Setting up Trips - 5. Troubleshooting and Customisation

As the final part of our Trips in Arbor series, this guide provides essential information for refining and troubleshooting your trip setup. We'll cover how to make necessary changes to trip settings and prices after the trip has been created. We’ll also address common issues such as why a trip might not be showing on the Parent Portal, or what to do if you're unable to add participants. This section will point you toward additional Arbor Help Centre articles for more advanced customisation and related topics.

The guides in this series are:

1. Introduction
2. Creating the trip
3. Adding prices for paid trips
4. Managing trip participants
5. Troubleshooting, further reading and customisation
    

Making Changes to Trip Settings

For future trips, once a trip is created, you may need to update its details. Most settings, such as Location, Staff, Dates, and Max Participants, can be edited on the trip's overview page as long as the trip has not started and is not in the past.

To make changes, navigate to the trip's overview page: School > Activities > Trips, then click the trip and select More Information.

Look for the relevant section (e.g., Trip Details) and click on the item you want to edit to open a slide over.

Changing Trip Dates and Times

You can adjust the Trip Start and End Date/Time and the Guardian Portal Sign-up Dates. However, be mindful of how changes to the sign-up window might affect parents who are already in the process of paying.

If you leave the Signup Opens field empty, guardians will not be able to sign up Eligible students via the Parent Portal/App. However, if their child is already Confirmed or Reserved for the Trip, parents can still make contributions.
 

Making Changes to Prices

Making changes to trip prices after creation has a significant limitation:

• You cannot change the price for students who have already been confirmed for a trip without contacting your Arbor Support team.

However, if a change is needed:

• You can change the price details, voluntary contribution setting, instalment permission, and auto-confirmation threshold for students who have not yet been confirmed.
• You can set up an alternative price for a different pupil group (e.g., to offer a new discount) by selecting +Add within the Trip Prices section.

If you need to change the Voluntary Contribution or other price elements, there is a dedicated Arbor guide: Change the trip price or Voluntary Contribution.
 

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Trip not showing on the Parent Portal 

If guardians are reporting that the trip is not showing for them, check the following:

• Pupils Eligible: Ensure the child is included in the Pupils Eligible list on the trip's details page. If they are not:
  • Ensure that the student or student group they are part of is added to the list of eligible students in Trip Details. 
  • If the student is not currently enrolled or the trip is scheduled for the next academic year, and you have not yet completed your New School Year setup, add the student to a custom group in the academic year the trip takes place in using these instructions and set that group as eligible.
• Trip prices for paid trips: Ensure that a price is set for all eligible students, even if they do not have to pay towards the trip; their cost should be £0. If you do not do this, you will not be able to sign them up for the trip (as an admin or a parent). Find more on setting trip prices in Guide 3 of this series: Setting up Trips - 3. Adding Prices
• Sign-up Dates: Check that the current date falls between the Signup Opens and Signup Closes dates set in the Guardian Portal Signup section. If the Signup Opens field is empty, the sign-up never opened.
• Maximum Participants: Check that the sum of your Confirmed and Reserved student numbers does not exceed/equal the maximum set in the trip details. If it does, no further signups are possible.

For more details on this, please refer to the Arbor article: Parents can't sign up and pay for the trip.
 

Unable to Add Participants as an Admin

If you are having trouble adding participants, check the following:

Max Participants: Check the Max participants field. Guardians and the system won't be able to sign students up once the maximum capacity is reached.

Trip prices for paid trips: Ensure that a price is set for all eligible students, even if they do not have to pay towards the trip; their price should be £0. 

Eligibility: Ensure the student is included in the groups or individuals set as Pupils eligible.
 

Further Reading and Customisation

For more advanced management and customisation options, consult these additional Arbor Help Centre articles referenced throughout the series:

• Managing academic year crossovers: Can we set up trips for the next academic year? (Note: This is especially important when taking payments in the current year for a trip happening next year).
• Reporting: Report on trips and analyse trip participation.
• Participant Management: Add a previously cancelled trip participant and Manually signing students up to a trip
• Custom Groups: Custom Group for applicants and admissions this year, or trips, clubs or School Shop for next year
• Managing Meals: Managing meals when students go on trips.

• Trip Consents: Trip consents and collection arrangements.

   

This concludes Guide 5: Troubleshooting, further reading and customisation, and brings our series on Setting up a Trip in Arbor to an end. We hope these guides have provided you with a clear and comprehensive path to managing your school's trips effectively.