This guide will show you how to configure your Virtual School.
A Virtual School is a System that sits between your Partner Schools to collate the Attendance, Behaviour* and Assessment* information from the Partner Systems into one place, and for you to manage Class Assignments and Post16 information for the Students that are part of this setup.
Access: The Permissions required to access Virtual School can be found in the Setup Module from within Config > Setup > Virtual School Configuration.
See Also: How To Setup A Partner School In Virtual School Configuration
Opening the Setup Option
From the left Menu go to Config > Setup > Virtual School Configuration.
Setup Configuration Options
Config > Setup > Virtual School Configuration
When the Configuration Options page opens it will display three radio buttons, make sure the Virtual Schools option is selected.
Beneath this is the Academic Year dropdown menu, this is not multi-year and will work for the selected Academic Year only, select the year the data is to be exchanged for.
Now set the schedule for the Import and Export of Student and Class data to take place, this is done by clicking on the Student and Class Data Synchronisation Schedule dropdown menu and selecting from the following options:
- Every Morning (08:00)
- Every Afternoon (13:00)
- Every Night (18:00)
Now set the schedule for the Import and Export of Academic data to take place, this is done by clicking on the Academic Data Synchronisation Schedule dropdown menu and selecting from the following options:
- Every 30 Minutes
- Every Hour
- Every Morning (08:00)
- Every Afternoon (13:00)
- Every Night (18:00)
Tick the following two options:
Student Admission Numbers must be unique across all schools.
If ticked, you are confirming that all admission numbers are unique—for example, “A12345” does not exist in more than one school.
If duplicate admission numbers exist, students may be overwritten during the sync process.
ONLY enable this option if you are certain all admission numbers are unique.
If unticked (recommended), Student Admission Numbers and Tutor Groups will be prefixed with the School Short Code, making it easier to identify which school a student belongs to. For safety, we advise leaving this unticked unless uniqueness is guaranteed.
Staff Codes are unique across all schools. As above. Bromcom recommends you keep this unticked.
Ensure you press Save to apply the configuration changes.
Adding Partner Schools
Config > Setup > Virtual School Configuration
For the data to be exchanged between the Virtual School and the Partner Schools, the Partner Schools have to be added to the Partner Schools list.
To do this click on the New button.
The New Partner School Details pop-up will be displayed.
The Virtual School Administrator should already have the necessary information from the Partner School to complete this section.
You must select a colour for the school, though this is purely for identification on this page and does not affect any functionality within Bromcom.
The Partner School will now be displayed in the Partner Schools list.
To Edit a school click to select the school to be edited and click the Edit button, this will open the Edit Partner School Details pop-up and allow changes to be made.
Note: To Remove a school click one or more schools and the Remove button, a Confirmation Message will be given select the Cancel or Proceed button. The data associated with the removed school is still held within the system, as long as the same Data Exchange Key is used when the school is added again, only the Period Structure will have to be mapped again.
Each school must have the Period Structure mapped so that Timetables from Classes that Partner Schools have offered up are imported.
To do this, select the Partner School on the list and select Map Period Structure.
The Period Structure on the Virtual School is shown on the left, with the Period Structure from the selected Partner School is shown on the right.
Map this per Period – it’s not based on the timings (these are shown for convenience and to help the mapping).
If the Virtual School has a Period in it’s structure that the Partner School doesn’t have, then leave the Mapped Period as Not Selected.
Note: The Virtual School needs to have a Period Structure which reflects the biggest version of all Partner Schools. If Partner School A has a 1 week, 5 period a day structure, and Partner School B has a 2 week, 10 period a day structure, then the Virtual would need to match School B. In this example, you’d map School A as Days 1-5 as normal, then 6-10 as 1-5 again.
When finished, click the Save button on the panel, then Save at the top of the page to save the configuration.
Using the dropdown menu change the Period Structure to match the Academic Year, then simply match the Period Structure to the Partner School.
When finished click on the Save button.
Actions
Config > Setup > Virtual School Configuration
When all the Partner Schools have been added to the Partner Schools list and the Period Structure for each school has been completed the Virtual School is ready to begin Importing and Exporting data.
The first Import and Export will be done manually, from then on the schedule will take over and the Import and Export will be done automatically.
The schedule will Import data first from the Partner Schools then Export data back to the Partner Schools.
Click on the Actions dropdown menu and select the Import from Partner Schools option. This will Import data from the selected Partner Schools. This import will bring up the Students from Outplaced Students, and Classes from Outplaced Classes from that Partner School.
Selecting the Export to Partner Schools option will send down Class Assignment information that you have set on the Virtual to that Partner. If Students from another School are part of that Schools Classes, then the Student will created on that Partner School as a Guest.
Selecting the Import Academic Data from Partner Schools Option will bring up Attendance, Behaviour*, and Assessment* information for those Students.
After each Import or Export there will be a completion message.
Transfer Log
Config > Setup > Virtual School Configuration
Each Import and Export will be logged with a message, to view these messages click on the View Transfer Logs button.
All Imports and Exports will be shown here, if there have been any issues with the transfer of data it will be listed. So it is important that the logs are checked daily.
