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User Manual for ParentEve 4.3.0

1. 8 1 1 Names and Initials Teachers are defined by their display name and optionally by their initials The teacher s dis play name must be defined this is the name that will be printed on the parents schedules and it must be unique i e no two teachers may share the same display name Optionally you may also define initials for each teacher These merely give an alternate name or string of initials that this teacher may be known by This is used to ease the inputting of the teachers that the pupils want to see Again each initials value must be unique i e no two teachers may share the same initials If an initials section is not supplied the teacher must always be referred to by their display name 28 CHAPTER 8 ADVANCED FEATURES 29 8 1 2 Time Constraints Two other optional sections may also be supplied the before and after sections These both supply time constraints for the teacher in question and their use tells the program when the teacher can accept appointments Therefore if a teacher cannot get in until 7pm you should specify after 7 00pm or after 19 00 for that teacher It is possible to specify both a before and an after constraint for a teacher 8 1 3 Locations Teachers can optionally have locations defined for them a location is simply the name of the place where the teacher will be for the event for example a room name or a desk number If you cho
2. Y Priority for this request Normal v V Use teacher s appointment length The teachers can be chosen quickest by typing their initials into the box but this will only work if you have defined initials for each teacher You can also choose teachers from a list by pressing the small arrow on the right and selecting the required teacher A priority can also be set against each request to see a teacher The available priorities are High high priority requests are all booked in first before any others Normal the default priority for appointments Low low priority appointments are booked in last after the rest of the parents evening has been set up The priorities are only relevant if you have too many appointments and they do not all fit in the parents evening In this case the priority system is used by ParentEve to automatically choose which requests do not get an appointment booked for them You can also choose the appointment length using this window Normally the Use teacher s appointment length box is ticked which means that the appointment will be the length that the teacher has requested teachers can have different appointment lengths see section 8 1 6 However if you untick this box you can enter a different length The length must be entered as the number of appointment slots to use up for example if your event has 5 minute slots and you need a 10 minute appointment you should enter
3. Concepts 3 1 Events The central concept in ParentEve is that of an event which is a single parents evening parent consultation or other function that you wish to schedule Events are stored by the program in simple text files and when you use ParentEve you load and save these files just as you would any other document you can alter your event as much as you like and your changes are only made permanent once you save your file The event file contains all the information needed to create the schedule for one parents evening e The start and end times for the event e The names initials and time constraints for all the teachers e The names and time constraints of all the sets of parents The list of pupils which the parents have most of the time each set of parents has only one pupil child attending the event but the program can cope with more than one for the case where there are twins e The form or house that each pupil is in The list of teachers that need to be seen for each pupil e The time at which each parent is seeing each teacher e Any notes which need to be included on printouts for instance Coffee is available from the machine in the corner 3 2 Schedules A schedule is an event with appointment times filled in for each parent s requests One of Par entEve s most powerful features is that it can optimise schedules to minimise waiting times a schedule is optimised by moving the appointments around but k
4. Event As menu item 35 Schedules 6 Score 6 19 Send Emails menu item 26 35 SIMS 14 15 17 33 34 Square colours 10 19 Start time 13 19 29 Subject taught 29 Teacher breaks 10 20 29 36 Teacher description 13 Teacher handouts 20 39 Teacher overviews 20 Teacher script 21 Teachers with appointments menu item 39 Teachers with no appointments menu item 39 Toolbar 9 Twins 7 17 30 36 Unbooked appointments menu item 39 Unlock code 5 42
5. Optimise Schedule mr gts a eas a da de E ewe Te 19 5 7 PrintSchedule 2 2 ee 19 5 7 1 Advanced Print Settings cocos raiu ee 20 57 2 OR Codes tits Bob co bee eta ee i eee A a id 21 5 8 Locking the Schedule 2 0 ee 22 6 Multi User Operation 23 6 1 Merging Changes osaa bee tee ete va De debe eee Te he ee a 23 6 2 Use Separate Files io sh re feel ook eds eee Ae adh he da te es Be ble td 23 6 33 Example Usage co en oe Ba Ba ee aye Soe a A ee 23 CONTENTS 7 Sending Email 7 1 Defining Email Addresses o e e 7 2 Configuring the Email Server ooo oo o 73 Previewing Emails ra it aie e a de We os ee ae e 7 3 1 Calendar Attachments 74 Sending Emails it A A AO 8 Advanced Features 8 1 Defining Teachers Manually 2 0 0 ee en 8 1 1 Names and Initials 000 ee ee 8 1 2 Time Constraints sonda a ae GA ee he De A 81 35 Locations a AO e e a es A O SAA Subjects gris aa Pe RAR Rd rie lt RO e ER A 8 157 1 A O E ek eters 8 1 6 Appointment Length ooo 8 2 Defining Parents and Pupils Manually ooo oo oo ooo SAN PATOS a A EA etd a GoD Bee Bo ta SE OE a e 8225 Pupils da 8 3 Booking IH soria te ee wee ie wa ste bela eel ee Oe eh a 8 4 Restarting Optimisation ee 8 5 Reusing the Teacher List o 6 62 ed es eK eee 8 6 Reusing Last Year s File 0 da h a ir a e Ea a a a a E 8 71 Divorced Patents iia Bld las ee Gad a we
6. This is useful as it reduces the amount of printouts and emails that are sent and makes it easier to see an overview of your event Reset Attendance Times Allows you to delete all arriving late and leaving early times from everyone attending the event This is most commonly used when re using an old file for a new event Delete Appointments Allows you to delete all appointment requests from everyone attending the event This is most commonly used when re using an old file for a new event See section 8 6 for further information Delete Parents and Pupils Allows you to delete all parents and pupils from everyone attending the event This is most commonly used when re using an old file for a new event for example when you use an existing event file for a new school year In this case the teachers are the same but the parents and pupils are new Please see section 8 5 for further information 10 3 The Import Menu The Import menu contains menu options that deal with loading data into ParentEve from your management system or from files This is the usual way of setting up events in ParentEve and is far faster than entering data manually It contains the following menu items Import Teachers See section 5 2 for further information Import Pupils See section 5 3 for further information Import Taught By List from File The Taught By list is a file in the same format as the Ap pointment Requests file described
7. add each parent separately i e one parent for Mr Smith and one for Mrs Smith Mark one parent as leaving early and the other parent as arriving late Make sure there is a big enough gap between them depending on the exact situation Once this is done enter the pupil twice once for each parent and enter the appointment requests on each copy of the pupil Chapter 9 Integration with SIMS ParentEve can integrate directly with the SIMS net management system from Capita pulling in data directly without the need to do a manual export step first 9 1 Define Reports Firstly you need to define reports in SIMS that will be used for the data extract into ParentEve This only needs to be done once when ParentEve is first installed You will need one report for the teachers and a report for the pupils in each separate parents evening you wish to run For example if your school runs seven parents evenings per year you will need eight reports one for the teachers and seven for the pupils The SIMS integration works as follows ParentEve makes a temporary CSV file in the current user s temporary area and then calls SIMS to report data into this file The file is then imported as usual into ParentEve without the user having to worry about where the file is or what it is called Consequently the reports in SIMS should be configured to produce CSV files This does mean that if you are upgrading from a previous version of Paren
8. computer running Microsoft Windows e Access to a printer either local or on a network e About 40Mb of free hard disk space is needed to install and run the program ParentEve is known to run well on many different versions of Windows as long as you have a version which is still supported by Microsoft you should be fine If you wish to check the version of Windows should be one of the following e Windows XP e Windows Vista e Windows 7 e Windows 8 e Windows 8 1 If you are running a version of Windows that is not on the list please contact Millerchip Software to check whether ParentEve will work correctly 2 2 Trying ParentEve ParentEve can be easily installed run and uninstalled making it simple to try the program before you decide to use it 2 2 1 Installation The program is supplied online at http www parenteve com as a self extracting EXE file Simply download the program and run it it will extract itself and present a simple installer Just press the Next button and the program will install itself CHAPTER 2 GETTING STARTED 5 2 2 2 Running the Program The program will put a submenu called ParentEve into the Programs section of your Start Menu The program can be run from there simply by clicking on its icon It also installs an icon on your desktop so you can start it from there as well 2 2 3 Uninstalling the Program The program can be uninstalled either from the Uninstall menu option i
9. in some circum stances ParentEve can mis identify twins and to fix this it is necessary to manually add a new parent See section 8 2 1 for further information Add Break to all Teachers Adds a break to all of the currently defined teachers Breaks can be any length and their start times can be randomly staggered as well See section 8 1 5 for further information Edit Teacher Allows you to edit the details for the teacher that is currently selected in the tree control on the left hand side of the screen See section 8 1 for further information Edit Parent Allows you to edit the details for the parent that is currently selected in the tree control on the left hand side of the screen See section 8 2 1 for further information Edit Pupil Allows you to edit the details for the pupil that is currently selected in the tree control on the left hand side of the screen See section 8 2 2 for further information Edit Event Details Allows you to edit the details for the current parents evening See section 5 1 for further information Edit Email Server Allows you to specify or alter the current email server how to connect to it and any authentication details needed The email server is used to send emails on Par entEve s behalf so this must be set up correctly if you want ParentEve to send emails See section 7 2 for further information Edit Appointments Allows you to edit the appointment requests for the parent or pupil that is
10. www parenteve com website for newer versions of ParentEve If it detects that a new version is available it will allow you to download and install the new version easily Please note that your school may have blocked direct downloads of programs from the internet If this is the case please contact your network administrator for assistance in downloading any new versions About Shows a small window that contains various pieces of information about your current installation and event Index About menu item 40 Add Break to all Teachers menu item 36 Add Parent menu item 36 Add Teacher menu item 36 Appointment gaps 14 Appointment length 13 29 31 Book in only the unbooked requests menu item 40 Calendar attachment 21 26 Check for Updates menu item 40 Clear and rebook all appointments menu item CommandReporter 34 CSV 14 15 17 38 Delete All Teacher Breaks menu item 37 Delete Appointments menu item 37 Delete Break from all Teachers menu item 37 Delete Parent menu item 37 Delete Parents and Pupils menu item 37 Delete Teacher menu item 36 Delete Unbooked Parents menu item 37 Demo mode 5 Divorced parents 32 Edit Appointments menu item 36 Edit Email Server menu item 36 Edit Event Details menu item 36 Edit Parent menu item 36 Edit Pupil menu item 36 Edit Scoring menu item 36 Edit Teacher menu item 36 Email 5 20 23 25 30 35 Email fr
11. 2 here as the appointment is using 2 slots 8 3 Booking In As you find out which teachers need to be seen and fill in the appointments you will notice that the program will put the phrase Not booked yet against the appointment in the pupil window This is because the program has not yet worked out an appointment time In order to place the new requests into the current schedule click the Book Unbooked but ton in the toolbar This ensures that all outstanding requests have times booked for them The program will warn you if you try to print with unbooked requests this is allowed if you have an overbooked evening but if you need all appointments booked then click this button CHAPTER 8 ADVANCED FEATURES 32 8 4 Restarting Optimisation It is occasionally desirable to restart the optimisation process because sometimes the optimisa tion gets stuck at a score like 960 or 970 and cannot get up to good scores like 985 This is more likely to happen when you have added some new information from late parent slips If this happens the Rebook button is needed Selecting this option will clear out all of the current appointments and will rebook them all in using a first come first served method The resulting schedule will score very low but it allows you to start the optimisation again from scratch The overview area will show a large block of blue squares against the left hand edge resulting from the first c
12. A merge will never delete anything The co ordinator eventually ends up with a fully populated master file which can then be optimised printed and emailed as normal Chapter 7 Sending Email ParentEve is capable of sending emails via many different types of email system which can often be an easier cheaper and quicker than sending out printed sheets of paper 7 1 Defining Email Addresses Email addresses can be defined against both teachers and parents In the vast majority of cases the email address can simply be included as a field in the export file from your management system and imported automatically during a normal import for an example see section 5 2 However it is also possible to set the email address manually by editing the person in question see section 8 1 7 2 Configuring the Email Server ParentEve does not send out emails onto the open Internet itself instead it relies on an email server to send its emails In order to do this ParentEve must know how to contact your school s email server and how to talk to it To tell ParentEve about your email server select the Edit Email Server option in the Edit menu The following window will open f Email Server Settings S Email server mail exampleschool com Port number 25 Email from address parenteve exampleschool com Network connection type Email server needs a username and password ox J _ cama Most of the tim
13. Eve may override this and book appointments next to each other if it is severely time constrained The other three options are Always leave gaps Forces a gap in all circumstances Don t insert gaps Turns off gaps completely Insert gaps when parent changes location This looks at the teachers location for each appoint ment the parent has If the location field changes the software will leave a gap With gaps turned off appointments can be booked adjacent to one another at all times When a new event is defined it initially has no teachers no parents and no pupils defined You may add up to five of each if you are using the demo version of ParentEve or an unlimited number if you have a valid unlock code The buttons at the bottom of this window are Edit Email Server which allows you to edit the settings for sending emails see section 7 2 and Edit Logo and Notes which opens the Advanced Print Settings window to allow you to edit various event wide data that appears on printouts see section 5 7 1 5 2 Import Teachers You can import lists of teachers parents and pupils directly this saves lots of time as it is quicker than typing in all the data manually It also ensures that the data is correct reducing the possi bility of typing errors If you use SIMS by Capita as your management system ParentEve can import data directly from SIMS see section 9 2 for further details In this example we will as sume instead th
14. User Manual for ParentEve 4 3 0 Peter Millerchip Millerchip Software Ltd Feburary 2015 Contents 1 Summary 3 2 Getting Started 4 Za Requirements ot tl Sad edn A a A lada 4 2 2 Trying Parenthvess oo so 8 E a a de ESA Aa 4 22 TristallatOn ar A eek A A a oe BI A en ci as 4 22 2 Running the Program s jes ae ee eee ee ee 5 2 2 3 Uninstalling the Program o ee 5 O e TM A A O E 5 2 3 1 Registering the Software o ooo o e 5 3 Important Concepts 6 A A A A sk ok ca beret Us 8 deed Se Dey Ye tae deed ad eh ok a eek te a te che tee 6 3 2 Schedullesis 2 4 mae a tee A LES RAO Oe ee Se Ed he BES 6 3 2 1 Schedule Scoring and Optimisation o ooo oo 6 333 TWINS Stk arar a Ge da as OR as de er 7 4 ParentEve s Interface 9 AL The Main Window cs ma de a A e a A ek ea 9 47 1 he Toolbar cure ains amp a e a as 9 4 1 2 The Overview Area 10 5 Organising a Parents Evening 12 5 1 Start Working on an Event aaa aaa ee 12 9 2 a Mport Teachers en tana ea ahs Go alee omens at Ee ean dha ah GP Meee 14 5 3 Import Parents and Pupils ooo es 17 53 1 Correct for Twins ea 8408 eh ea PE RRS Rhee eS 17 5 4 Send Request Letters to Parents 2 2 ee ee 18 5 5 Enter Information in Replies 2 0 o ooo eee eee 18 5 5 1 Edit Appointments 2 6 raes sis caei taira eee Cte ee eG 18 55 2 Startand End Times o taai pi e e Se e ea he e elias 19 5 6
15. above section It is entirely optional to import this file as currently ParentEve only uses it to cut down the number of teachers on the Edit Appointments window see section 5 5 1 However if this window is too large to fit on your screen it if often useful to import this to make data entry easier Import Request List from File The Import Request List from File menu item allows you to import a list of appointment requests This is by far the fastest way of getting appointment requests into ParentEve and should be used if possible 10 4 The Export Menu The Export menu contains menu options that deal with exporting data from ParentEve into files This is useful if you wish to transfer data into other systems or create custom reports and mail merges It contains the following menu items CHAPTER 10 MENU OPTIONS 38 Export Teachers to File Exports a list of all teachers to a file You will be prompted for a name to save the file as The file will be produced in CSV format with the following columns Full Name Initials Subject Taught Location Export Pupils to File Exports a list of all pupils to a file You will be prompted for a name to save the file as The file will be produced in CSV format with the following columns Parents Name Pupil Name Form Export Appointments to File Exports a list of all booked appointments to a file You will be prompted for a name to save the file as The file will be produ
16. ait times select the Edit Scoring menu option from the Edit menu and the following window will appear r Edit Scoring Maximum acceptable wait between appointments For teachers minutes For parents 20 minutes Teachers Breaks count as waiting Teachers Time before 1st appointment counts as waiting Parents Time before 1st appointment counts as waiting Bring appointments for twins together canei This allows you to set the maximum acceptable waiting time for both teachers and parents It also specifies whether the time before someone s first appointment counts as waiting time or not if it does the score will be reduced if there is a wait at the start and the optimiser will attempt to minimise these waits For teachers you can choose whether their break times count as waiting or not If a break is not considered waiting time it will not accrue penalty points but it will also not stop a long wait being penalised For example a 5 minute break with two 15 minute waiting periods either side will count as one 30 minute wait and will be penalised as such i e ParentEve treats the break as if it were simply not there at all You can also direct the program to try to move twins appointments together This is used in the case where both twins are seeing the same teacher in such cases it is valid to have two separate appointments but it is better if they can be adjacent i e one
17. at you re using a CSV file import as this works with any management system Firstly you need to export the list of teachers from your MIS system Both text one teacher per line and CSV formats are supported by ParentEve for teacher imports Once you have the data file you need to import it into ParentEve Either press the button on the toolbar shown in section 4 1 1 or go to the Import menu and select Import Teachers The following window will appear Import source OF O sims File import details Filename File type Text file one teacher per line Perform Import The following people will be imported when you dick the OK button Proposed Additions 0 teachers 0 parents 0 pupils CHAPTER 5 ORGANISING A PARENTS EVENING 15 The Import Source area has buttons to indicate where you want to pull data in from The choices are File to import from a file on disk and SIMS to import directly from a SIMS MIS Choose File here The Filename box stores the name of the file to be imported Simply press the Browse button next to it and select the file that you wish to import The File Type box allows you to tell ParentEve what sort of file you are importing A suit able default choice will be selected for you but if this is wrong you can change it by pressing the small arrow on the right hand side of the box and then selecting the correct type After selecting the file a
18. ced in CSV format with one line per parent This file is designed for use in mail merge operations the file contains the following columns which can be set up in your mail merge software Parents Name Address 1 Address 2 Address 3 Address 4 Address 5 Appointment 1 Appointment 2 Appointment 3 Appointment 4 Appointment 5 Appointment 6 Appointment 7 Appointment 8 Appointment 9 Appointment 10 Appointment 11 Appointment 12 Appointment 13 Appointment 14 Appointment 15 Appointment 16 Appointment 17 Appointment 18 Appointment 19 CHAPTER 10 MENU OPTIONS 39 e Appointment 20 Export Teacher Handouts Exports a text version of all teacher handouts to a text format file You will be prompted for a name to save the file as Export Parent Handouts Exports a text version of all parent handouts to a text format file You will be prompted for a name to save the file as 10 5 The Report Menu The Report menu contains menu options that produce various reports from ParentEve All reports pop up in a window which allows you to view the report copy it to the clipboard and save it to a file The menu contains the following items Teachers with no appointments Shows all teachers that have no appointments currently booked This is useful to inform teachers that they do not need to attend the event Note that there may be unbooked requests but these will not show on this report Parents with no appointments Shows all parents t
19. currently selected in the tree control on the left hand side of the screen See section 5 5 1 for further information Edit Scoring Allows you to define the length of waiting time that is considered acceptable for both teachers and parents A waiting time equal to or less than these times will incur no penalty but a waiting time greater than these values will reduce the event s score The scoring system is used by the optimiser to reduce waiting times Please see section 3 2 1 for further information Delete Teacher Allows you to delete the teacher that is currently selected in the tree control on the left hand side of the screen CHAPTER 10 MENU OPTIONS 37 Delete Parent Allows you to delete the parent that is currently selected in the tree control on the left hand side of the screen Deleting a parent will delete all pupils for that parent Delete Break from all Teachers Allows you to delete a break from all teachers attending the event You will be prompted to enter a time and all breaks at this time will be removed It is not an error to remove a break that does not exist The time you specify will then be available for booking appointments Delete All Teacher Breaks Allows you to delete all breaks from all teachers attending the event This is most commonly used when re using an old file for a new event Delete Unbooked Parents Allows you to delete all parents who have no appointments i e par ents who are not attending
20. d in this area Alternatively please contact sales parenteve com if you wish to have a customised report produced for you 10 6 The Action Menu The Action menu contains menu options that represent the major actions you will need to perform in ParentEve that don t fit neatly into any other category It contains the following menu items Clear and rebook all appointments This option clears all of the current appointment times and rebooks all the parents back in on a first come first served basis CHAPTER 10 MENU OPTIONS 40 Book in only the unbooked requests This option searches for any unbooked requests and books them in It leaves the existing appointments untouched and should be used after entering any new requests for parents to see teachers Optimise Automatically optimises the schedule This operation attempts to reduce the waiting time increasing the schedule s score by rearranging appointments It is important to op timise the schedule once all appointment requests have been received See section 5 6 for further information Enter Unlock Code This option is used to enter new unlock codes when you register your copy of the software Please see section 2 3 1 for further information 10 7 The Help Menu The Help menu contains menu options that provide simple information about your current installation or new versions of the software It contains the following menu items Check for Updates Checks the http
21. d practice to save your work often Print starts the print process for printing out all of the handouts Pressing this button will make the program show a Print Preview window which shows you what your handouts will look like From this window you can choose which ones to print how many copies you would like and which printer to print them on Import teachers reads in a list of teachers from your MIS or from a file This is the most common way of telling ParentEve about your teachers you export a file from your MIS system and ParentEve reads it in Import pupils reads in a list of pupils and parents from your MIS or from a file This works in the same way as the teacher import except that the file contains pupil definitions Most MIS systems can export a pupil s parent at the same time so ParentEve will use this list to create parents too if possible Rebook clears all of the current appointment times and rebooks all the parents back in on a first come first served basis Book Unbooked searches for any unbooked requests and books them in This leaves the ex isting appointments untouched and should be used after entering any new requests for parents to see teachers Optimise moves existing appointments around trying to reduce the length of time that both parents and teachers have to wait 4 1 2 The Overview Area This area shows a graphical overview of the current schedule If you have a small screen it may not all fi
22. double length appoint ment However it is easier for the program to find good solutions where appointments can be separated as it gives the schedule more flexibility 3 3 Twins ParentEve knows that one set of parents may have two children in the same year and conse quently it needs to know which children belong to which parents In the case of twins or other such situations it is vital that ParentEve should know that both twins belong to the same par ents as that way it can ensure that appointments relating to individual twins are held at different times CHAPTER 3 IMPORTANT CONCEPTS 8 Appointments are entered against pupils but it is their parents which are scheduled to see teachers An appointment made against a pupil represents the fact that the parent wishes to talk to a teacher about the pupil in question It is quite possible for twins to have very different academic needs and ParentEve accomodates this Consequently the parents of twins will nearly always have around twice the number of ap pointments than parents with only one child this way there can never be a clash or overlapping appointment for parents of twins Chapter 4 ParentEve s Interface 4 1 The Main Window The primary interface to the ParentEve program is its main window as shown below ES Parents Evening Scheduler Ele Edt Import Export Repor Action Help 950s ute DEMO EVENT 03 Mar 2011 urrent schedule score 51 of a poss
23. e you will simply enter values in here that have been given to you by your network administrator and you can safely skip this section of the user guide However if you are involved in the more technical side of your school s email system the fields should be configured as follows Email server The hostname or numeric IP address of the email server In most cases you should use the internal name or the LAN IP address of the server not the internet facing ones If you use a hostname here please note that it must resolve using DNS to a routable IP address WINS or other Microsoft specific names will not work in this field If in doubt use the LAN IP address 25 CHAPTER 7 SENDING EMAIL 26 Port number The TCP port number used to contact the email server Normal unencrypted SMTP nearly always uses port 25 and some servers expect encrypted connections to go to port 587 Email from address The email address that will appear as the From address on all outgoing emails Please be aware that some email servers may verify that this address exists locally before sending emails and may refuse to send with confusing errors if this field is invalid Network connection type This field basically allows you choose between encrypted and unen crypted connections The Plain SMTP option selects a standard SMTP connection with no encryption or user authentication this method is not very secure but is compatible with the vast majorit
24. ed already Indude teacher breaks List unbooked appointments a A SS O Y E The window will allow you to see all the handouts which will be printed There are four types of handouts which appear in the following order Teacher handouts one per page these are to give to the teachers so that they know who they are seeing Parent handouts two per page these are to give to the parents so that they know which teachers they need to see Teacher overviews 4 per page these are small copies of the teacher handouts which are useful for staff who forget to bring their schedule handouts Parent overviews These are small copies of the parent handouts 16 per page which enable helpers e g prefects to guide parents during the evening You do not have to print out all the handouts if you only wish to print some note down the page numbers you wish to print Then when you hit Print you can select the page range to print The extra options that appear on this window are in order Include sheets that have been emailed already If ticked this will print out sheets for people who have already received their schedule via email Untick this if you re happy for parents who have received emails to not get printed handouts Include teacher breaks If this box is ticked teachers will see breaks marked explictly on their handouts and emails If not ticked breaks will simply be omitted List unbooked appointments Spec
25. ee a 9 Integration with SIMS 9 1 Define Reports os a ri EP SE Oe AG A a I A ale 92 Import fron SIMS ota Bah thin Sayan ale ORME ine eo Sas 10 Menu Options TOL The File Mente ta tes Wk A Sd dee Ske eek totes OE Modis A ees Ad ko i 10 2 The EditsMentt 4 da A A en eee Re PB TAE vt 10 32 The Import Menu seua dea era eye Bele ale Gere ee ol GEE R E i Re 10 4 The Export Menu a as feria thaw baba a i are CAS wae ae e 10 5 The Report Menu tits ct wet Ree he e A EGE A he Ud 10 6 The Action Mena ra to tea a eraa atea ae n a aa a a ER iea T E 10 7 The Help Menu 200 ta bt Balak eh ld ps St tt 4 Index Chapter 1 Summary This is the manual for version 4 3 0 of the ParentEve program from Millerchip Software Ltd which organises the bookings for parents evenings in secondary schools This manual describes the op eration of the Microsoft Windows build of the program for Windows XP and all later versions The product is also available for Linux please contact Millerchip Software if you wish to use that version instead Please note that this manual covers the Professional version of the software ParentEve Pro which is licensed yearly If you are using the Pay As You Go version instead then some of these features may not be available to you Chapter 2 Getting Started 2 1 Requirements For the Microsoft Windows version of the program the following system requirements must be met in order for ParentEve to work properly e A
26. eeping the rest of the event s details unchanged 3 2 1 Schedule Scoring and Optimisation An important ability of the program is its ability to score and optimise a schedule Schedules are given a score which indicates how good they are at removing waiting times The default scoring method is as follows CHAPTER 3 IMPORTANT CONCEPTS 7 e If the schedule is valid and every parent s request to see a teacher can be satisfied the schedule scores 1 000 points e Each teacher s appointments are scanned by default a break of 15 minutes is considered acceptable For every break which is longer than 15 minutes the schedule loses two points for every five minutes the break lasts extra e Each parent s appointments are scanned by default a break of 20 minutes is considered acceptable For every break which is longer than 20 minutes the schedule loses one point for every five minutes the break lasts extra Consequently the most a schedule can ever score is 1 000 which represents a perfect sched ule in which nobody has to wait around for too long A typical default schedule created initially from an empty file scores around 300 whereas a typical optimised schedule which is used for actual parents evenings may score as highly as 980 or 985 depending on the length of time the program is given to optimise the schedule The scoring method can be changed if your school has different requirements If you wish to change the acceptable w
27. hat have no appointments currently booked This is useful to track down appointment request slips that have not been returned Note that there may be unbooked requests but these will not show on this report Pupils with no appointments Shows all pupils that have no appointments currently booked This is useful to track down appointment request slips that have not been returned Note that there may be unbooked requests but these will not show on this report Teachers with appointments Shows all teachers that have appointments currently booked i e teachers that need to attend the event Note that there may be unbooked requests but these will not show on this report Unbooked appointments Lists all unbooked appointment requests for the current event Re quests may be unbooked if there is no space left in the event or if a request has been recently entered and not booked in yet Run a scripted report This menu option allows you to choose a scripted report and run it Scripted reports are files on the disk that define customised reports in any format you desire They are usually supplied by Millerchip Software Ltd but it is possible to write them yourself or alter existing reports if you are familiar with scripting ParentEve s scripts are written in the Lua language which is a standard scripting language in wide use throughout the world There are many resources on the Internet about pro gramming in Lua if you wish to get further involve
28. ible 1000 E Current Event Yvette Able F5 Lukas Bennell F5 Byron Billington F5 Monica Cotterill F5 Kathy Coulson F5 Clara Crockford F5 Fletcher Edmonds F5 Charlene Ellis F5 Charlie Gable F5 Umberto Henwood F dl yq Parent overview 6 00pm to 10 00pm p 79 Vilhelm Radbone Joanne Raizey F5 Dana Robbins F5 Damon Siliman F5 Sharada Wicks F5 7 Me and Mrs Bennell It is composed of three areas e A summary area at the top underneath the menu and toolbar which displays the descrip tion of the current event being edited and the score it currently has e A tree on the left which displays all of the parents teachers and pupils e An overview area on the right which provides a graphical overview of the whole event 4 1 1 The Toolbar The toolbar contains icons representing some common operations and actions and allows you to quickly perform these actions without having to select them from the menu The buttons are in 90352096 CHAPTER 4 PARENTEVE S INTERFACE 10 New event allows you to create a new parents evening as described in section 5 1 Load event file loads an event file from disk that you have previously worked on Save saves the current event to your disk If you have not yet chosen a filename for the file to be saved under the program will ask you to choose one Once the program knows the name of the file it will not ask you again It is goo
29. ifies whether to include a section at the bottom of a handout that lists unbooked appointment requests for this person 5 7 1 Advanced Print Settings The Advanced Print Settings window allows you to specify exactly how your printouts will appear It looks like this CHAPTER 5 ORGANISING A PARENTS EVENING 21 E Advanced Print Settings Default options for all print jobs How it gets printed Pri i Notes for parents Parent handouts are one parent per sheet instead of two 7 Use small font for teacher handouts size 5 9 pt Parent Printouts ordered by Notes for teachers 9 Parent Name gt Pupil Name Logo filename Pupil Form x Ga The window contains the following fields Notes for parents Parent notes are small pieces of text that are printed at the bottom of each parent handout You can enter as much text as you like here but be aware that if you enter too much text it may be lost off the bottom of the printout Notes for teachers Teacher notes are similar to the parent notes described above but they go on the teachers printouts instead Logo filename This is the name of a file with the school s logo in it You do not have to specify it but if you do the logo will be included on the top of all printouts It can be in any common image format Parent script Specifies the filename of a script that alters the printouts for parents This can be used to provide custom printouts f
30. ion 6 3 for an example of how to do it 5 5 1 Edit Appointments The easiest way to edit the appointments requested by a parent is to find the pupil in question in the tree on the left hand side of the main window it has to be through the pupil because of the case of twins where ParentEve needs to know which pupil is involved in the request Right click on the pupil and select Edit Appointments a window like this will appear r Edit Appointments Pupil Name _ lt Juliet Preston gt Form _ lt F5 Parents arrive late at 6 00pm Parents leave early at 6 00pm Select All Clear All 7 Miss Acocks _ Mrs Ada J Miss Ash Mrs Ayres Mr Barnard I r Miss Bedwell V Mrs Chesterman Mr Dale V Ms Denzey Mr Dewsnap MissEbbon J Mr Gadsden Ms Hainge Y Ms Hannay Miss Hunter Miss Hyatt Ms Ladyman T Miss aia MissLeggett Mrs Lipscombe Mrs Loxley J Mr Meeds Mrs Mrs Molineux Ms Napton Miss Nicholas V Mrs Nye M mr aan 7 Mrs Ovenall Mr Paddon MissParritt Mr Pease TT Mrs Pillinger Miss Presnell Mr Pulcher Miss Ridgeway J Ms Sevell Ms Shadbolt Miss Sheppard Mrs Sowtham Miss Spencer V Mrs Sutch Miss Swetman Y Ms Swetnam Miss Symm I Mrs Thorp M Mr Wellborne Ms Westcar Miss Woollams Miss Wooster OK Cancel The window shows all the teachers the pupil s current app
31. ly in you can stop and start optimisation as many times as you like and it will not break anything When you click the Optimise button in the toolbar the following window will appear and will instantly start optimising your schedule r Optimisation This pass 60 10 passes completed Current score 389 of a possible 1000 It is guaranteed that the schedule cannot get a worse score if you pick this option The opti misation process will continue until the score reaches 1 000 a perfect score but it may be safely stopped at any point by pressing the Stop button You do not have to wait until the score reaches 1 000 indeed it may not be possible for the program to find a perfect solution This doesn t matter as you can still run a quite acceptable parents evening with a high but not perfect score As the optimiser runs the overview area will constantly update to show the optimiser s progress You can watch the squares turn from red to blue as the appointments get reshuffled in a more and more efficient way 5 7 Print Schedule In order to print click on the small printer in the toolbar shown in section 4 1 1 You will see a Print Settings window open which will look like this CHAPTER 5 ORGANISING A PARENTS EVENING 20 z Print Settings Default options for all print jobs What gets printed Teacher Overviews Parent Overviews Indude sheets that have been email
32. m a file however it is sometimes necessary to add a teacher manually To add a teacher select the Add Teacher menu option from the Edit menu The following window will appear Teacher S Teacher s name Miss Absalom Breaks Teacher s initials MAA Teacher s location during event Main Hall Add Break Subject taught English Remove Break Timeslots per appointment 1 Email address primary maa example sch uk Email address alternate m absalom example com Appointments Email sent No Mr and Mrs Dolan about Fabrice Dolan F1 at 6 00pm a i Mr and Mrs Califano about Debbie Califano F 1 at 6 05pm 4 The teacher is attending Mr and Mrs Dobinson about Ahmet Dobinson F3 at 6 10pm Mr and Mrs Deven about Clark Deven F0 at 6 15pm 7 E The teacher arrives late Arrival time 6 00pm Mr and Mrs Bliss about Geoff Bliss F2 at 6 20pm Mr and Mrs Simmonds about Jen Simmonds F4 at 6 25pm E The teacher leaves early Departure time 6 00pm Mr and Mrs Digweed about Scott Digweed F5 at 6 30pm Mr and Mrs Vear about Nadeem Vear F5 at 6 35pm Mr and Mrs Wheatleigh about Rhonda Wheatleigh F3 at 6 40pm Mr and Mrs Aaron about Floria Aaron F4 at 6 45pm Mr and Mrs Clent about Chris Clent F4 at 6 50pm Mr and Mrs Lankshear about Trey Lankshear F5 at 6 55pm Mr and Mrs Quinnev about Brenda Quinney F 1 at 7 00nm Edit Appointments
33. n your Start Menu programs or from the Control Panel s Add Remove Software section 2 3 Licensing ParentEve is licensed on a yearly basis and it uses unlock codes to verify that you are currently licensed to use the software When you download the software it will not have an unlock code and so it will be in demo mode In demo mode you will only be able to define five teachers five parents and five pupils However apart from that restriction the full functionality of the software will be available to you You will be able to evaluate how to use the software and whether you wish to make use of it 2 3 1 Registering the Software To make the program work with full parents evenings you will need an unlock code to be emailed to you please contact Millerchip Software to obtain one Once you have your un lock code you need to import it into your demo copy of ParentEve All you need to do is open the unlock code entry window by selecting Enter Unlock Code from the Action menu Simply copy and paste the email into this window and press OK The software will extract and store your unlock code and enable you to define as many teachers parents and pupils as you want The unlock code also defines the name of your school this name gets printed on the hand outs so please make sure this is correct when you place your order You can view the current registration information in the About window Chapter 3 Important
34. nd its type press the button marked Perform Import This will read the file s contents into the preview window below the button A text file will import immediately but a CSV file will open a new window so you can define what the columns mean Fa Import CSV file First three lines from the file Name Initials Subject Location Miss Acocks LAA Maths Desk 5 Ada JMA English Desk 1 Ignore the first line Please describe the file by moving columns into the Selected columns box below The order of your selected columns is important and must match the file Available columns Selected columns lt Unused gt Full Name Full Name surname first Forename Surname Email Address Form Tutor Group Parent s Name Location Initials Subject Title Address Line 1 Address Line 2 Address Line 3 Address Line 4 Address Line 5 If you wish to save this import enter a name for it below Ce A A The first three lines of the data file are shown at the to so that you can see what is in the file You should now transfer columns from the available list on the left to the selected list on the right For the example above the final configuration should look like this CHAPTER 5 ORGANISING A PARENTS EVENING 16 First three lines from the file Name Initials Subject Location Miss Acocks LAA Maths Desk 5 Mr
35. nt is that there are not enough parents and ParentEve has misidentified twins This is caused by the presence of duplicates in the Parent Name field for example if there are two unrelated pupils with a common surname like Smith and with their parents both defined as Mr amp Mrs Smith In this example ParentEve would see the identical parent names and assume that the two children were twins there would be only one set of parents defined instead of two and this set of parents would be marked as having twins If this happens the best fix is to re export the data from your MIS system but with more detail so that ParentEve can tell them apart The primary way of doing this is to populate the Parent Identifier field which is a field that is guaranteed to be unique for each parent Most MIS systems will have some form of ID number that can be used for this once this is included in the export ParentEve can easily distinguish between parents with identical names If your MIS system does not have a unique identifier number for each parent you can either add more detail in the Parent Name field for example Mr A and Mrs B Smith or include the parent s postal address ParentEve realises that two Mr and Mrs Smith entries with different addresses are two different parents and will use the first line of the postal address as the unique identifier in this case Once you clear and reimport the data this
36. nu option or clicking on the green plus sign toolbar button e Load an existing event by selecting the File Load Event menu option or clicking on the yellow folder toolbar button When creating a new event a new window will open which will allow you to enter the details of your new event f New Event x Event description DEMO EVENT Event date 13 November 2012 Start time 6 00pm End time 10 00pm Appointment length mins 5 Teacher description Teacher Parent description Parent Pupil description Pupil Appointment gaps Try to leave gaps between parent appointments Edit Email Server l Edit Logo and Notes You can enter the following pieces of information in this window Event description this is the name of your event something like Year 10 Parents Evening is usual for this field It gets printed out on the title area of all ParentEve s printed handouts so make sure it is something that is descriptive Event date the date that your event takes place Again this gets printed on the handouts so it is important to get this correct otherwise parents may not come on the correct day Start time and End time these two fields define when your event starts and ends They default to 6 00pm and 10 00pm respectively but you can change them to the correct values if neces sary When inputting a time you must put it in in 12 hour format with a colon sepa
37. ointments will be ticked and you can simply click on the appropriate teachers to make or unbook appointments If this window is too large to fit on your screen i e you have an exceptionally large number of teachers it is possible to reduce the size of it by importing the list of which teachers teach which pupils thus allowing ParentEve to only show the relevant teachers on this window Please see section for further information The Select All button will tick all boxes making an appointment request for all teachers Conversely the Clear All button unticks all the noxes removing any existing requests You can also move between different pupils and forms easily using the arrow buttons beside the name and form respectively This feature allows you to enter many pupils appointments very quickly CHAPTER 5 ORGANISING A PARENTS EVENING 19 5 5 2 Start and End Times Only some parents will need their start and end times changed so this step is optional For those parents that do need different times click on the appropriate tick box and then select the time from the drop down menu next to it You can define a late start and an early departure if necessary 5 6 Optimise Schedule Once all of the replies have been received you will need to produce an optimised schedule so that people are not waiting around for too long The Optimise option will start improving the schedule you currently have from the state it is current
38. om address 26 Email server 25 End time 13 19 29 Enter Unlock Code menu item 40 Event date 13 Event description 13 Events 6 Exit menu item 36 Export Appointments to File menu item 38 Export Parent Handouts menu item 39 41 Export Pupils to File menu item 38 Export Teacher Handouts menu item 39 Export Teachers to File menu item 38 Icons 9 Import Taught By List from File menu item 37 Import Pupils menu item 37 Import Request List from File menu item 37 Import Teachers menu item 37 Initials 28 31 List unbooked appointments 20 Location 29 Lock Schedule menu item 35 Locking 22 35 Logo filename 21 Mail merge 38 Merge Changes menu item 35 Merging 23 Network connection type 26 New Event menu item 35 Not booked yet 31 Notes for parents 21 Notes for teachers 21 Optimisation 6 19 32 Optimise menu item 40 Parent description 13 Parent handouts 20 39 Parent identifier 17 Parent overviews 20 Parent script 21 Parents with no appointments menu item 39 Port number 26 Print menu item 35 Print Preview menu item 35 Print settings 19 35 Priority 31 Pupil description 13 Pupil form 30 Pupils with no appointments menu item 39 INDEX QR codes 21 Rebooking 32 Remove Lock menu item 36 Reset Attendance Times menu item 37 Run a scripted report menu item 39 Save Event menu item 35 Save
39. ome first served booking and there will be many red squares as the appointments tail off towards the end of the evening However the situation will rapidly improve with a short run of the optimiser and a good score is more likely 8 5 Reusing the Teacher List A common situation is where you have entered all of the school s teachers in one event and you wish to reuse this list for another event for example when setting up new events for the youngest year in the school In order to do this select the Delete Parents and Pupils option from the Edit menu This will remove all of the parents pupils and requested appointments leaving just the teachers This schedule can then be saved to a different filename using the Save As option from the File menu 8 6 Reusing Last Year s File Another common situation is where you held a parents evening last year the pupils in question have now moved up a year and you wish to reuse the old file as a basis for the new parents evening This is done by selecting the Delete Appointments option from the Edit menu This removes all requests for parents to see teachers and all the overview squares will turn white As the parents send in the information about who they wish to see you can book the appointments in as usual 8 7 Divorced Parents Sometimes pupils have divorced parents who must not meet each other at your parents evening The way to implement this is to
40. on 5 7 for further information and examples of a print run Print Preview Shows you what your printouts will look like on paper without actually printing them Send Emails Sends all emails that are due to be sent Emails are sent to any teachers or parents who have valid email addresses defined Please see section 7 4 for further information Lock Schedule Allows you to lock the current schedule Section 5 8 describes the schedule lock ing functionality please see that section for further details 35 CHAPTER 10 MENU OPTIONS 36 Remove Lock Allows you to remove a schedule s lock This can only safely be done if you are either reusing an old schedule file for a new event or if you have not sent out any emails or printouts yet Exit Shuts the program down You will be prompted to save your work if there are unsaved changes and the shutdown optionally can be cancelled 10 2 The Edit Menu The Edit menu contains menu options that change data in the currently loaded event file It contains the following menu items Add Teacher Allows you to add a new teacher to the event manually This is not normally necessary as it is far quicker to import a list of teachers from a file If you really need to do this please see section 8 1 for further information Add Parent Allows you to add a new parent to the event manually This is not normally neces sary as it is far quicker to import a list of teachers from a file However
41. or You can also optionally define email addresses for parents If you define one then you can send the parent s schedule to them automatically via email instead of having to print it out saving postage and admin costs see section 7 1 8 2 2 Pupils You then need to define the pupils for each set of parents In the vast majority of cases each set of parents only has one pupil but the program fully supports multiple pupils per parent i e twins triplets non twin siblings in the same school year and so on To add a pupil press the Add Pupil button on the right hand side of the parent window The following window will appear i New Pupil o Pupil s name E Pupil s form EE y Parent s Appointments Edit Appointment Pupils are defined by name and you can optionally specify the form i e house or tutor group they are in If you define a form for a pupil the program will print the form on all CHAPTER 8 ADVANCED FEATURES 31 handouts and will also group the pupils into forms on the left side of the main display making it easier to find pupils For each pupil a list of requested teachers needs to be given These specify the teachers that the parents wish to see for each pupil In order to add a request to see a teacher press the Add Appointment button The following window will appear a Appointment Request Please choose a teacher Choose from the list or type the teacher s initials
42. or parents if ParentEve s default format is not suitable This feature only available in ParentEve Pro Teacher script Specifies the filename of a script that alters the printouts for teachers This can be used to provide custom printouts for teachers if ParentEve s default format is not suitable This feature only available in ParentEve Pro 5 7 2 QR Codes If you have ParentEve Pro all printouts will include a OR code which is a small square image with encoded information in it If a parent or teacher scans this code with their phones a calendar attachment will pop up and they can add the parents evening to their personal schedule with a single tap Apps for scanning QR codes are widely available for Android and Apple devices Consequently any parents who can t receive an email from your school can simply scan the letter that they receive instead An expanded example of one of ParentEve s QR codes is shown below on the actual print outs the code is a small square in the corner Try scanning it with your own device to see what happens CHAPTER 5 ORGANISING A PARENTS EVENING 22 5 8 Locking the Schedule After you request a printout the software will ask you if you wish to lock the schedule If a sched ule is locked then no existing appointments can be changed it is possible to add latecomers in but they will be assigned to free slots wherever possible The advantage of locking the schedule is that it ensures your paren
43. ose to define locations for your teachers the location names will be included on all printouts allowing teachers to know where they are meant to be and allowing parents to find them easily Typical examples of locations include things like Room M1 Maths Block or Desk 12 You can be as descriptive as you like as long as you do not run out of room on your printouts 8 1 4 Subjects You can optionally specify the subjects taught by your teachers If you do specify subjects they will be included on the parent printouts against the relevant teacher s name The subject field is free format text and you can type anything you like in there Again you can be as descriptive as you like as long as you do not run out of room on your printouts 8 1 5 Breaks You may also define breaks at specific times for individual teachers A break takes up a single timeslot so if you wish to define a long break you have to specify each timeslot in the break For example to define a 10 minute break at 8pm you must put in two breaks as 8 00pm and 8 05pm 8 1 6 Appointment Length ParentEve allows teachers to request a default appointment length For example most teachers may be happy with a 5 minute appointment but a form tutor may request 10 minute appoint ments instead The Timeslots per appointment value chooses the default appointment length for all ap pointments made with this teacher In our example above the teacher who want
44. p computers Programs such as Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird Webmail Systems such as Google GMail or Yahoo Mail Smartphones Tablets Android and Apple devices Teachers who receive emails from ParentEve will be automatically prompted to add the par ents evening to their school calendar and parents receiving the emails on their phones will be able to add the parents evening to their personal schedule with a single tap 7 4 Sending Emails To send emails select the Send Emails menu item in the File menu The following window will appear CHAPTER 7 SENDING EMAIL 27 Y Email Settings l Please confirm options for this email run before continuing This window always comes up before doing an email run so that you can check everything is OK and tell ParentEve what you want to email If you untick the box saying Resend emails that have been sent previously ParentEve will only send emails to people who were not included on a previous email run this is useful for people who have been added to the schedule at the last minute Once you click OK ParentEve will produce and then send all outstanding emails using the settings you entered The Edit Email Server button allows you to edit the email server s connection settings as described in the previous section section 7 2 Chapter 8 Advanced Features 8 1 Defining Teachers Manually Normally teachers are imported fro
45. permission to run the report you need SIMS password The password you use to log in to SIMS For security reasons this field is not saved and must be entered each time the software will prompt you if you forget Server and instance name This field consists of the SOL Server name and the server instance name separated by a backslash character For example if your SOL Server machine is called SERVER and your server instance is called INST01 you would enter SERVER INSTO1 in this field Database name The name of the database that SIMS is installed on Report name The name of the report that should be run This field is saved seperately depend ing on whether you are running a Teacher or Pupil import Report parameters Some reports can take parameters for example a pupil report can have the year group as a parameter If the report you are running needs parameters you can specify them here Once the information is correct click OK and the import will occur The CSV file is pro duced and pulled in automatically you will then be asked to describe the CSV file in the usual way see section 5 2 Chapter 10 Menu Options 10 1 The File Menu The File menu contains menu options that deal with ParentEve s event files or general opera tions that affect a whole file in one go It contains the following menu items New Event Creates a new event from scratch Selecting this option will open the Edit Event Detail
46. rating the numbers and with am or pm directly afterwards For example 6 00pm is a valid entry Appointment length this defaults to five minutes but you can enter as short or as long a time as you like All appointments will be made the length you specify and parents will receive this length of gap between each appointment You can specify half minutes here for example enter 7 5 to get two appointments every 15 minutes i e 8 appointments per hour Times are displayed to the nearest minute but tracked to the second Teacher description You can change the way ParentEve displays the word teacher on emails and printouts using this box For example your school may use Tutor instead and changing it here will cause the word Tutor to appear on printouts Parent description As above allows you to change the way the word Parent is printed or emailed For example some schools use Guardian or simply Attendee Pupil description As above allows you to change the way the word Pupil is printed or emailed For example some schools use Student instead CHAPTER 5 ORGANISING A PARENTS EVENING 14 Appointment Gaps This controls whether ParentEve will try to leave gaps between parent ap pointments The default setting is for ParentEve to attempt to leave a gap between each parent appoint ment this allows parents time to get from one appointment to the next However Parent
47. rting parents and pupils is done in the same way as for teachers Either press the button on the toolbar shown in section 4 1 1 or go to the Import menu and select Import Parents Both teachers and pupils can be imported from text files where one person is stored per line These sort of files can be typed manually or exported from a suitable system an example is shown below being typed in Notepad P pupils txt Notepad 0 x File Edit Format view Help John smith Tom Brown Jane Black Mary white However the pupil import also supports XML format files This format is a UK government standard that all major school computer systems use for exchanging information If you have a system such as Capita s SIMS you can export lists of your pupils in this format and ParentEve will be able to read them in One important thing to note is that if the file is a text file it should contain pupils only parents will be automatically created for each of the pupils found in the file Also note that this will happen too for CSV files if no parent name is given In the preview window the parents and pupils will be shown in alphabetical order not the order they occured in the file 5 3 1 Correct for Twins Once the parents and pupils have been entered it is vitally important that you check that the right number of parents have been created and that the pupils have been assigned correctly The most common error at this poi
48. s window so you can set up the new event see section 5 1 Use this to create new parents evenings that the system has not seen before Load Event Loads in an existing event from an event file ParentEve s event files have the type PEV and can be stored on disk like normal documents See section 5 1 for further informa tion Merge Changes Allows you to merge someone else s changes into the file you are currently working on which is how ParentEve allows multiple people to work on the same event simultaneously Please see section 6 1 for more information on multi user operation and the merge menu option in ParentEve Save Event Saves the current event back to the file it was loaded from If there is no current filename you will be prompted to choose one Save Event As Saves the current event to a new filename You will be prompted to choose the new name Print Settings Allows you to choose the default settings for the print jobs produced by Par entEve You can choose what gets printed how it gets printed and the sorting applied to printouts Please see section 5 7 for further information Print Performs a print run using the current event Selecting this option will first show the Print Settings window to choose what to print then show you a print preview so you can check what will be printed in its final format If everything is correct you can then print out all the handouts and sheets for your event Please see secti
49. s Ada JMA English Desk 1 4 IV Ignore the first line Please describe the file by moving columns into the Selected columns box below The order of your selected columns is important and must match the file Available columns lt Unused gt Full Name surname first If you wish to save this import enter a name for it below roe te ey OOO Ce The columns selected are Full Name Initials and Subject which matches the data in the top area It is important to get the order of the columns right or the import will not be correct Once you are happy with the column order click the OK button and the import window will change to look like like this Import source Fie Osims File import details Filename C feachers csv File type CSV spreadsheet Perform Import The following people will be imported when you dick the OK button Proposed Additions 6 51 teachers 0 parents 0 pupils The preview window shows that three teachers no parents and no pupils were found in the file At this point the import has not actually happened and you can cancel out of this window without affecting your event However if this import looks correct then simply press the OK button and the new teachers parents or pupils will be merged into your event CHAPTER 5 ORGANISING A PARENTS EVENING 17 5 3 Import Parents and Pupils Impo
50. s the 10 minute default would enter 2 in this box to indicate that they would like two 5 minute slots per ap pointment Please note that appointment lengths can be overridden on a per appointment basis as well please see section 8 2 2 for further information 8 2 Defining Parents and Pupils Manually As with teachers it is normal to import parents and pupils from a file Sometimes it is necessary to add parents and pupils manually in this case the parent must always be entered first and then the pupils should be added to the parent 8 2 1 Parents To add a parent manually select the Add Parent menu option from the Edit menu The following window will appear CHAPTER 8 ADVANCED FEATURES 30 Parents Parents names Mr and Mrs Bliss Pupils Email address primary sarah bliss example com Groff as FA Email address alternate terry blissGexample com Address 123 High Street Example Town Notes included on printout County AAL 1AA Booked Appointments _Ms Dishman at 6 00pm Miss Absalom at 6 20pm ene a as a em E The parents arrive late Arrival time 6 00pm Ms Blodgett at 8 40pm E The parents leave early Departure time 6 00pm A set of parents is defined by their display name in the same way as for Teachers Time constraints can be defined in exactly the same way as for teachers too so late arriving or early departing parents can be catered f
51. should remove the duplicated parents If you wish to fix it manually instead simply define a new parent manually for the parents that are missing see section 8 2 1 delete the incorrect pupil from the first parent and then add the deleted pupil back in to the new parent see section 8 2 2 CHAPTER 5 ORGANISING A PARENTS EVENING 18 5 4 Send Request Letters to Parents At this point you need to know which parents wish to see which teachers about which pupils The vast majority of schools choose to send a request letter to parents to ask them this although your school may be different in this regard You will need to get the following information from the parents e Which teachers do they wish to see e Whether they will arrive late or leave early ParentEve works best when only a few parents have late arrival or early leaving times so it is best to word the letter so as to make it more likely for them to specify the whole event maybe using a sentence like If you cannot arrive in time or if you must leave early please specify the times you are available 5 5 Enter Information in Replies Normally the replies to the letters will be received back within a few days As they come back in you must enter the information that is supplied As there is normally a lot of information to be entered this step is best performed by multiple people Please see section 6 1 for further information on multi user operation in ParentEve and sect
52. t on but you can scroll it around using the scroll bars on the left and bottom edges in order to see the whole thing The overview area consists of two grids one representing the teachers and one representing the parents The grids list people against time so teachers and parents are listed down the side the vertical axis and time is considered to be the horizontal axis Each square represents a single appointment slot with the start of the evening on the left hand side and the end on the right Each square can be one of the following colours White a free slot with no appointment Red a booked slot where there is an unacceptable delay directly before it Blue a booked slot with no delay or an acceptable delay beforehand Purple one of two booked slots for twins where the other twin s appointment is not immedi ately before Grey a slot where the person in question is not able to attend Yellow a teacher s break CHAPTER 4 PARENTEVE S INTERFACE 11 A perfect schedule with a score of 1 000 will have no red or purple squares as these squares represent penalty points which reduce the score The overview is very useful for quickly seeing where there are problems in a schedule The purple squares will only be visible if you have set the scoring to try to bring twin appoint ments together see section 3 2 1 for further details In this case if there are twins who are both marked as seeing the same teacher the software will try to p
53. t printouts will not become invalid You can safely send the printouts to parents once you have locked the schedule if anybody requests appointments after this point then the existing printouts do not have to be changed Chapter 6 Multi User Operation 6 1 Merging Changes ParentEve supports multiple people working on the same event simultaneously by using merge operations A merge allows two event files to be combined together without losing information In order to merge two files together the two files must represent the same event i e the event name and date must be the same To perform a merge first load the master file into ParentEve then go to the File menu and select the Merge Changes option Choose the file to merge from and click OK ParentEve will then import all the changes from the incoming file and present you with a report showing what it has done It is important to note that the result of your merge is then in memory and has not been saved If you are happy with the result of the merge you can save as normal but if you do do not want to keep the changes simply exit from ParentEve and the original file will not be changed 6 2 Use Separate Files One vital point to emphasise is that ParentEve does not support multiple people editing the same file In order for multiple people to work on the same event safely each person must have their own copy If multiple people edit the same file you
54. tEve you can now get ParentEve to directly call the existing reports that you currently used to use to produce the CSV exports from SIMS The exact steps to configure SIMS for CSV reporting are beyond the scope of this manual If you need assistance in producing reports in SIMS please contact your Capita representative 9 2 Import from SIMS Open the import window shown in section 5 2 click the SIMS button and then click the Perform Import button The following window will appear CommandReporter executable ram Files x86 SIMS SIMS net CommandReporter exe SIMS username sims_user SIMS password eeccccce Server and instance name SRVO1 INSTANCE Database name DBO1 Report name Teachers Report parameters Information 33 CHAPTER 9 INTEGRATION WITH SIMS 34 Although there is a lot of information here most of it only needs to be entered once and ParentEve will then remember it for all parents evenings that you run The information that needs to be filled in is as follows CommandReporter executable Command Reporter is the SIMS program that ParentEve calls in order to run the report ParentEve will look in the normal installation folders for SIMS and will usually be able to pre populate this field but if you have installed SIMS into a non standard location you can use this field to tell ParentEve where it is SIMS username The username you use to log in to SIMS This user must have
55. ut both appointments next to each other with no gap If the second appointment is not immediately after the first then the second appointment will be shown in purple If an appointment qualifies for both red excessive waiting and purple non adjacent twins status then it is shown in red Chapter 5 Organising a Parents Evening In this section we will run through the recommended way to use ParentEve to organise a suc cessful parents evening In overview the steps are in order e Start working on an event section 5 1 e Import teachers section 5 2 e Import parents and pupils section 5 3 e Send request letters to parents section 5 4 e Enter information in replies section 5 5 e Optimise the schedule section 5 6 e Print the schedule section 5 7 The following sections describe these steps in more detail 5 1 Start Working on an Event When the program starts up no event is defined and the main window will appear in its default state as shown in the picture below r gt BB Parents Evening Scheduler via aa File Edit Import Export Report Action Help Aak EA EA vent None lo schedule loaded G E Current Event di e a No Schedule O teachers 0 parents E 0 pupils 12 CHAPTER 5 ORGANISING A PARENTS EVENING 13 In order to start working on an event you have two options e Create a new event by selecting the File New Event me
56. will almost certainly lose data and there is a chance that the file could become irretrievably corrupted You must always use separate copies of the data files one per person 6 3 Example Usage Multi user operation saves a lot of time when the appointment requests from parents need to be entered Typically one person called the co ordinator in this example will create a master copy of the ParentEve event file by importing lists of teachers parents and pupils setting up start and end times and so forth Once this master file is created the co ordinator will then distribute copies to people who wish to help in entering data Copies can be sent via email via USB drives or by saving them to a shared network drive Each helper will work on their own separate copy of the file entering appointment requests and possibly defining new start and end times for parents based on the responses received Once a helper is happy with their entries they save the file and send it back to the co ordinator The co ordinator then simply merges the helper s copy of the file into their own This procedure is repeated with all the helpers the changes that each helper makes to their files are merged into the master file one by one Note that the co ordinator does not need to re 23 CHAPTER 6 MULTI USER OPERATION 24 issue updated files to helpers because ParentEve s merge operation will only merge in the new information that each helper creates
57. y of email servers The SMTP over TLS option selects a more advanced method of talking to the server which allows for encryption using the SMTP STARTTLS command and optional user authentication This method should work with most modern email servers but may not be supported by older servers Email server needs a username and password If you tick this box ParentEve will ask you for a username and password whenever you send emails these values are then passed to the email server to verify who you are Please note that this will only work in SMTP over TLS mode as plain SMTP does not support authentication Another caveat is that some email servers will reject a connection with a login denied error message if they are con figured not to need logins at all so please be sure whether your server really requires login information if you receive such errors 7 3 Previewing Emails Before you send emails it is helpful to preview them first in order to make sure that the contents are correct In order to do this right click on a person in the tree on the left hand side of the main window A menu will pop up and you can select Preview Email to see the email that will be sent 7 3 1 Calendar Attachments If you have ParentEve Pro the email will also contain a calendar attachment which will appear as a block of encoded information at the end Most popular email systems support calendar attachments for example Deskto

User Manual for ParentEve 4.3.0

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