections and reflect the MIS. So if you selected Teaching Classes, then you need to select Main/Class Teacher, if you selected Tutor Groups, you need to select Form Tutor and so on. How the Staff appear in that Group outside of the Parents Evening (Head of Department, Main Teacher etc), is how you need to set the Interview section.
• Student Filter: If required. additional/specific Students can be selected for the Parents Evening via their Tutor Group, a Report Group or House. You must have at least one Year Group select to be able to use this option and leaving it blank means the Parents Evening generates solely based on the prior Group selections.
• Interview Length: This is in minutes, you can type in the desired Interview Length or adjust with the arrows.
• Include Travel Time in Scheduling: This is used if Parents need time in between appointments to travel to the next appointment in the instance where the school is a large site and the appointments are located in different buildings. Set the Travel Time Amount in minutes

Note: Primary Schools do not use Teaching Classes on Bromcom, any above examples where Teaching Classes were mentioned were for demonstration/explanation only.

Event Location;

Event Location can set as EITHER Individual Rooms, where the Teachers will hold the interview in the room allocated on their Timetables.

OR in a Communal Space where all interviews are conducted in one room, in this example the Main Hall.

Interview Allocation Rules;

• Siblings Interviews: Select Independently for Sibling Interviews to be allocated Independently where each student has a separate interview. OR select Together if you want Siblings to share an Interview slot with each other and their Teacher.
• Multiple Parental Attendees are allocated: Choose EITHER Independently OR Together.
• Independently means both Parents/Parental Contacts can book a separate appointment for the Student if they want.
• Together means that only one of the Parents can book an appointment via MCAS and will have to both attend the slot together.

Once these four sections are completed, scroll up to the top and click Save (remember to untick Push Notifications if you don’t want Parents to be alerted that the Parents Evening is ready).

This concludes the creation of the Parents Evening, below we will detail how to manage and fine tune it.

Manage Bookings

Bromcom Administrators can use Manage Bookings to Auto Allocate bookings for a selected member of Staff, which auto assigns a random appointment to everyone without the need to choose.

Important: This will erase any existing Bookings made by Parents if pressed so please ONLY use this when there are NO Bookings, otherwise Parents will lose their slots which cannot be retrieved.

It is also possible to make certain times unavailable so they cannot be booked by Parents (the Teacher may need to leave at 6pm sharp for example).

To do this, navigate to Modules>Diary>Parents Evening from the left Menu. Then select a Parents Evening and press Actions>Manage Bookings.

Use the Teacher drop down to select a member of staff (if you do not see any Staff listed, you need to check how you configured the Parents Evening, as this generates based on the Interviews and Groups options).

When you see the Appointments listed, you can use the ticks on the left to individually select Appointments, or use the top left tick next to the Date heading to select the entire column. From there you can;

Auto Allocate: When selected, this will allocate appointments to all of the Parents/Students that the event is open to. Again, this will overwrite any Bookings made by Parents so please use with caution/only use this when there are NO Bookings.

Set as Unavailable: When selected, this will set all of the appointments you have selected/ticked to be unavailable.

Alternatively, if you just need to amend/exclude a few appointments, you can also right click on them individually and you will receive three options;

Set as Not Available, Manual Allocation or Allocate Room for Appointment.

Set as Not Available: This will make the selected appointment unavailable to Parents on MyChildAtSchool.

Manual Allocation: This allows you to book an appointment on behalf of Parents who take priority or do not use MCAS. When selected, choose a Student from the drop down and then a Contact to book this slot for them.

Allocate Room for Appointments: When selected, use the drop down to select a different room, this can be used if an appointment has to be moved to a room which is different to the timetabled room of the Staff Member.

Outstanding Bookings

This allows you to see all of the Outstanding Bookings/Parents that have not booked an appointment yet.

Navigate to Modules>Diary>Parents Evening from the left Menu.

Select a Parents Evening and then press Actions>Outstanding Bookings

Choose to Show All Teachers and/or Include Contacts with no MCAS Account. The view will show which Students have Outstanding Bookings/have not booked yet. It will list the following details;

Student Last Name and First Name, Class Name, Contact Name, Teacher ID, Teacher Name and Tutor Name, House and Notes.

Use the Grid Actions to Copy the Outstanding Bookings, Export as Excel or CSV, Produce a PDF or Print.

Click on the Notes Bubble to See Contact and Student Information and Add a Note. Press Save to Save the Note.

Auto Allocate

This option allows you to Auto Allocate all of the available slots to Parents without you/them choosing, they are randomly assigned.

From the side Menu, go to Modules>Diary>Parents Evening.

Select a Parents Evening and press Actions>Auto Allocate.

Important: This option will erase any existing Bookings made by Parents if pressed so please ONLY use this when there are NO Bookings, otherwise Parents will lose their slots which cannot be retrieved.

Once Auto Allocate is selected, a pop up confirmation will appear.

Click proceed to Auto Allocate appointments to as many contact as the available slots will permit. Cancel to stop the process and return to the previous screen.

A notification will confirm auto allocate is successful.

Reset Allocations

This option allows you to remove the currently booked appointments for the Parents Evening, giving you/Parents a fresh slate.

Go to Modules>Diary>Parents Evening from the side Menu.

Select a Parents Evening and press Actions>Reset Allocations.

Once Reset Allocations is selected a pop up confirmation will appear.

Click proceed to Delete Currently Assigned Bookings or Cancel to stop the process and return to the previous screen.