This article covers common questions regarding the management of the Parent Portal and App. If you cannot find an answer to your query in this article, check our dedicated section of the Help Centre here.
Can we do a test roll out of the Parent Portal and Parent App?
Once you've followed these instructions to switch on the Parent Portal, any guardians would be able to log in (providing they know how to get to the login page). You don't need to update access in bulk or individually, as this is automatically applied.
However, they won't be automatically notified by email, SMS or any other method that they can log in. To let parents know they can log in, you need to manually send them a welcome email: Sending and resending login details to Guardians
Because Arbor works in this way, you can't switch on the Parent Portal and Parent App for only one or a few guardians. However, you can select a specific guardians to send the welcome email to, have them log in, then send out the login details to the rest of your guardians to give them access in bulk.
Can guardians see pinned notes on the Parent Portal and Parent App?
Most pinnable items on student profiles will not show as pinned notes on the Parent Portal and Parent App. Notes that are not pinned will also not show.
However, for behaviour notes only, you can choose whether to display these or not from the Parent Portal Settings page.
Can guardians see school notices on the Parent Portal and Parent App?
School Notices or 'latest announcements' can only be viewed by staff members logged into Arbor.
- Guardians are not able to view them on the Parent Portal and Parent App.
- Students are not able to view them on the Student Portal.
If you need to send a message to guardians, you can send an in-app message.
You can see more about school notices here: School Notices on your homepage.
Can guardians see Assignments on the Parent Portal and Parent App?
Guardians can see assignments on the Parent Portal and Parent App, but they can't submit assignments on behalf of their children. You can see how this works here: Assignments on the Parent Portal and Parent App
It isn't possible to disable this, switch this off, or prevent assignments from showing.
Can guardians see Medical Events on the Parent Portal and Parent App?
No, medical events are not visible on the Parent Portal or Parent App, in the medical section on their child's profile.
Schools should record medical events via Arbor if they wish to have an electronic copy, and follow their normal procedure to notify guardians. This article explains how to create a medical event for a child: Medical Events (first aid, accidents, checkups etc).
Can parents see UDFs on the Parent Portal or Parent App?
Guardians cannot see any details of User Defined Fields (UDFs) on the Parent Portal or Parent App. This means schools can use UDFs for data they don't wish or need to share with parents.
If you did want to share any information about what data is help in UDFs with guardians, you could share them in an email or SMS: Creating a Mail Merge using data from a Custom Report Writer report.
How do we translate Arbor into other languages for non-English speakers?
Although Arbor itself does not offer direct translation as a feature, most web browsers have translation functionality built into them.
This means that when using the Parent Portal, guardians can set their preferred language in their browser and Arbor will be automatically translated.
Both Chrome and Safari have guidance on how to do this - these are linked below:
When using Ask Arbor to help draft communications, you can add 'Write in [language]' at the bottom of the prompt and it will translate the text into that language.
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