Managing the Arbor Student App

The Arbor Student App gives students a convenient and intuitive way to access day-to-day school information, understand their progress, and receive in-app messages from their school. The app makes communicating with students straightforward and simple, without the need for another third party system, or relying on parents.

Permissions

In order to activate the Student App, you need the School: General Admin: Administer permission. If you do not have this permission on your profile, ask a member of your school admin team to assign this permission to you using these instructions.

Before switching on the App

Carrying out data-checking

Before switching on the Arbor Student Portal or Student App, it is important to check your data. Go to School > Data > Data Quality > Dashboard to access your Data Quality Dashboard. From here, navigate to Current & Future Students to ensure that they have email addresses. You should also check for duplicate student profiles by following our guidance here to avoid potential logging-in issues for your students.

Check your student email addresses

Students must have an email address on their Arbor profile to use the Arbor Student App. The email address can be of any type (e.g. personal, work, etc.) but it must be set as their default email. Our guidance here explains how you can bulk import email addresses if needed.

What is included in the Arbor Student App?

The first version of the app includes the following:

Biometric (fingerprint and face ID) login

Students initially sign in using their Student Portal login details. Once a student has logged in, they can click the Remember me button on the login page to use their fingerprint or face ID for logging in in the future. 

Student calendar

The student calendar shows the following information:

• Lessons
• Detentions
• School Events
• Invigilation Sessions (Exams and In House Exams)
• Internal Exclusions
• Club Sessions
• Trip Sessions
• Intervention Sessions

In-App Messages

Students can see in-app messages sent by the school. Please note that there is currently no functionality for students to reply to these messages, so we recommend using these for notices or reminders of important events.

Ask Arbor assistant (beta)

Ask Arbor is your assistant in Arbor, powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI. Students can communicate with Arbor data via natural language, allowing them to ask questions about what lessons are coming up and what they may need (for example asking if they need their P.E. kit in the next few days). 

Activating the Student App

Please note, that the Student Portal must be switched on in order to allow access to the Student App. For more information on the Student Portal, see our Help Centre article here.

By default, your school site does not have the Student App activated. To activate the app, follow these steps:

1. Go to Students > Parent Portal Settings
2. Click on the Student App tab
3. Scroll to Users & Security
4. Click the Allow student login field
5. Change the setting to allow students to log in.

You can also select specific year groups to access the App, or leave the field blank to enable the App for all students.

Activating 'Ask Arbor - Student Assistant' in the app

The Ask Arbor Student Assistant is a beta feature within the app that is not activated by default. For Ask Arbor to be available on the Student App, it must be activated for your school. See our guidance here to find out more about Ask Arbor and activating this feature, and more general information about AI in Arbor can be found here. 

When Ask Arbor is turned on for your school, you can activate it for the Student App by following these steps:

1. Go to School > Ask Arbor
2. Scroll to the Student App section and click Ask Arbor enabled within the Student App
3. Select Yes and then click Save Changes.

Once students start to use the Ask Arbor - Student App Assistant, you can see their conversations and questions by going to School > Ask Arbor > Student App Requests.

Ask Arbor safety features

To maintain the well-being and safety of students, we have included a feature for Ask Arbor that will notify staff members if a student has said anything of concern when using the Ask Arbor feature. For example, if a student mentions that they are particularly upset about anything, Ask Arbor will flag this and send an email to the member of staff that you choose to receive notifications and display the message that prompted the safety alert.

Sending login details to students

Students are not automatically notified when you switch on the Student Portal or Student App, so you will need to let them know by sending them their login details. If you are not using the Student Portal yet, you will need to send your students their Student Portal login before you can log into the Student App. To send out these logins, follow these steps.

How to send students their Student App login

You will need to create a new template email to send to your students by following the steps below:

1. Go to School > Communications > Templates & Layouts > Templates
2. Click on the email tab and click +Add
3. Select Add email template
4. Input your preferred text and click Create template.

Example email templates

Below is some example copy that you can copy and paste into your email template, with the fields contained in [] denoting merge fields which can be found in the toolbar above the text box:

Hi [Recipient First Name],

[School Name] is now using the Arbor Student App, and we’ve set up an account for you. You can download the Arbor Student App from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.

To log in to the Student App, simply use your Student Portal login details.

If a student needs to reset their password, you can also use the following:

If you don’t have a password or need to reset it, go to login.arbor.sc and click ‘Forgotten Password?’ and follow the instructions.

If you have questions, please contact [School Name].

All the best,

[School Name / Staff Name]

Sending your login details email to students

Now that you have your email template, you can send it out by following these steps:

1. Go to School > Communications > Email > New Mail Merge Email
2. In the templates drop-down, select your new template
3. Fill out the rest of the fields accordingly and send the email to your selected students.

How do students download the Arbor Student App?

The app is listed on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. General instructions for downloading the app are listed below:

1. Open the relevant app store on their device
2. Search for Arbor Student App
3. Click on the app store listing
4. Click on the download/install button
5. Once the app has been installed, open it and use their login credentials
6. (Optional) Tap Remember me when logging in to allow students to use biometric login for easier access next time.

Promoting the Student App at your school

To help you promote the Arbor Student App to your students, we have created a poster that you can print out or share digitally with your students. The QR code on the poster directs students to either the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store, depending on the device. You can download the poster here.