A guide for Schools working with an Onboarding Manager.
If you are on the 12-week onboarding journey, you will be allocated a dedicated Customer Onboarding Manager to help guide your transition to Arbor. You can email your Onboarding Manager at any point or book individual check-in calls. You will find their email address and booking link directly in your Arbor Space account, under Key Contacts:
Your onboarding call time is there to help you plan and manage your move to Arbor with confidence. When you book, you'll be asked to give a reason for the call, so this guide will help you work out what that reason is, when it's worth booking, and how to get the most out of the time.
Whilst booking a call is completely optional, we'd always recommend speaking to your Onboarding Manager at least once during your journey, even just as a general milestone check-in to make sure things are on track.
What the calls are for
Think of your onboarding calls as planning and progress check-ins, not technical support. Your Onboarding Manager is there to help you make good decisions about your onboarding, keep momentum, and flag anything that might slow you down.
Typical things to bring to a call:
- Deciding the order and pace for rolling out the Arbor modules
- Planning staff training, including who needs it and by when
- Reviewing whether outstanding tasks are on track, and what to prioritise next
- Checking your onboarding timeline against key dates (term start, census, exams, etc.)
- Talking through how a change might affect staff, parents, or data
- A general milestone check-in: a 'are we doing OK?' conversation, even if nothing specific has come up
- A readiness check ahead of your final migration, if you're approaching it without having had a call yet
What the calls aren't for
Technical Support: Day-to-day "How do I..." queries when using Arbor, troubleshooting staff permissions, or migrated data issues are best handled via the Arbor Help Centre or you dedicated Support Team, who can resolve issues much faster. Details of your Support Team can be found on Spaces.
Live System Configuration: Onboarding Managers provide guidance on decisions, but they will not configure your internal school settings or manipulate live data during the call.
When to book
There's no fixed schedule for these calls, but we've put some suggestions below on how you might want to utilise your time. As a guide:
| Stage | Good reason to book |
| Just starting out, Weeks 1-4 | Discuss your module rollout plan, plan staff training, and set a realistic project timeline. |
| Mid-rollout, Weeks 5-8 | Review module rollout plans, assess staff training completion rates, and align on next steps. |
| Approaching final migration, Weeks 9-10 | If you haven't booked a call yet, now is the time. Use as a final readiness check to ensure you haven't missed anything and are completely ready to go live with Arbor. |
| Stuck or unsure, anytime | Get help prioritising next steps, overcoming obstacles, or navigating changes in your project team. |
Getting the most out of the time
A little preparation makes a big difference to how useful the call is:
- Note down what you want to cover before the call, even just a couple of lines
- Have your task list or training reports open on Spaces so you can look at real progress together
- If a decision needs input from someone else at school, loop them in beforehand or bring them to the call
A final tip
Onboarding tends to go more smoothly for schools who check in at natural points along the way, rather than saving everything up for one longer call near a deadline. If nothing specific has come up but it's been a while since you last spoke to your Onboarding Manager, a general milestone check-in is a perfectly good reason to book.
And if you're nearing your final migration without having had a call yet, that's the point to book one, so you go into the move with a clear plan.
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