If you are both a staff member and a parent at the same school, you can use a single account to switch between the two roles. In this article, we’ll explain the requirements for a switcher account and guide you through how to switch between roles.
Requirements
To enable switching between staff and parent views, your staff email address must be used for both your staff and parent records in the school’s MIS. In other words, the email listed on your parent profile must be the same as the one used for your staff profile.
⚠️ This setup must be in place from the beginning.
If your parent profile currently uses a personal email address, you’ll need to contact your school’s IT team and SchoolsBuddy Support.
We will need to remove your current parent account first before you can update the email to match your staff email and enable switching.
How to switch between roles:
On the Web Version (Desktop):
In the top right corner of the page, next to your profile avatar, you’ll see a green label that says either STAFF or PARENT — this shows which role you’re currently viewing.
To switch roles, simply click on the label and select the other role from the dropdown menu.
In the App:
First, click on your profile icon in the top right corner to go to your Profile page. There, you’ll find the STAFF/PARENT switcher, allowing you to change between roles.
For staff/ parent accounts, users have the following advantages:
-
Combined messaging inbox (staff and parent messages arrive in the same inbox)
All messages will show in a single inbox. If you sent a message to all staff and parents, this would only be sent once to this staff/parent account. -
Combined calendar view (with filters to view individual students or staff only events)
The calendar (or diary) is combined for both parents and staff. For web, users may apply filters to the calendar view to look at just staff events or events of individual students. -
School testing as parents
You can switch easily between staff and a parent view to test what the parent is viewing. We recommend that you have at least one staff/parent account to test, as the parent screens and emails they receive will differ from staff admin screens and emails, so it is important for you to understand these processes and to check the wording used within the email templates is suitable and current. Please see the guide on Setting up your test parent accounts
If you would like to use this feature and have your data sync from your MIS/SIS system please reach out to help@schoolsbuddy.com where we will be able to best advise on how to set it up for your school.