This article is an introduction to our series of guides to help you with Setting up Guardian Consultations (Parents' Evenings) in Arbor. This guide covers the permissions required to set up and manage a Guardian Consultation (also known as a Parents' Evening) in Arbor, as well as key considerations before initiating your setup.
The guides in this series are:
- Introduction - Setting up Parents Evenings (Guardian Consultations)
- Creating a Consultation - Setting up Parents Evenings (Guardian Consultations)
- Adding Meetings - Setting up Parents Evenings (Guardian Consultations)
- Availability and Breaks - Setting up Parents Evenings (Guardian Consultations)
- Meeting Management - Setting up Parents Evenings (Guardian Consultations)
- Specific Setups and FAQs - Setting up Parents Evenings (Guardian Consultations)
Looking for help with the Guardian Consultation you've already set up? Take a look at our FAQ and troubleshooting tips.
Permissions
The Guardian Consultations: Administer permission is needed to set up and manage guardian consultations.
If you don't have this permission, you can ask your school admin to assign it to you using these instructions.
What are Guardian Consultations?
In Arbor, Guardian Consultations refer to parents' evenings. Accessible through Students > Parents & Guardians > Guardian Consultations > All Guardian Consultations, this section enables you to schedule and manage meetings between parents and teachers, which parents can book via the Parent Portal or App.
Things to consider before setting up
Separate meetings
You need to decide if guardians and staff can book separate meetings for each guardian linked to a child before you finalise your choices when scheduling your meetings.
This choice cannot be changed after you plan meetings. If you make a mistake, you'll need to delete and recreate the meetings or schedule custom meetings for students who need extra meetings.
Additionally, you may find our guidance on more specific consultation setups useful to read before you begin. For example, consider checking out Managing separated parents or split families.
The time of year
Suppose you need to schedule meetings that will take place during the next academic year. In that case, you won't be able to use Guardian Consultations to let parents make bookings via the Parent Portal or App before the start of the next academic year.
Parents can only book meetings themselves for consultations taking place in the current academic year. Instead, you would need to book meetings for parents manually via the consultation, or you can set up meetings as an event to manage your bookings.
Staff calendars
To book a meeting with a staff member, the following conditions must be met:
- The staff member must have a defined availability period.
- The staff member must not have conflicting events scheduled.
- All meeting participants must also meet the first two conditions.
Therefore, ensure staff calendars are clear of other events during desired meeting times, and consider removing staff from overlapping events and deleting any placeholder events you might have added to staff calendars (as the placeholder will stop bookings from being possible).
This concludes the first guide in our Setting up Parents Evenings (Guardian Consultations) series. The next guide in our series is Creating a Consultation - Setting up Parents Evenings (Guardian Consultations)
Comments
For some meetings, I cannot see any drop down option for timings for the parents evening.
How to book the slots? Is there a bug here?
Thanks,
Ranee
Hi Ranee, this isn't a bug - it sounds like a step has been missed out when setting up the parent's evening. If you aren't able to book a slot, this means the staff member hasn't been given a period of eligibility - you can see how to do this in step 3 of the guidance above.
I am Dayna Martin's Mom ( year 12). I would like to book to attend the virtual parent meeting
Hi Yvonne, please get in touch with your school. They will be able to help you book a meeting.
Hi,
Are there any plans to link the parent evenings booking system to a virtual meeting via google meet. We were able to do this with a third party app but have cancelled to make savings now that we have Arbor.
Please take a look at our product roadmap here. You may want to look at your current options for virtual meetings here: Remote Learning Integrations
Hi Gywn, I have made a suggestion on the product roadmap for this to be developed. You suggested I look at Remote learning Integrations - I think we are connected with google but is there something diffferent we need to set up with google classroom or google meet which would help us set up a virtual meeting for each of the guardian consultations set up in Arbor
Hi Helen, you won't be able to do this automatically in Arbor. Take a look at how this can be done in the Using guardian consultations for virtual meetings section above.
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