Parent requests and complaints¶
Who does this: Class teacher · Principal · Front office · Administrator Where: Parent Requests How often: Every day, as requests arrive
Parents ask to collect a child early, raise a complaint, or ask to talk to the class teacher or the Principal. Every one of these is a request. It goes to the people its type names, and those people answer it on the record.
The parent's side is coming
Today, requests are entered by the school office and handled here. The screens where parents raise requests themselves, follow them and open the conversation arrive with the parent login. They create exactly the same record, so nothing described on this page changes.
Request types — the school decides the rules¶
Parent Requests → Configuration → Request Types.
A type says, for one kind of request:
| Setting | What it decides |
|---|---|
| Category | Request (the school decides yes or no), Complaint (the school answers it) or Conversation (the parent wants to talk) |
| Handled By | Who owns the request and answers the parent |
| Approval Chain | Who has to approve it, and in what order. Empty means no approval |
| Response Time | How many hours the school has before it is escalated. Zero means never |
| Escalate To | Who is brought in when the response time passes |
| Confidential | Only the people handling, approving or escalated to can see it. The front office cannot |
| Direct Conversation | The request can open a private chat between the parent and the member of staff |
| Attachment Required | It cannot be submitted without a file |
| Offered on the Portal | Parents can raise it themselves |
Handled By, each approval step and Escalate To each name a role rather than a person:
| Role | Means |
|---|---|
| Class Teacher | The class teacher of the child's section |
| Principal | The Principal set in the school's settings |
| Members of a Group | Everybody in a group, such as the front office. The first to start it takes it |
| Specific User | One named person |
So one Complaint to the Class Teacher type sends every child's complaint to their class teacher, and a new Principal is one setting changed, not every type edited.
The five types the school starts with¶
| Type | Handled by | Approval | Confidential | Conversation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Early Pickup | Front office | Class teacher | No | No |
| Complaint to the Class Teacher | Class teacher | None | No | Yes |
| Complaint to the Principal | Principal | None | Yes | Yes |
| Talk to the Class Teacher | Class teacher | None | No | Yes |
| Talk to the Principal | Principal | None | Yes | Yes |
All of them can be changed. Changing a type never changes a request that has already been submitted: that request keeps the people it was sent to.
Set the Principal first
Settings → Companies → your school → Parent Requests → Principal. A request that names the Principal cannot be submitted until one is set.
Early pickup¶
The office records:
- The child (the enrollment for this year) and the guardian asking.
- The pickup time.
- Who is collecting. Pick one of the child's guardians, or type the name of someone else, with their relationship, ID or Iqama number and mobile.
- The reason.
The reason, the time and the name of the person collecting are required. The system also refuses:
- a pickup with less notice than the type allows (one hour, to start with);
- a pickup on a day the school is closed;
- a pickup on a day the child already has leave;
- a second pickup for the same child on the same day.
On the Authorised List shows whether the person collecting is a guardian marked authorised for pickup. Someone who is not can still be approved. The approver can see that they are not on the list.
What approving does¶
Approving marks the register Early Departure, with the time:
- once a day — the day's row;
- period by period — the period the child leaves in and every period after it. The morning's periods keep their mark.
If the child was already marked in the morning, present or late, that mark is remembered. Cancelling the pickup puts it back exactly. A row the pickup created is removed.
Complaints¶
A complaint goes to the person it is addressed to and is answered by them:
- Start — the handler takes it.
- Resolve — write the Resolution. It is required, and it is what the parent is told.
- Or Decline, with a reason. The parent is told the reason, not just the answer.
Who can see a complaint
Staff see only the requests they handle, approve or were escalated to. A complaint to the Principal about a teacher cannot be seen by that teacher, whether they search for it, open a link to it or ask the system for it any other way. A confidential complaint is also hidden from the front office. Only the Administrator sees everything.
Approving a request¶
A type with an approval chain is decided one step at a time. Only the people on the current step see Approve and Reject. Each step waits for the one before it, and any rejection ends the chain. The Approval tab shows every step, who decided it and when.
Each person on the current step has a to-do in their activities, so nobody has to go looking.
When nobody answers — escalation¶
Every hour, the system looks for open requests past their response time. It brings in the type's Escalate To person, gives them a to-do, and writes it in the request's history. The request shows an Escalated ribbon.
The handler stays the handler. Escalation adds someone, it does not take the case away.
Talking directly — the conversation¶
A type with Direct Conversation has an Open Conversation button. It opens a private chat, in Discuss, between the parent and the member of staff handling the request.
- Staff reply from Discuss, like any other chat, with its notifications.
- The parent opens it from the parent login.
- A member of staff who can see the request and opens the conversation joins it. A Principal can step into a class teacher's conversation, and everyone in it can see that they have.
- A Talk to… request raised by a parent opens its conversation as soon as it is submitted.
The parent needs a portal login to be on the other side of a conversation. A conversation always belongs to a request, so it is on the record and visible to the same people. Nobody's phone number changes hands.
Where to find things¶
| You want | Go to |
|---|---|
| What is waiting for me | Parent Requests → My Requests (opens on your open requests) |
| Every request of the school | Parent Requests → All Requests (front office) |
| One child's requests this year | The enrollment → Requests |
| The rows an early pickup marked | The request → Register |