Setting up a dummy student, staff or guardian profile

This article explains how to set up dummy profiles for students, staff, or guardians in Arbor for testing purposes. It highlights the potential drawbacks of using dummy profiles, such as affecting data accuracy and statistics, and provides recommendations for better alternatives. It also details specific use cases for each type of profile.

You may wish to set up a test profile on your MIS to be able to test or troubleshoot features. This would be done in Arbor in the same way as creating an actual student, staff or guardian profile.

Please note that we advise against using dummy profiles wherever possible, as it will affect the accuracy of your data.

Students

You may wish to use a dummy student profile to:

• test what the Student Portal will look like before rolling it out. We would instead recommend logging in as a student.
• record behaviour points for a whole House rather than for an actual student.

If you do choose to set up a dummy profile, make sure you add an Enrolment mode as Guest, to exclude them from the School Census: Set enrolment mode

Please note that:

• even as a guest student, they will contribute towards your statistics and analysis (including attendance if you record attendance for them).
• the Current Enrolment figure on your homepage will include them
• they will be included in your billing based on student numbers.

Guardians

You may wish to use a dummy guardian profile to:

• test what the Parent Portal will look like before rolling it out. We would instead recommend logging in as a guardian.
• link students together as siblings: Foster siblings

Staff

You may wish to use a dummy staff profile to:

• test what Arbor will look like for them, as you cannot log in as a staff member.
• manage supply teachers. We would instead recommend setting up a profile for each staff member.
• link students together as siblings: Foster siblings