Contact Management Settings for the Parent Portal

Modified on Tue, Feb 27 at 2:01 PM

Allowing Parents/Guardians to Update Contact Information via the Parent Module


Parent users who are identified as a student's "Guardian 1" or "Guardian 2" Contact are optionally able to update their Email and Phone contact information from Parent Access.


The ability to add, update and delete phone and email contact information is controlled from the Parents Access>Setup>Settings>School Settings>Contacts screen.

Contact Update Controls

The "Contact Management" portion of the Parent Access>Setup>Settings>School Settings screen (Parents>Setup>Settings>School Settings>Contacts) includes separate controls for Phone and Email contact information.


There are separate Add, Change and Delete controls for Contacts, Phone and Email, as well as a master control, a Print control and Flags controls parameters for each school:

The options per school include:

  • Verify Changes
  • If checked, changes made to contact data in the parents module are not immediately saved to the contact system. The changes need to be approved on the Student Data>Change Requests screen. Once they are approved, they are saved to the contacts within Genesis.
  • Access to Contacts
    • Check off each type of Parent/Student Portal user that should be allowed to view/change contact information (according to the settings to the right). Please Note: Contact Management Permissions are still required to be set on each of the students' contact records.

  • Contact
    • View: This is the master control for the school.  If "unchecked" the student's Guardian 1 or Guardian 2 Parent Access user will not be able view or edit any contact information. If "checked" the Guardian 1 or Guardian 2 Parent Access user will be able to view contact information even if all other checkboxes are unchecked and they cannot therefore make changes.

 

    • Add: If "unchecked" the student's Guardian 1, Guardian 2, Guardian 3 and Guardian 4 Parent Access users will not be able to add new Contact2 records. If "checked" the Guardian 1 or Guardian 2 Parent Access user will be able to add new "Other" and "Emergency" Contact2 records via Parent Access.  To be clear:  if the "Add" option for Contacts is checked, the Guardian parent accounts will be able to add "Contacts" - people - coded as either "Other" or "Emergency" contacts for the students attending the corresponding school.   If the "Add" option is unchecked, Guardian users will NOT be able to add Other and Emergency Contacts.

 

    • Change: If "unchecked" the student's Guardian Parent Access users will not be able to update Contact name information in the student's Contacts 2 list. If "checked" the Guardian  Parent Access users will be able to update existing Contact2 records in the student's Contacts 2 list.

 

    • Print: This controls a "PDF" icon that appears for students when printing is turned on. If "unchecked" (ie. turned off) the student's Guardian Parent Access users will not be able to print Contact information on the student's Contact list on the Parent Access Contact Management screen - there will be no PDF icon for the student's contact information. If "checked" the Guardian Parent Access users will be able to print Contact information on the student's Contact list on the Parent Access Contact Management screen - the PDF icon will appear for the student. 
    • Delete: Controls whether Guardian users can remove Contacts (i.e. people, organizations such as Doctor/Dental practices) from contact information.  If "unchecked" the student's Guardian Parent Access users will not be able to remove Contacts (i.e. people, organizations) from the student's Contacts list. If "checked" the Guardian Parent Access users will be able to remove existing Contacts from the student's Contacts list.

  • Pickup Perm. - This allows parent users to view and change pickup permission for non-guardian contacts.

  • Phone - These permissions control the ability to add/remove/change phone number information for Contacts
    • Add: If "unchecked" the student's Guardian Parent Access users will not be able to add new phone numbers. If "checked" the Guardian 1 or Guardian 2 Parent Access user will be able to add new phone numbers.

 

    • Change: If "unchecked" the student's Guardian Parent Access users will not be able to update existing phone numbers from their Contact in the student's Contacts 2 list. If "checked" the Guardian Parent Access users will be able to update existing phone numbers from their Contact in the student's Contacts list.

 

    • Delete: If "unchecked" the student's Guardian Parent Access users will not be able to remove existing Email addresses from their Contact in the student's Contacts list. If "checked" the Guardian Parent Access userswill be able to remove existing Email addresses from their Contact in the student's Contacts 2 list.

  • Email - These control the ability to update Email addresses
    • Add: If "unchecked" the student's Guardian Parent Access users will not be able to add new Email addresses. If "checked" the Guardian Parent Access users will be able to add new Email addresses.

 

    • Change: If "unchecked" the student's Guardian Parent Access users will not be able to update existing Email addresses from their Contact in the student's Contacts list. If "checked" the Guardian Parent Access users will be able to update existing Email addresses from their Contact in the student's Contacts list.

 

    • Delete: If "unchecked" the student's Guardian Parent Access users will not be able to remove existing Email addresses from their Contact in the student's Contacts list. If "checked" the Guardian Parent Access users will be able to remove existing Email addresses from their Contact in the student's Contacts list.

  • Flags- These control the ability to update the built-in and Custom Contact Flags for Emails and Phone Numbers
    • View : If "unchecked" the student's Guardian Parent Access users will not be able to see the built-in and custom contact flags available for Emails & Phone numbers. If "checked" the Guardian Parent Access users will be able to  see the built-in and custom contact flags available for Emails & Phone numbers.
    • Change: If "unchecked" the student's Guardian Parent Access users will not be able to update the built-in and custom contact flags available for Emails & Phone numbers. If "checked" the Guardian Parent Access users will be able to update the built-in and custom contact flags available for Emails & Phone numbers.


Procedure to Enable/Disable the Adding, Updating and Deleting of Contacts for Students' Guardians

  1. Go to the Parents>Setup>Settings>School Settings>Contacts screen.
  2. Locate the entry for your school in the set of schools:
  3. Set the the flags appropriately:
  4. Repeat for additional schools.
  5. Click SAVE to store your choices.

Enable Compact Contact screen option

Compact Contact mode normalizes contacts representing a single person across multiple students. Normally when a parent logs into the Portal, they see contacts listed under each of their students.  Each student often has the exact same contacts listed as the other.  With Compact Contact mode enabled, the parent will just see contacts listed for all of their students in a single list with no duplicate contact records when possible.


For example, Jack and Jill Smith are both enrolled in Genesis School District.  On each of Jack and Jill's student records, they have a contact record record for their mother Jane Smith.  While it's the same Jane Smith, the two Jane Smith records are independent entities in the database.  Jack's Jane Smith might have a home phone and work number listed but Jill's Jane Smith has a both a home phone and a mobile number.  If Compact Contact mode is not enabled, the contact screen in the Portal will show Jane twice.  Once under Jack and once under Jill.  Each Jane will show different sets of phone numbers as that is how she is recorded on the individual student records.


If Compact Contact mode is enable, Jane Smith will simply show once and her contact record will contain all of the phone numbers recorded on all of her students contact records. The same would go for email addresses.

How it works:

Contacts are combined off of their full name and their status of Guardian. So if Contact A is a guardian on student 1 and an emergency on student 2 then that contact is NOT combined.  The combining of records will never assume a contact is a guardian when they are not marked as such.


If Contact A on student 1 has different emails/phone numbers from Contact A on student 2 then the missing emails/phones are filled in and saved into the database automatically when a parent visits the Contact page.

Primary phone number is also normalized. If there are two different primary numbers on two different versions of a contact then they are set to the same for both contacts.

 

Compact Contact mode is 'Greedy' with options. 

If any of the Parent's students are in a school with 'Verify Changes' enabled then a Change Record will be produced for the combined contact record if any of the individual contacts records qualify.

Example:  Parent has two students, student A in middle school, and student B in high school. If verify changes is on for the high school then any changes for the combined contact will have to go through change requests. This goes for view, add, change, print, and delete.


The change request will only ever be created for one school to avoid duplicates but will affect all students attached to the combined contact. If contact is added/deleted for one student then a Change Request is created for that specific school if that school has verify changes.

 

The 'Can Manage Contact Types' located on the contact records in Genesis will be combined as well. If Contact A on student 1 has manage rights on guardian 1 and Contact A on student 2 does not, the combined contact record will have manage rights on guardian 1.

 

Customization

The text that you put in the box below will display on the top of the Parents contacts screen. (HTML Supported):

The text that you put in the boxes below will display on the bottom of the contacts print screen that parent users can create:



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