Getting started with your Arbor MIS - Primary Onboarding

Now that your migration is complete, you're probably excited to get started with your new Arbor MIS! 

Before you get going, there are a few important steps you need to take.

  1. Get your team logged in, following the troubleshooting steps below
  2. Set up Attendance Patterns for your Nursery classes
  3. Take attendance in Arbor
  4. Check your data
  5. Set up third party integrations 

Please note the following can vary for a GroupCall API migrator, we are working on adding the GroupCall Migrator specifications to this guide. If you need to raise any data discrepancies post migration please contact Arbor support or your dedicated partner and we will be advised of the next steps.

1. Get your team logged in

We migrate a lot of staff data, including historic data, which can cause some problems when your team log in for the first time. Follow the steps below to get started:

A) Check that all staff have a business role

Business roles define the level of permissions that a staff member has. If a staff member doesn't have a business role, they will not be able to access the site. This is common when you don't store contract information in your old MIS. 

Do you have staff members missing from the current staff list following the migration? Most likely, we weren't able to identify their business role, and so they don't have one. To find them, you'll need to use the search bar. 

Top tip: Our out-of-the-box business roles don't necessarily match the permission levels staff had in your old MIS. Check which permissions are attached to a role before you share with staff to make sure everyone's access is right. 

B) Check that all staff have a work email address

So that a member of staff can successfully log into Arbor, they will need to have a work email address attached to their staff profile. This will need to be set as the default email address.

This can be checked using the data quality dashboard following this guide, or by searching directly for a staff member's profile.
C) Share login details with staff

When you're ready to share your Arbor site, you can send a welcome email to allow everyone to log in following the steps in the guide below. 
Their username will be their default email address (which should be their work email) - they will set their own password. 

D) Staff are being asked to enter a child's Date of Birth

This means that the staff member has a guardian profile on the system. Arbor is trying to log them in as a guardian, not a staff member. 

To fix this, remove the staff email from the guardian profile. 

  1. Type their name into the search bar and pressing enter
  2. Find the Guardian profile and select it
  3. Remove the work email address from this profile

 

 

2. Set up Attendance Patterns for Nursery students

During the migration, we automatically create registers for Reception - Year 6.

However, because of the various attendance patterns that nursery students can have, it's not possible to do this automatically for them. 

You'll need to create attendance patterns for your nursery students before they'll appear on registers.

3. Start taking attendance in Arbor

Now that you have got staff logged in and have your registers ready, it's time to start using Arbor to take attendance! Follow the steps below to get started:

A) Check Teachers can access the register to take attendance

There are a few reasons why a teacher might not be able to access their registers. Use this guide if you have teachers you need to get set up: Why can't the teacher access the register to take attendance?

B) Take attendance

One of the most important things you’ll need to do on the first day of using Arbor is to take attendance! Read this information to find out how you can take attendance:

  • As a Teacher - Teachers access the register by clicking on the relevant lesson in their Arbor Calendar on the homepage. Click here to see the guide.
  • As a School Administrator- Administrators can take attendance by going to the Daily Attendance screen, where they can see all registers for all classes. Click here for the guide. 

    If Administrators are taking attendance for all classes, instead of going into each register separately, it may be worthwhile using the Bulk Edit Marks pages in the attendance section, as these make adding attendance in bulk a lot quicker. Click here for a guide on how to do this.

C) Set up other staff (e.g. Teaching Assistants) to take attendance

It may be that a member of staff, who isn't a teacher or administrator, needs to take attendance but does not have access the registers to do so. There are a couple of ways you can change this in Arbor so that they're able to take attendance. 

D) Edit migrated marks

Do you need to edit attendance marks that were taken in your previous system that then migrated over to Arbor? Don't worry this can easily be done, however, as these attendance marks were not taken in Arbor, you cannot amend them using Arbor's standard attendance pages. Instead, go to Students > Attendance > Admin > Edit Imported Marks.

4. Check your Migrated Data

Following migration, it's very important to check the data in your new Arbor system to make sure that everything has migrated as it should. 

You must complete these checks within your first two weeks using Arbor - otherwise, we might not be able to fix any errors you find. You should start to use your Arbor site straight away - we can fix errors in the background. 

A) Use our Data Migration Report

The easiest way to check everything has migrated as expected is to use our Data Migration Report to compare the data in Arbor to the data counts you completed before Go Live. 

We'll ask you to sign off your Data Migration Report in your first few weeks after go live.

B) Check our Migration FAQs

Have you found any discrepancies? Before raising these with us, please check our Migration FAQs to see if there is a common explanation. The data might be showing in a different place than in your previous MIS, or may not be something that we can migrate. 

C) Raise any discrepancies with support

If you can't find an explanation from our Migration FAQs , please contact your support team as soon as possible. To report an issue, contact the Arbor Support Team if supported by Arbor, or your Support Partner if not supported by Arbor. They will then be able to investigate the issue and find a solution for you.

The more information you give, the quicker your support team will be able to investigate your queries, so please make sure to include the following:

  • A full description of the issue
  • An example of where the data is incorrect. For this we will need
    • A screenshot of the discrepancy in Arbor (and a link to the relevant page)
    • A screenshot from your previous MIS showing the correct data. 
    • Paste the URL of the related page in Arbor into your email.
    • If this is a profile you should include the Arbor ID for the user in your email too. You can find this in the Identity section on a profile in Arbor

For more information on how you can report a migration issue, please refer to our guide here

5. Set up third party Integrations

You should have already notified any third party systems of your move to Arbor. Now that you're live, you'll be able to approve and test these connections.

To manage API connections on your Arbor site, you'll need the permission School: User Accounts: Administer.

A) Approve your Integrations

To set up a new API connection, please follow the steps for approving a third party connection here.

If you don't see the app you're expecting listed in your pending requests, it means they haven't yet asked for access to your Arbor site. You should contact them directly and ask them to do so.

B) Carefully check connected data 

It's really important to check that the data pulling through to your third party systems is correct and accurate. This is especially important if you're using a third party to send any communications to guardians or external agencies. 

Remember - just because the data in Arbor is accurate doesn't mean the data in a third party is. 

The most common cause of these discrepancies is a third party using an outdated or legacy unique ID. For example, when connected to SIMS, lots of third parties use SIMS Admission Number as a unique identifier for students. When you move to Arbor, any new students won't get a SIMS Admission Number, so they won't appear on the export. You should always use Arbor ID as a unique identifier for staff and students. 

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