Notices and Consents FAQ

This article covers common questions regarding notices and consents in Arbor and the Arbor Parent Portal. If you cannot find an answer to your query in this article, check the dedicated section of our Help Centre on this topic here.

Can I see who changed a consent and when?

Consents carry a response date visible at Students > Parents & Guardians > Parental Consents > [consent] > Overview. For full change history (who changed what, and when) the school must request an audit from Arbor Support, more on this here: Requesting an Audit of site activity

Do parents get notified when a consent is requested?

No. When a consent is sent to parents, it will appear in their parent portal app, but they will not be notified of this. If you would like the parents to act promptly and return a response in a specific timeframe, we advise for you to send a communication informing them of this.. 

What happens if I select 'Request again' when sending out consents?

This will remove the previous status of "Declined" or "Consented" and set the status back to pending for all students. It will act as a refresh and change all statuses back to pending; this also includes parents who have already responded. Once this has been selected, it cannot be undone.

Can parents update or change consents? Will I be notified?

Once they have consented or rejected a consent the first time, the guardians cannot change their answer themselves. You will not be notified because parents are unable to change their response without a request being re-sent.

You can see what this will look like for them here: Notices and consents

Guardians need to contact your school if they selected the wrong option or wish to withdraw consent. 

You'll need to follow the instructions in this article to either change the consent answer or re-request the consent using the bulk actions.

Can I filter the consents to see who has declined/ not responded?

Yes, to view this you will need to go to Students > Parents & Guardians > Parental Consents and select the consent.

Then select the three dots next to the column title named Status, then select the Column Filter option and select the filter to show only students that have not consented.

You can read the full guide on this here: See which students have not given consent

Can we import consents?

It isn't possible to import consents, such as from a spreadsheet or third-party application.

Instead, you can see how to set up new consents, request parents to answer them through the Parent Portal/Arbor App or update them in bulk here: Managing Parental and Trip Consents.

Can we remove the Lunch requirement notice?

On the Parent Portal, guardians may see a prompt in the Notices section to get in touch with you to add a Lunch requirement.

• If your school uses the Meals area of Arbor, make sure you record a Meal Choice for the student to remove this notification.
• If your school doesn't use the Meals area of Arbor, follow the guidance below.

This notice flags when your school has a meal set up in a previous year. 

Go to School > Meals > Setup. Check each academic year by changing the year in the drop-down menu. You'll need to remove the meal setups across all past years.

You can delete the meal if it was never used and no money or invoices have been generated. This article shows you how to do this: Can we delete a meal?

If the Delete Meal button is still greyed out after following the steps in the article, it won't be possible to delete and there is no other way to remove the message.

Do parental consents migrate from our previous MIS?

Yes, as long as they have been stored in the specific consents area for your previous MIS (such as in Parental Consents in SIMS , or Permissions in ScholarPack) then they will migrate. You can read more regarding this in the Student data migration FAQ article.

How do I set up Club and Trip collection arrangements?

When you're setting up a Club or Trip, you can choose to enable consent to be collected.

This is collected when the parent makes the payment and signs up. You can see how this looks here:

• Clubs
• Trips

If you want to collect consent at a different time, or ask for further details like a Collection Arrangement, you can set up a specific consent: See, add, send out or update Parental Consents

• This would be done in the Consents area, a separate area for you and on the Parent Portal and Parent App than the clubs/trips areas.
• Both sections will need to be maintained separately and the consent will not automatically update when a participant is added to the trip or club.

Remember not to tick the box to automatically request consent from guardians; you'll want to only request consent for the students eligible for the trip. You will then use your 'Trips' section to monitor payments and 'Consents' to monitor parental consent.