Creating an online parents' evening or parent conference (PTC) using meeting URLs

Part 1: create the container

1. Select the Activities & Clubs or Bookings Admin tab. Your school may use a different label.

   

2. Select the Parent Teacher Conference container type, then select +Add to create a new container.

   

3. Complete the overall settings:

   Field	What to enter
   Sign Up Title	The name of the parents' evening or parent conference.
   Information to Parents	Details for all PTCs that parents will see, for example who to contact if they cannot attend at the last minute, or whether they can cancel appointments themselves.
   Allow booking cancellation	Tick to let parents cancel or change their time slots. Parents see up-to-date slot availability. They can only cancel or make changes while sign-up is open.
   Meeting Format	Select Online (via default online method).
   Maximum meetings with a teacher per student	To let parents book more than 1 meeting with a teacher, enter the number they can book. Otherwise leave it as 0.

   

4. Fill in the rest of the details:

   Field	What to enter
   Meetings start date / end date	The first and last day of the PTC.
   Meetings default start time / end time	The earliest start time and latest finish time of the PTC.
   Who can book meetings	Parents, students or both.
   Sign up opens	The date and time sign-up opens.
   Sign up closes	The date and time sign-up closes.
   Use Organisation Block Dates	Stops PTCs being created on days blocked for your organisation, for example teacher training days.
   Terms & Conditions	Enter terms for parents to agree to before booking, or link to your school's terms on your website by entering the URL in T & C's additional info (URL).
   Booking Data Form	SchoolsBuddy can create custom data forms to collect information from parents when they book, for example translator requirements. Contact us with any requests.

5. Select the green Save tab. The container is created and opens.

   

Part 2: create the teachers

The first tab in the container is Teachers. Here you add the teachers hosting the PTC and add their classes to their group.

1. Select Add to create an individual group, or Bulk Add to create all groups from the data imported from your Student Information System.

   

2. With Bulk Add, choose to generate groups from Subject Classes or Registration Groups. Subject classes can be filtered by teacher, subject, year and keyword. Registration groups lists all your registration groups or homerooms.

   

   

3. Select the registration groups or subject classes to add using the toggle boxes, or use Select all. To see which pupils are in one, select the green (i) next to its name.

   

4. Fill in a Teacher title suffix. It is added to each group title, for example 10A Parent Teacher Conference, 10B Parent Teacher Conference. Parents see this when choosing teachers to book.

   

5. Select Generate Teachers.

   

6. A list of the new teacher groups appears. To change the lead teacher for a class, select Change.

   

7. To add or update the meeting link, select the green icon in the location field.

   

8. Tick the teachers you want, or select Select All, then select Complete.

   

9. The new groups are listed in the Teachers tab.

   

   A warning shows when more than one group has the same teacher, for example a teacher seeing one set of students as their English teacher and another as their CAS coordinator. Each teacher should have only one group on this page. Combine all the classes into one group and delete the duplicates, otherwise take care not to schedule meetings for both groups at the same time. See Managing Teachers Classes for Parent Teacher Conferences / Parents' Evenings.

10. To edit details, select Edit and amend them. For example, you can edit availability so students from other subject classes can book this teacher.

    

    

11. You can also add or update the meeting URL here. Select the green i icon, enter the Online Meeting ID (A) and select Save (B), then select Save on the Edit Groups page.

    

    

12. Select Block Dates to see dates when PTCs will not be scheduled. Organisation block dates appear here if you chose to use them. You can also add block dates that apply only to these PTCs.

    

Part 3: create the meetings

1. Select Create Meetings, then Add New.

   

2. Fill in the information:

   Field	What to enter
   Title	The title of this parents' evening or parent conference.
   Vital Information	Any relevant vital information.
   Bookings per meeting slot	Usually one parent books a slot at a time, but this depends on your school, for example student-led conferences with two students attending together.

   

3. Under Create for Teachers, select Select All to create the conference for every teacher, registration or subject class group. Or select individual teacher groups if you schedule different teachers at different times, for example subject class meetings on Monday and counselling meetings on Tuesday.

   

4. Fill in the details:

   Field	What to enter
   Meeting Method	Cannot be changed, because the container meeting format is Online (via default online method).
   Location	Online meeting via URL.
   Frequency	Create time slots for one day or several days. If each day has different start and end times, add one day, then add another event for the differently timed slots.
   Meeting date	The day or days of the PTC.
   Start time	The start of the first time slot.
   End Time	The end of the last time slot.
   Event time length in mins	The length of each time slot.
   Interval time in mins	A break between every meeting, if teachers need one.

5. Select Create Rule.

   

6. A schedule template is created for every teacher group. Select Edit on the right to change one.

   

7. Select the Publish Meetings tab to review the meetings. The Meeting Count column should cover the number of students each teacher must see. If not, add extra time to their schedule.

   

8. Select Select All, or tick individual teachers' schedules. For example, you can create Lower School and Upper School meetings in the same container but publish Lower School first.

   

9. Select I confirm and Publish.

   

   Once published, meeting dates and times cannot be changed. Meetings are visible to parents straight away if sign-up is already open. If sign-up opens in the future, parents see nothing yet.

   

10. A message says the meetings are being generated and cannot be changed. It disappears once they are generated, or select Refresh.

    

11. Published meetings are listed in the View Meetings/Bookings tab.