Administrator Instructions

After Installation, follow these steps for Initial setup

• From your browser, go to the URL corresponding to the ptsignup/users/superlogin directory (www.example.com/ptsignup/users/superlogin)
• Enter your sycamore username and password and approve the app (click on yes).
• When it comes back from Sycamore to your URL, ignore errors and click on the Admin Menu (or append "/admin" to the URL -- www.example.com/ptsignup/admin)
  • The "(Re-)Login as Superuser" option simply goes to the superlogin URL you already used.
• Now proceed through the 3 import stages in order. Each one may take multiple minutes so be patient. At the end of each import stage you will be redirected back to the admin menu.
• Click on the "view/edit Time Slots" button and add time slots as appropriate for the day(s) and time(s) you wish to hold your conferences. When you are done go back to the Admin Menu.
• Optionally edit other information, deleting teachers, assigning a name for your school, etc.
• Click on the "Fill Slots" button. It should report back a relatively large number of slots created (calculate one slot for each teacher for each timeslot)
  • The "Fill Slots" button can be clicked again after further changes to teachers or times or etc. Each time all existing slots will be deleted (including any families that have signed up or any teachers that have marked times as unavailable!)!!! BEWARE!
  • The normal setup cycle (once the initial import is completed) is to click on "fill slots" and then view the signup page for each department. Then make changes and click "fill slots" again and view the signup page for each department again. Continue this cycle until the signup page appears as expected.

Administrators should be familiar with [Family Instructions] and [Teacher Instructions] in order to be able to provide needed technical support.

In addition to all the capabilities of both families and teachers, administrators have the following privileges on the main signup page:

• You can make changes to ALL teachers and ALL timeslots rather than just those "owned" by you
• You can make changes to the signup grid before the "opens" date or after the "closes" date as set in the department.
• You have a button to take you to the Admin menu, opening up significantly more capabilities (as mentioned in "Initial Setup" above and elaborated on below)

Although the Admin Menu (www.example.com/admin) has links to the most common administrative tasks, an administrator should understand how to manipulate the URL (the address of the web page) in order to access other functionality which may be needed periodically. A typical address for the signup page might be www.example.com/ptsignup. If you wanted to view and edit courses, you would simply click at the end and type in "/courses" at the end so that the resulting URL (address) is www.example.com/ptsignup/courses. Then press enter and you will be taken to the page appropriate for viewing and editing courses. When you are done you will need to edit the URL again to go back to www.example.com/ptsignup.

Below is a list of all the possible types of administration which are available (note the name in the header of each section - that is what you would append to your URL (address) to get to the appropriate page.

/courses

Here you can edit the name and department and teacher of all classes in the system.

Note that these changes will NOT be sent back to Sycamore and any subsequent import will lose all these changes. For this reason it is better to make these corrections in Sycamore and re-import rather than making changes within the ptsignup system.

/courses_students

(that is an underline character between "courses" and "students")

Here you can add students to a class or remove students from a class.

Note that these changes will NOT be sent back to Sycamore and any subsequent import will lose all these changes. For this reason it is better to make these corrections in Sycamore and re-import rather than making changes within the ptsignup system.

/depts

Here you can change the name of departments.

You can also specify when signup for a given department opens and closes. Before the "opens" date or after the "closes" date neither families nor teachers will be able to make changes. (They will still be able to display schedules.)

Note that these changes will NOT be sent back to Sycamore and any subsequent import will lose all these changes. For this reason where possible it is better to make these corrections in Sycamore and re-import rather than making changes within the ptsignup system. However, editing departments (particularly the dates when signups open and close) within ptsignup is a normal part of using the ptsignup system.

/families

Here you can edit names and information for families.

Note that these changes will NOT be sent back to Sycamore and any subsequent import will lose all these changes. For this reason it is better to make these corrections in Sycamore and re-import rather than making changes within the ptsignup system.

/locations

Here you can edit (or add or delete) the names of locations. The ptsignup assumes that most teachers will hold parent/teacher conferences in their classrooms and assigns the location for the conferences accordingly. Additional locations can be added and names of locations can be changed to make them clearer to parents (for instance, adding a brief set of instructions how to find the location as part of the name).

Note that these changes will NOT be sent back to Sycamore and any subsequent import will lose all these changes. For this reason where possible it is better to make these corrections in Sycamore and re-import rather than making changes within the ptsignup system. However, editing locations within ptsignup is a normal part of using the ptsignup system.

/locations_teachers

(that is an underline between "locations" and "teachers")

Here you can edit the list of locations where a teacher teaches. Currently this list is unused in the ptsignup system and thus it is pointless to edit it.

Later this list will be used to prioritize locations when editing teachers.

/schools

Here you can edit the name of your school. (You should do this.)

Here you can specify your preferred formats for times and dates for your school. If blank, the default (from app/Config/ptsignup.php in the [Installation Instructions]) will be used. For instance, if you prefer the day before the month for your school this is where you would make the change.

Here you can change the comment and code for your school. These are currently unused but may be used for future enhancements to the ptsignup system.

/slots

Here you can make changes to the basic timeslots on which ptsignup is based. DO NOT MAKE CHANGES HERE UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND ARE PREPARED TO DEAL WITH PROBLEMS IN YOUR SYSTEM IF YOU MAKE A MISTAKE.

Note that whenever the "Fill Slots" is chosen from the admin menu, ALL existing slots are DELETED and replaced with a new, "fresh" set.

It is HIGHLY recommended NOT to make any changes in www.example.com/ptsignup/slots!

/students

Here you can make changes to student names. Theoretically you could also change their family or grade, but it's better not to do that.

Note that these changes will NOT be sent back to Sycamore and any subsequent import will lose all these changes. For this reason it is better to make these corrections in Sycamore and re-import rather than making changes within the ptsignup system.

/teachers

Here you can edit teachers, changing names and etc.

Note that if a teacher appears and shouldn't, you should delete the course rather than deleting the teacher.

It is uncheck the "Is Teacher" checkbox than to delete a teacher.

Note that these changes will NOT be sent back to Sycamore and any subsequent import will lose all these changes. For this reason where possible it is better to make these corrections in Sycamore and re-import rather than making changes within the ptsignup system. However, editing teachers within ptsignup is a normal part of using the ptsignup system.

/times

Here you can specify when the timeslots will occur.
A beginning date/time must be specified (make sure you adjust ALL date/time fields when setting it).
The duration of each meeting is specified - this is the number of minutes each slot will contain.
The number of minutes between slots ("Between Minutes") can be specified if you wish to allow time to move from one meeting to another (0 is a valid value).
Slots will be repeated (starting with the beginning date/time and repeating with the given duration and time between until an ending condition is met. The ending condition can be set in ONE (1) of 2 ways:
* EITHER you can specify the number of slots to repeat ("Repeats")
* OR you can specify that it should repeat until an ending date/time.

Times must be set up for each department individually.

Note that multiple time-setups (rows) can be created within a given department. This makes possible, for instance:
having parent/teacher conferences on multiple days
allowing a break every n timeslots to "catch up" if a meeting went long
* allowing a lunch break or mid-morning break

The concept for these timeslots is not found within Sycamore and thus it is necessary to edit these rows within the ptsignup system.

After you have set up all time-setups for all departments to your satisfaction, you will click on "Fill Slots" within the Admin Menu (www.example.com/ptsignup/admin) before viewing the signup page. Note that whenever you click on "Fill Slots" ALL existing slots are deleted and re-created according the the currently existing set of teachers and time-setups within ptsignup. When existing slots are deleted, any family that is signed up for a timeslot or any teacher that has indicated "Unavailable" for a timeslot will be lost and these signups will have to be done again.

Often a cyclical approach is used, editing /times, clicking "Fill Slots", and viewing the signup page. If something doesn't show up as expected, edit /times again, click on "Fill Slots" again, and view the signup page again. Repeat until the desired results have been achieved.

/users

Here you can change a user's name and email address (unused within ptsignup).

You can also make a user an administrator by clicking the appropriate checkbox. (Be sure you do not remove your own administrative privileges - there is no recovery from this error!)

Be aware that editing /teachers (see above) is simply a shortcut to editing /users who have "Is Teacher" checked. If you make a change to a teacher from /users that change WILL be reflected in /teachers. If you make a change in /teachers that change WILL be reflected in /users.

Note that these changes will NOT be sent back to Sycamore and any subsequent import will lose all these changes. For this reason where possible it is better to make these corrections (names, email, etc.) in Sycamore and re-import rather than making changes within the ptsignup system. However, editing users within ptsignup is a normal part of using the ptsignup system.