Access: The permissions required to get started with MCAS are found in the MCAS Module of Config>Setup>Roles & Permissions. Each tick box on the right determines which functions are visible/available on the page for users with the selected Role.

See also: How to assign Roles and Permissions

Prerequisites:

• Ensure the MCAS Module is enabled/accessible on your MIS and that you/the MCAS lead has a role with sufficient MCAS Access and Permissions.
• From the side Menu, go to the Others page and ensure you do not have duplicate records for any Parents/Contacts see : Duplicate MCAS User Accounts.

In this guide, the entire process for setting up MyChildAtSchool (MCAS) and creating User Accounts for Parents/assisting them with signing up will all be detailed as below:

• Creating User Accounts
• Sending Invitation Code Emails – System Email
• Sending Invitation Code Emails – Custom Email
• How Parents Redeem Invitation Codes – Web Version
• How Parents Redeem Invitation Codes – App Version
• Navigating MCAS – Web Version
• Navigating MCAS – App Version
• Magic Link – App Version
• Court Orders
• MCAS Charges

See also: MCAS Webinar Recording and MCAS Parent Guide.

Creating User Accounts

From the side menu go to Modules>MCAS>User Accounts.

When the User Accounts page loads for the first time, it will be empty and display No data available in table.

This is because as of yet, no User Accounts have been created.

Note: Until you have created User Accounts for MCAS, the Parent application cannot be used because User Accounts are required for Parents to actually access the application.

All of the buttons available on the above page serve the following purposes;

• New – Begins the process for creating new User Accounts.
• Edit – Allows for the editing of existing User Accounts.
• Deactivate – Allows for deactivation but not full deletion of User Accounts.
• Select Students – Displays existing User Accounts based on the Students they are linked to.
• Select Contacts – Displays existing User Accounts based on the Parents/Contacts that they were created for.
• Search – Allows you to search by name and quickly find User Accounts for Parents/Contacts.

User Accounts will be logins/gateways for Parents, so they MUST to be created to move forward by pressing New.

This will then provide you with a pop out screen where all of the Students whether currently on roll or in a Pre Admission Groups will be displayed by default.

You do also have the option to use Select Contacts instead, which will provide the ability to create User Accounts based on the Contacts on your system and which Students they are linked to.

Note: Some Students may have extra Contacts linked beyond their Parents such as uncles and grandparents etc, you may wish to make a note of any Students with multiple Contacts as this will come up later.

There is no wrong choice here but for a first time set up, it is advisable to use Select Students.

Note: It is also highly advisable to try this with one Student first.

Once there is at least one Student is selected, press Next.

Once you press Next, the screen that follows is crucial as it determines which Contacts the Student will be visible to and how much data can be seen.

Depending on the options you select on this screen, potentially all Contacts for the Student you previously selected can be displayed/selected for account creation so please ensure to choose carefully.

The configurable settings shown on the above page serve the following purposes;

• Manual – Allows you to manually create a Username and Invitation Code for the MCAS User Account that you are creating.
• Auto – Allows you to automatically generate a Username and Invitation Code for the User Account that you are creating. (This option is especially recommended when bulk creating User Accounts).
• Parental Responsibility – This will ONLY display Contacts who are marked as having Parental Responsibility on the Student’s record. Unticking this means ANY Contact on the Student’s record can now be selected for account creation, regardless of having Parental Responsibility.
• Contact Priority – Each contact that is linked to a student will have a Contact priority assigned to them. On this page, these options are used to specify which Contact priorities and subsequently which Contacts you want to display/include and create User Accounts for (the Contact Priority is also affected by the Parental Responsibility tick on this page).

Unticking Parental Responsibility means ANY any Contact priority and subsequently any contact can be selected.

Unticking a particular Contact priority will remove any Contact/s assigned to that priority from the account creation screen, whereas selecting All will include all Contacts of any Contact priority for account creation.

Note: Parental Responsibility being ticked will always take precedence, this will limit the available contacts to ONLY those who are marked as having Parent Responsibility on the Student record.

A great idea would be to run a report to see which Contacts have Parental Responsibility and which Contact priority they are. If you have Parents who are priority four or have Contacts without Parental Responsibility that should have it, you can address this with some internal house keeping.

Note: You can see from the above screenshot that three Contact priorities are shown but only two Contacts are displayed.

This is the system showing that it has detected three Contacts for the Student irrespective of having Parental Responsibility or not, but it is only showing those two contacts that do have Parental Responsibility because that field is still ticked.

Unticking it will reveal the third Contact as seen below;

Unticking any of the three Contact priorities will remove all Contacts of that priority from the process (For example, unticking priority five would remove Mrs D Farnworth).

Once the final Contacts are decided on and displayed, the Access (far left) and Show Student Details (far right) tick boxes must also be ticked as shown below;

• Access – Ticking this actually makes the Student visible on the MCAS Account when a Parent logs in. Unticking it will mean the Student cannot be viewed in any capacity through this MCAS Account. (This can always be revoked later if needed by editing the User Account).
• Show Student Details – Ticking this will allow the Contact to see the personal information of the Student, such as their current Address, Email Address and Phone Number. Unticking this means no personal information can be seen, only Academic information such as Behaviour/Assessment. (This can also be revoked later if needed by editing the User Account).

Note: For scenarios where Parents are divorced, they WILL NOT be able to see each other’s details through MCAS but they will both be able to see the Student’s details separately through their own MCAS Accounts if they both have Access and Show Student Details enabled.

Once this section has been double checked, press Generate.

This will provide a success message in the top right corner of your screen, as well as showing the account details and the Students that the selected Contacts has been granted access to.

This is the final step of creating User Accounts.

Sending Invitation Code Email – System Email

Once the above steps have been completed, you immediately have the option to send a system generated Email containing the Contact’s Username and Invitation Code as shown below.

If the Invitation Code Email is sent from this section, it will be delivered in the following format;

Clicking the Here link in the Email will take the Parents directly to the MCAS Homepage screen with their credentials already entered as seen below;

From there, all Parents need to do is tick I’m not a robot and press Redeem Code.

This will take Parents on to the final step where they enter a valid recovery Email Address and create a Password for their MCAS Account, but that will be discussed in more detail further in this guide.

Note: If Parents do not open the link/press Here within the Email, they will need to go to the following web address when they are ready to redeem their credentials – https://www.mychildatschool.com/MCAS/MCSRedeemInvitationCode

Sending Invitation Code Email – Custom Email

If you prefer to send a more personal Email containing the Invitation Codes, a custom Email can be created from within the Students List Page>Actions>Send SMS/Email.

If you are creating a custom Email, you MUST include Dynamic Fields for RecipientUsername and RecipientInvitation Code in the body of the Email.

These Dynamic Fields will automatically map the existing Username and Invitation Code they find within the Parent’s MCAS User Account to that same Parent for the Email, and this will be the case even if you select multiple sets of Parents as all credentials are unique and stored separately.

Note: As the system generated Invitation Code Email includes the School ID, you should make sure this is contained in your custom Email too as it is required by every Parent to log in to MCAS.

Below is an example of an Email that could be created using the RecipientUsername and RecipientInvitationCode Dynamic Fields.

See also: How to send an Email or SMS Message

While you are creating your custom Invitation Code Email, you also have the option to upload an Attachment.

The MCAS Parent Guide can be attached here to assist Parents with the steps they need to take. It can be downloaded below and attached when the custom Email is created;

How Parents redeem their Credentials – Web Version

Now that you have created all of the User Accounts and you have Emailed the credentials across to the Parents, the Parents now need to redeem them so that they can access MCAS.

To begin, Parents will need to go to the following web address – https://www.mychildatschool.com/MCAS/MCSParentLogin

Important Note: This will take Parents to the MCAS Homepage showing a log in screen as seen below.

This page is only used by Parents who have already redeemed their Credentials, so Parents who are new to MCAS MUST ONLY press REDEEM INVITATION CODE, nothing else.

Pressing Redeem Invitation Code redirect Parents to a very similar looking screen, but the web address will have changed to – https://www.mychildatschool.com/MCAS/MCSRedeemInvitationCode

Note: This web address can also be sent to Parents manually to assist them with redeeming their credentials.

From here, Parents will enter their unique credentials that they have received via Email, tick I am not a robot and press Redeem Code as seen below;

Pressing Redeem Code will mean the log in details have now been created and the Invitation Code has served its purpose and is now redundant.

Note: In this example, the Parent would no longer have an active MCAS Invitation Code if you checked their User Account as it has now been redeemed.

Now that the Invitation Code and Username have been redeemed, the screen will update and the Parent must now enter a VALID Email Address and then CREATE a Password which they will use to log in once this step is completed.

Note: The Email is only used for recovery purposes, it is NOT used to log in to MCAS.

When creating a Password, it must contain all of the following;

A weak example would be Password1$

A stronger example would be PaS5W0rd_$

Once an Email and strong Password are entered, press Save Account Details.

Pressing Save Account Details will register the Email and Password against the account, the screen will then update to say they were successful.

Finally, Parents will then be redirected to the original log in screen – https://www.mychildatschool.com/MCAS/MCSParentLogin

Parents can now enter the School ID, their Username and their Password before pressing Login.

Note: Many Parents think they need to enter their Email Address here and is a common Helpdesk query.

Again, Parents MUST enter the School ID, their Username (received in Invitation Code Email) and their Password (created during the previous step) to log in to MCAS, nothing else.

The Parent will then be taken through to their MCAS Account where they can now see check MCAS for their child/children.

The pop up notification seen below is for security, Parents should press OK and then validate their Email Address by checking the subsequent validation Email they will have just received.

How Parents Redeem their Credentials – App Version

For Parents who prefer to use their Phones or have limited/no Computer access, they also have the ability to redeem their Invitation Code via the MCAS App.

To do this, Parents will need to download the MCAS App from the App Store (Apple) or Play Store (Android).

Once the App is launched, Parents can choose to log in with Username and Password or Magic Link. (Magic Link will be covered in more detail further in this guide, for this section we will use Username and Password).

Pressing Username and Password will provide Parents will the screen shown below.

At this point, they MUST press Redeem Invitation Code at the bottom of the screen.

Note: Parents often try to enter their Invitation Code or Email Address on this page but this is only for users who have already redeemed their credentials, they will use it later but not now.

Once they press Redeem Invitation Code, the screen will update and Parents will be asked to provide the School ID as well as their Username and Password.

So in the same way as they would on the Web Version, they enter the School ID, Username and Password before pressing Redeem Code.

Once they press Redeem Code, they will be redirected to the next screen where they must enter a VALID Email Address and CREATE a Password.

When creating a Password, it must contain all of the following;

Once an Email Address and Password are both entered, press Save Account Details.

Once this step has been completed and the account details are saved, Parents will receive a success message and be logged in to the App where they can now Navigate as they wish.

Parents can now Navigate the App using the side Menu and selecting a Module.

Note: If the side Menu is not visible, it may be hidden and can be expanded by using the three horizontal red lines highlighted below’

Navigating MCAS – Web Version

Now that the MCAS Account has been created, Parents can log in to the Web Version or App Version any time they wish.

Logging in via the Web version can only be done through the following Web Address – https://www.mychildatschool.com/MCAS/MCSParentLogin

Once the Parent logs in to MCAS, they will see Widgets on the Dashboard and a side Menu.

The Widgets on the Dashboard will either display data that can be viewed at a glance, and/or have a More button which will redirect the Parent to the full page for that Module (i.e Reports or Assessment).

Pressing More on a Widget will take you to the specific page for that Module. Below is an example of the Assessment page after pressing More.

Going back to the Dashboard, the other Navigation tool aside from the Widgets will be the Side Menu.

This Menu can be amended/is configured by School Staff from within the MIS by going to Config>MCAS and selecting a specific Module underneath the Configuration options.

Within the Module, you can decide if you want it to be visible to Parents via MCAS by using the Enable Module tick box shown below;

Navigate the side Menu within Config>MCAS to control which data you wish to be visible to Parents.

Note: Ensure you Save each page before you move to another.

Once you are happy with everything, MCAS is now fully configured to your Schools preferences and Parents can log in regularly to view the Data as it updates.

Note: If a Parent has more than one Child at the School, they will all be visible via the same MCAS Account.

To switch to their other Child, Parents need to click on the Child’s name on the top left of the Dashboard.

This will provide a drop down where they can select another Child as seen below;

By clicking on the Child’s name, the Parent can now select one of their other Children to view on MCAS.

Finally, by selecting the other Child, Parents will be able to view their data and switch between their Children whenever they please.

Navigating MCAS – App Version

Now that the MCAS Account has been created, Parents can log in to the Web Version or App Version any time they wish.

To log in via the MCAS App, Parents will need to download it from the App Store (Apple) or Play Store (Android).

Once the App is launched, Parents can choose to log in via Username and Password or Magic Link which is a new feature as of October 2021.

Note: The Purpose of the Magic Link is to provide a 24 hour shortcut where Parents can access the App using just the School ID and their Email Address instead of entering their full credentials, this feature will be covered in more detail further in this guide.

Once the App is launched, Parents will select the Username and Password log in option.

They will then need to enter the School ID, their Username and their Password.

Entering these credentials will store them on the Phone and they will not be needed again to log in to the MCAS App.

Parents can now create a five digit pin, as well as enable Biometric Authentication (Touch/Facial Recognition) which allows them to log in with greater ease and security.

Note: Each Phone is different so Parents may not be prompted to enable Biometric Authentication the first time, they can enable this within Profile section of the App at any time

Navigating the App version of MCAS works slightly differently to the Web Version of it because there is no Dashboard or Widgets, only Modules within the side Menu.

Instead, Parents will arrive on a Module straight away such as Attendance.

To navigate to a different Module, they would need to use the side Menu which is accessed by using the three horizontal lines on the top left of the App.

Note: The Modules within this Menu are controlled within the MIS via Config>MCAS, any Modules that are enabled there will be visible on the App when the Parent logs in.

There is also a fixed Menu at the bottom of the App which will allow Parents to view Announcements, view their Profile and view/manage their Accounts (Some Parents will have another MCAS Account with another School that they can add to their MCAS App).

Magic Link – App Version

Logging in to the MCAS App using a Magic Link is a new feature as of October 2021.

The idea is to allow Parents to use this as quick access/a shortcut to log in to the App for 24 hours through a Magic Link they receive via Email, instead of entering their credentials.

This option is available at the first point of the MCAS App launching as shown below;

Pressing Magic Link will require two pieces of information from the Parent which are School ID and their Email Address.

Note: The Parent must use the same exact Email Address that they previously set as their Recovery Email Address when they signed up to MCAS.

Once the Parent has entered the School ID and their Email Address, they just need to press Continue.

They will then receive an Email containing the Magic Link.

As the Magic Link feature is only available on the App Version of MCAS, Parents MUST open this Email and click the Magic Link on the same Phone that will be accessing the MCAS App on.

The key to this feature working is for the Parent to open the Email using a designated Email Application such as Outlook or Gmail and then pressing the link within the Email there.

Once the Parent presses the Magic Link, they will be taken back to the MCAS App automatically.

They should then be taken to the screen where they can create a five digit pin or enable Biometric Authentication.

Once the Parent has logged in, they can Navigate the App as they wish.

Note: The Magic Link will only work for 24 hours so while it provides a quick fix solution to log in, Parents only need to log in using their credentials once to be able to log in via a five digit pin or Biometric Authentication every time afterwards.

Court Orders – How they affect MCAS

Adding Court Orders is something that can be done within the Contacts section of a Students record.

When you hover over a Contact and use the Pencil Icon highlighted below, there is an option to mark the Contact as having a Court Order.

Once you press Edit and you have the screen shown below, the Court Order tick box will be visible/accessible.

With regards to MCAS, Court Orders have the following affect;

If a Parent is given a Court Order BEFORE they have an MCAS Account, that Parent can still have an MCAS Account created but they WILL NOT be able to see or access the Student they have a Court order against.

In this situation, even though the Parent can still have an MCAS Account created and view other Students that they are linked to (if any), they WILL NOT be able to see the Student they have a Court Order against in any capacity.

Below is an example of trying to create a User Account when there is a Court Order;

And this is an example of trying to create a User Account when there is no Court Order;

If a Parent is given a Court Order AFTER they already have an MCAS Account, that Parent WILL STILL be able to see or access the Student they have a Court Order against.

In this situation, you MUST manage this manually by going to Modules>MCAS>User Accounts and using removing the Access and/or Show Student Details ticks against the Parent.

To do this, find the Contact in question and press Edit. Then untick the Access and Show Student Details tick boxes shown below and press Save;

Removing the above tick boxes will prevent the Parent from being able to see the Student in any capacity via MCAS.

If the Parent is not linked to any other Student in the School and has become problematic/abusive, there is also the ability to Disable or Delete their MCAS Account.

Disabling or Deleting the MCAS Account would be a last resort AFTER you have already unticked Access and Show Student Details for that Contact (unticking both will ensure the Student is not visible on MCAS) but the option is there should you deem it appropriate.

To do this, you can go to Modules>MCAS>User Accounts. Once there, find the Contact in question and press Action. Within Action there is the option to Disable the User Account, or next to Action there is an option to Delete the User Account as shown below;

Note: The Contact must be selected/ticked for either of these actions to have affect.

MCAS Charges – Bank Statements and Orders

When Parents make a purchase or payment on MCAS, their Bank Statements will show Bromcom MCAS.

It is common for Parents to forget this and get confused or think they are being charged for a subscription, but they can be reassured that this is coming from an MCAS Purchase they made and is a one off amount.

If you ever need to verify a payment that a Parent has made or check that they have been charged, you can go to Modules>MCAS>View Orders.

See also: How to Manage Existing Orders and How to Create Orders.

This will allow you to see all of the Orders your School have either received from MCAS or created internally, with the Order Status showing on the right.

The Order Status’ on this page have the following meaning;

• Paid – The Parent has created an Order and has paid via MCAS, or the School have marked the Order as paid after receiving the money outside of MCAS.
• Refunded – The Order has been fully or part Refunded to the Parent by the School.
• Processing – The Parent has created an Order but Payment is Pending on MCAS.
• Failed – The Parent has created an Order but Payment has failed on MCAS.
• Outstanding – The Parent has created an Order but chose to pay Offline (Cash/Cheque) or has an Outstanding order against them/their Child that they have not yet paid.
• Cancelled – The Parent previously had an Order but it has since been Cancelled by the School.

Using this page and knowing what the Order Status means, you can now check to confirm when a Parent says they have been charged twice or claim to have Paid an Outstanding Order.

Note: To set up and use Online Payments with Bromcom, there must be an Authenticated Bank Account configured within Config>MCAS>Online Payments.

If this is not the case, please contact our Customer Care Team to begin the processing of configuring an Authenticated Bank Account at customercareteam@bromcom.com

See also: How to set up Online Payments

Note: There is a £1 minimum checkout amount on MCAS, meaning any purchasable items, Clubs, Trips or Products must cost £1 or above.