Connect Teacher Setup and Digital Documents

Setting up the CONNECT Groups 

Parents and Students each belong in their own CONNECT groups and have separate URLs to access Edsembli. Each group defines its own permissions that act as defaults for any accounts made within that specific group. This way, rather than setting up the permissions for each individual account upon creation, you can decide what permission group they will fall under first, then when created the individual account will populate the permissions defined in the group they were created under. 

Scenario: What if I need to create a new group? 

If groups don’t currently exist or you want to make a new group, then you can click the plus icon in the top right section. In the screen that comes up you can set it up for a specific group at a specific school: 

Clicking save will create the group. 

Scenario: Is it possible to create a CONNECT group for a single school to access? 

Yes, you can either create an account at the board level and select the school you want to access it with or you can create it directly at the school level. 

INTERNAL USE ONLY: Known issue where new group made at central office doesn’t push to school level. In this scenario, go through maplewood school shortcut and go to File- Change Security- Maplewood Connect Security, Default- Account Properties, click save on each user group to push the group down to the school level. If the new user group doesn’t show here then run the same process at the central office level first. 

Editing CONNECT Groups 

To set up the default permissions within a CONNECT group, go to the board/central office level and go to More Tools- Security- edsembli CONNECT, click on the Groups tab. Click on one of the available groups and click edit. 

Whether you are creating a new group or editing an existing group, the following applies to both scenarios. Click on the group and click edit, you will see that multiple tabs are available to be clicked on. Click on the Accounts tab to see the accounts that currently exist under this group.  

Scenario: Why don’t I see any accounts under the group accounts tab when I know I’ve created new accounts?  

The accounts that show up will be directly related to the school that you are viewing the group at. If you are at the board/central office level then don’t expect to see any parent or student accounts populated since they would all be populated at the school level.  

In the accounts tab you can delete existing accounts in bulk at the school level: 

Moving on to the permissions tab, here you can apply the default permissions that all users generated under the group will receive. This can only be done at the board level: 

Any change you make to the group permissions will modify existing and newly made accounts under the group at all schools using this group. 

The Name Schema tab is where the username for each account is defined. Each account username must be unique so it’s important to set a name schema that populates a username that is custom to each account. In the scenario that the schema results in the same username for two accounts, the system will automatically add a ‘1’ to the end of the username for the second account. The number will continue increasing by 1 if multiple accounts receive the same username. This can only be defined at the board level: 

Scenario: Why are accounts with blank or single digit usernames being generated when I already defined the group username schema? 

The fields that you set as the name schema pull from the related fields in the student record. For example, if you set the parent group name schema to be the contact email, if the parent record’s email field is blank then there is nothing to create the username with. This results in the system leaving the name blank for the first case of this, then a 1 for the next case and a 2 for the next case... 

Scenario: My parent group is using the contact email field as the name schema and some parents share the same email. 

It is recommended that each parent contact has a unique email. In the scenario that two parents share the same email then only one parent account should be created for them to access as a family account. It is recommended for all parent contacts to have a populated email field in the contact record. 

Lastly, the Policy tab allows the user to adjust a few administrative settings. This can only be defined at the board level: 

Generating Accounts 

Once you have the account groups defined, you can start generating the CONNECT accounts. To do this, go to the school level and go to More Tools- Security- edsembli CONNECT, click on Generate Accounts. Click on the Group dropdown and select the group that you want to make the accounts under. Depending on the group you choose here, the search results will display accordingly. For example, if the parent group is chosen then only parents will show up in the search results. When the following is all set up, you can click the pink search icon on the right side to display all the possible accounts: 

The search will display all possible accounts regardless of whether they currently exist or not. You can see which accounts don’t currently exist by looking at the Account column. Any account that has ’Will be created’ in this column is not yet generated. If you want to completely remake an account, you must first delete it before attempting to generate it again as accounts will not automatically regenerate through this process. 

Once you generate CONNECT accounts, you can click on the bell icon, then click on the completed notification and preview the pdf file to see the success or failure of the account generation process. In the scenario that the accounts don’t get created, this pdf file is the first place to look when finding out why it was unsuccessful: 

If this pdf doesn’t show any errors, then the accounts were successful in generating. You can now go to the Accounts tab in CONNECT Security and view the accounts you just created. 

Scenario: How do I add a student to an existing parent account? 

If you want to add a new sibling to an existing parent account so that the parent can access both, then edit the parent account and go to the permissions tab. In this tab click on the plus icon and search for the student you want the parent to access. Assuming that these students are connected as siblings and the parent contact is the same between both siblings, they should come up in the search. You can add them and edit the permissions for both on an individual level. 

NOTE: If you try regenerating the parent account for just the new sibling, the existing parent account will replace the current student they have access to with the new sibling. This is not the proper way of adding siblings to existing parent accounts. 

Scenario: I am trying to create a mother parent account for 2 siblings but the system generates an individual parent account for each sibling. It should only make one account with access to both siblings. 

The most likely cause of this is that one sibling has a parent contact record that is not the same as the other sibling's parent contact record. Situations like this come up when the user manually enters the contact record for each student rather than manually creating it for one sibling and then just pulling it onto the second sibling. You can check to see if this is the issue by going to one of the sibling's student records and going to Family & Contacts- Contacts, click the pink plus button to add a new contact and click the radio button for ‘Person exists as a contact for the related student’. If the contact shows up on this list, then you can confirm that this is the issue. 

To fix this issue, you will need to delete the contact from one of the sibling student records and repopulate it by pulling it from the other sibling by going to Family & Contacts- Contacts, click the pink plus button to add a new contact and click the radio button for ‘Person exists as a contact for the related student’. Click the contact here to pull it from the sibling. 

If no contacts show up in the list to pull, then ensure that the siblings are connected as siblings by going to Family & Contacts- Siblings.\ 

Scenario: I would like to create all of the passwords myself for each account or manually change them. 

You are able to manually change an account password by clicking on the account and selecting the Change password option. Here when you enter the new password you can uncheck the box for ‘User must change password’. This will make it so the user is not prompted to change their password after the account is created. You can also apply this at the group level under the policies tab. 

Sending Out Account Info and Testing 

The Send Account Info process allows you to send out a mass email to chosen accounts within a group. This email by default will provide the specific username and account status for each email recipient. To send out account info first go to the school level and select the group that you want to send the info out to. Next select the students within that group who you want to send the info to. Click on the pink search button to generate the list of accounts that you are about to send a mass email too. 

Scenario: When I select the parent group the search filter only searches for the students. 

This is correct, the search criteria will look for the students whose parents you want to send the info out to, not the students themselves. 

The recommendation for sending out account info is that you should provide the parents with the purpose of this account, the CONNECT parent portal URL, their username, and the expectation for their first-time login experience. You can enter the purpose of the account as well as the URL and first-time login expectations through the note or policy note. These options can be enabled below the list of accounts by clicking on the checkboxes. The note is a temporary field that allows you to enter any text you want. Once you send off the account info or leave this page, the note gets deleted. The Policy note is a more permanent option where the text you want populated there can be saved so you can use it again in the future. To populate the policy note, please inform the SIS support team what content you want populated there. 

To send out the account info once you have it all set up and the desired accounts checked off, click on the mail icon in the bottom right of the screen. This will send out the mass email and populate a report on the success of each email for you to view. If a problem occurred when sending out the emails then this report will let you know the error message. 

Scenario: None of the emails are getting sent out for Send Account Info. The process fails. 

If no emails are being sent out then go to Setup- School- Email Settings. In this screen ensure that you have email settings populated. If you do then you can click Edit and click on the Test button to make sure the email system is set up. If no email settings are populated then please contact SIS support for us to help get you set up. 

Scenario: The Email settings are blank and I don’t know what to populate the fields with. 

Currently edsembli has 3 options for email setup. They are as follows: 

Option 1: Use your own mail server. 

Option 2: Use our free service which is limited by a daily threshold which is calculated by all customer emails being sent. This typically has issues during heavy email periods like Report Card emailing. The below picture is the free setup. 

Option 3: Edsembli Reliable High-Volume email, this is not restricted by the number of emails sent and is an annual license for all your Edsembli SIS, HRP & FIN email needs. 

*Option 1 is recommended. Option 2 is setup by default, but not recommended and is only an option. Option 3 is recommended for schools who need a managed resource, secure email and consistent email results. 

Scenario: I want to test what the Send Account Info email looks like before sending it to parents and students. 

To test the Send Account Info process, find an example student whose parent you can temporarily use. Go to the parents contact record and temporarily swap out their email for yours in the email field. Now run the Send Account Info process on that parent and you can expect to receive the email. Ensure that after you’re done testing to replace the proper email back into the contact record. 

First-Time Login Expectations and Testing 

The expectation for a parent logging in for the first time into the parent portal is for them to enter their username, click Login, then when prompted to enter a password they must click on ‘request a password change’. There is no way in edsembli to view the user's password, so they must go through the reset password process in order to receive a temporary password to login for the first time. Then, they’ll get prompted to manually set it as something custom: 

When the user clicks on ‘request a password change’ they will be prompted to enter their username along with their email address. The user must ensure that the email they are entering is the same email that is populated for the contact in the student record: 

Once the user enters the info and clicks Next, they will see the following screen stating that the password has changed and they will receive an email. 

Scenario: The user entered the wrong email into the password reset process and received an error 

In the scenario that the user is entering the wrong email they will get the following error message: 

If this happens, confirm with the parent that they are using the same email as what is entered in the student record under their contact information. Once the email is sent to the parent, they can expect it to look like this: 

They can now log in using the username and password from the email. After they enter the info for logging in, if their account is set to require a password change after the first login (defined in the CONNECT group under the policy tab) then they will be given the opportunity to enter a custom password: 

The user is now successfully logged in to their CONNECT account. 

Scenario: I would like to test this password reset process. 

To test this process, find an example student whose parent you can temporarily use. Go to the parents contact record and temporarily swap out their email for yours in the email field. Now go to the CONNECT parent portal and enter the username and click Login. When prompted for the password select the option to change the password. Enter the username along with your email and click Next. You should receive the email with the temporary password. 

Publishing Digital Documents to the Parent Portal 

In edsembli the only way to send out report cards digitally to parents is by populating it within the parent portal as a digital document. To set this up you will first have to go to the board/central office level and go to Setup- User-Defined Fields- Digital Document Types. Here you will have to add a new digital document type if none currently exists. You can add multiple if you plan to send different types of documents out to the parent portal. The only required fields when creating the digital document are the ‘Document Field’ and the ‘Ministry Code’. This code can be anything you want it to be. Click save when finished to finalize the new digital document type. 

With the digital document types set up, you can now publish a report as a digital document. Currently all reports located in report builder can be sent out as digital documents. To send out a digital document, go to the school level and go to Student Reports- Report Builder- Report Builder, select the report you want to run and in the setup screen, select the group you want to run the report on. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and check off the box for ‘Create digital documents’, then scroll down to see the new options available. In those options you can check off the box to publish the digital document to the parent/student portal as well as email out notifications that let the contact know the document has been uploaded to the portal. 

You do not have to send out email notifications when creating digital documents. If you do then you can specifically choose which contacts receive the email. When ready click on the pink Create Reports button in the bottom right of the screen to proceed. When the notification bell completes the process, you should be able to click on the complete status and have the ability to open a report that details the success of the emailing. 

Scenario: How do I delete a digital document from the parent/student portals? 

All digital documents that get created will populate in the student record under Personal- Digital Documents. If you delete a digital document here that is also populated in the parent/student portal then it will get deleted in the portal as well. 

Scenario: How do I test if publishing digital documents to the parent portal worked? 

If you have the credentials for a test parent account you can run a report builder report and create a digital document for the student and set it up to get sent out to that parent’s account. If you replaced the test parent’s email with your own then you can even test the email notification process to see what that looks like by allowing the notification to get sent out to that test parent. Log into the test parents account and go to Digital Documents to see the newly populated report.