This article is the second in our series on Setting up Guardian Consultations (Parents' Evenings). This guide covers adding your consultation, picking dates and choosing a self-scheduling period for parents.
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)
Choosing consultation dates
Before adding your consultation, consider your desired start and end dates. In this setup step, you define the overall dates and times between which meetings can take place, and later, you specify the periods for which meetings can be booked between those overall dates.
For example, if your consultation has meetings on Monday and Tuesday, you set the consultation dates to start on Monday and end on Tuesday in this step. When adding availability and breaks, you specify when meetings on Monday and Tuesday are bookable.
Consultations can span multiple days. For example, if your parents' evening is on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, set the start date to Monday and the end date to Wednesday. Staff won’t need to be available all day; you can specify available meeting times later (see the fourth guide, Availability and Breaks).
If you create multiple guardian consultations instead of one, parents can book separate meetings for each day. Therefore, it's best to schedule one consultation across multiple days.
For start times, a good rule of thumb is that the start time would be the time the first meeting on the first day of the consultation could start (i.e. when is the earliest the consultation could start?), and for the end time, you can use the time the last meeting on the last day of the consultation would end (i.e. when does the consultation entirely end?).
Creating the Guardian Consultation
To create your consultations, once you have decided on start dates and times:
1. Go to Students > Parents and Guardians > Guardians Consultations
2. Click +Add to open a slide over
3. From the slide over, you can edit details about the consultation.
- Consultation Name: Click on the default wording and type in your Consultation Name. Parents can view this name on the Portal or App, so please choose an appropriate and clear name.
- Consultation Starts: Click on the calendar to select the Date and Time you would like the meetings to start.
- Consultations End: Click on the calendar to select the Date and Time you would like the meetings to end.
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Self-scheduling allows you to set the timeframe during which parents and Guardians can sign up for meetings via the Parent Portal or App. Leave the dates and times blank if you do not want parents to book their own meetings:
- Self-Scheduling Opens: Click on the calendar to select the Date and Time you would like guardians to start booking their meeting slots.
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Self-Scheduling Closes: Click on the calendar to select the Date and Time at which you would like guardians to stop being able to book their meeting slots.
Note: For consultations scheduled to take place in the next academic year, self-scheduling will not open until the start of the next academic year, even if the Self-Scheduling Opens date and time are before the beginning of the academic year. This means that parents will not be able to book meetings in the next academic year independently until the academic year has started; however, you can manually sign students up for such meetings.
4. Click Save Changes to confirm your choices
The Overview Page
Once you click "Save changes," a new consultation is created, and you will be taken to the Overview page for that consultation.
On the overview page, you can view and amend (by clicking on 'Title') any of the information that was input into the slide-over.
To delete a consultation created in error, use the red Cancel Guardian Consultation button on the right side of the Overview Page.
You can get to the overview page for a consultation to edit it at any point by heading to Students > Parents & Guardians > Guardian Consultations > All Guardian Consultations and clicking on the consultation you want to amend or manage. Note: only consultations with no scheduled meetings can be deleted. More on this here: Deleting the whole Guardian Consultation
This concludes the second guide in our Setting up Parents Evenings (Guardian Consultations) series. The following guide in our series is Adding Meetings - Setting up Parents Evenings (Guardian Consultations).
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