The following is a Frequently Asked Questions in regards to using Illuminate's Pre-Registration tools and features.
General
Illuminate always recommends to pilot new features before releasing district-wide. This way you are able to build capacity, work out district and/or site level procedures, practices, and training, while in addition, confirming district-wide goals and desired outcomes of the tool.
We also recommend focusing on grade levels such as incoming TK/K. This will isolate the pilot to just new students and parents and be a smaller student set to confirm practices.
You should only have 1 pre-registration form, as opposed to many forms. Pre Registration should be a limited or smaller form as the minimum requirement to pre-register a student.
Ideally, you want to streamline the form to work for all sites or district-wide to use the same form. This helps to have continuity in data collected throughout the district, assist in stronger collaborative training, and confirm district-wide procedures.
The tool works on windows, not specific forms, which means you set a timeframe and which form is available to new students.
Forms are sent by setting up windows. Windows contain a start and end date designated for the site and grade level. This is wonderful because you can start with a grade level at a time, giving a few days in between which grade levels can register first, iron out practices when needed, and troubleshoot before releasing to more grade levels and/or sites. Parents will then use the portal to complete the form.
Windows need to be set up on which days, sites, and grade levels will be available to parents for pre-registration online, for both office and parent initiated options.
Are you allowing for pre-registration for a specific site or site(s)?
When setting up windows, you will set up windows as appropriate for each site and each grade level. This way, you are telling the portal exactly which sites will become available for pre-registration.
When setting up windows, you will set up windows as appropriate at the District level for each grade level. Site windows are not to be created. This will allow for all sites in the District to become available for pre-registration.
If you have an ESY or NPS site at your District/LEA, then refer to Yes. Treat your windows like a pilot. This means create site-based windows for each grade level, for each sites, with end dates in the past, to ensure your NPS and ESY sites are not included in pre-registration.
There are various permissions available depending on your needs for users and the pre-registration process. permissions can range from creating pre-registration forms, setting up windows, viewing the audit log, and more. As an admin, you can visit the page in Illuminate you wish to give users access to and then click on the Wrench icon towards the top right corner of Illuminate to "Show Checked Permissions." This will show the permissions needed for viewing this page.
When following office-initiated pre-registration, it is recommended to mark the box "Include Pre-registered Students" in the Student Creation Pre-Search to verify the student you wish to create does not already exist.
While there are not many since the registration process is parent-based, one thing to consider are your staff users who will also be registering their child with Illuminate.
Because staff are recognized in Illuminate, using their staff emails may cause some error. It is recommended that they use their personal emails to avoid any challenges.
In addition, here are some whitelist considerations to share with your IT or System Administrators, to ensure everything is set up in place.
Workflows and Procedures
Workflows and procedures of the Online Registration tool should be reviewed with your Implementation Manager. That way, the use of tool can fully support goals and desired outcomes
Office-Initiated Pre Registration is when the office starts the pre-registration record, but the parent or primary contact continues the form completion online through their new parent portal account (if new parents), or their existing parent portal account (if an existing parent with a new sibling).
For example, a new parent make come to the school site to talk to the staff, get some information, and it would be a shame to say "Go home and request to pre-registration your child." In this scenario, the office can start the pre-registration record of the new student(s), send the parent or primary contact their portal information, and now they can continue to register their student(s) on the portal.
This will remove the step in the approval process where they request to register because the office already approved they can be sent the registration forms.
Parent-Initiated Office Registration is when the parent requests to pre-register using a special link to the portal.
Once they make the request, the office can approve the request, set a designated site (only for DecisionInsite users), and send the pre-registration form.
The parent will then complete the form using their Parent Portal account. Once finished they will submit the form.
The office will then continue with the approval process of the form. Once approved, the student will receive an enrollment record for the designated academic year.
For example, your District website or letter home may promote a link to request to pre-register such as [yoursite.illuminateHC.com/preregister]. After submitting their name, email, phone number, home address, student name and birthdate, they then select a site and grade level. A portal account will be created, sending a confirmation to the parent with their account information. The office will then approve the request which opens the form for the parent to continue registration.
Great work catching duplicates before it gets too messy with a bunch of duplicate records.
After verifying the existing record is in fact the student, you will treat the contact and record as if they are existing or current students. The contact would need an enabled access code and to begin the Custom Forms process as appropriate.
What Do I Do with the Pre-Registration record? Delete it once the existing record is confirmed. There is no need to hang onto it, it can only cause challenges.
Great! That means there isn't a duplicate student record that already exists. Continue with your pre-registration process as appropriate.
New parents and students will visit your District's designated Illuminate Home Connection Portal instance with a unique suffix to the domain. It should look like this: [yoursite.illuminatehc.com/preregister].
This takes them to an extension of the portal where they are putting in the request to register. Their access to the portal will be minimal until an enrollment record is complete and approved.
Parents who already have an existing Parent Portal account will pre-register new siblings in their existing parent portal account.
If the window is available for the designated site and grade level, the parent will be able to request pre-registration using the Pre-Registration > Add Pre-Registration for a new student.
You can learn more from Online Pre-Registration for Parents (Parent Initiated through the Portal).
Scenario: Site A does not have a TK program at that campus due to space limitations. The nearby Site B campus (not part of our pilot) has a TK program with room enough for Site A's TK students. When an Site A TK student wants to enroll, they go to Site A where all enrollment is completed. Their enrollment is then transferred to Site B.
Workflow: The same practice will be implemented as if they were registering for Site B directly, just using the Online Registration to facilitate enrollment. For example, Site A will preregister and approve enrollment. Then when you normally transfer enrollment to Site B, continue to do so.
Essentially, Site B would not be involved in the pre-registration process if undesired.
Yes! It is important that prior to approval of pre-registration (setting the school and sending the form), it is highly encouraged to search for the student first.
Open a new tab or window with Pre-Register Student. Search for the student that is trying to pre-register.
No, not necessarily. If your list has some records that have been stilling or pending for a while and maybe the parents are not completing registration or attending your organization, but it bothers you, right?
In this case, its best practice to leave them be. They might come back and they are always listed as pre-registered in your site.
If you delete the record, it will release all of their information and email address, portal access, etc., and they will have to do the process all over again, as opposed to starting from where they left off.
Yes. It is available for both.
8.1. Since it is part of my Custom Demographic, how will it be uploaded into CALPADS via SINF or how can I upload the information into CALPADS?
You will have to upload the program record and it is part of the SPRG, not SINF.
8.2. Will it upload the Y/N and Branch information?
It's a program record, so it would give a start date, similar to how other programs are submitted via SPRG.
Contacts
Contact procedures and tools will work the same even with Online Registration. Your processes and procedures on unique contact scenarios will continue to be conducted as normal. Please visit Contacts for more information.
It is recommended to review your contacts and check for duplicate data. Please see our documentation on Maintaining Your Contacts Records.
If a parent attempts to pre-register with an existing portal account, the system will not allow them to complete the request. They are advised to notify Administration for assistance. At that point, the Office or Staff will confirm their existing portal account information and get them ready to continue with the process.
However, if a parent uses a different email address to register, that could cause two different portal accounts - one for each email. You may have to circle back towards using our tools for merging duplicate contacts.
Scenario: Lane is an Emergency Contact for Johnny and primary/legal for Annie. Lane will ONLY have access to Annie. The primary/legal contact for Johnny, will update contact information as appropriate.
Traditionally, Emergency Contacts do not have portal access for that student, unless marked legal. While the portal detects for duplicate emails used to register, it is unable to detect duplicate contacts.
This would be the unique case of How did you handle it before? using Illuminate to clean up the contacts as appropriate.
Scenario: Student has two families (separate or divorced parents) at two different addresses. Who actually pre-registers for their child?
Solution: Typically one parent (let's say, Mom) would initiate pre-registration for the child(ren). Dad would get a portal account for being the a primary of the second household (physical address). But in the case that mom and dad don't communicate well, this is where their could be duplicate pre-registration records and the need for some housekeeping, IF mom & dad both tried to pre-register the same child.
Mom can try to pre-register Sally and Dad can try to pre-register Sally, at the same time. While both parents are able to submit the request for pre-registration for Sally, it is to the office's discretion on how to handle this situation. Same procedures as you would handle with paper registration.
The office will receive both records and can then deny or delete a pre-registration record as appropriate. In this case, you may select Dad and Delete Pre-Registration Records. For Mom, you would Send Pre-Reg Form continue the pre-registration process.
Adding Emergency Contacts as part of the pre-registration process is optional which link not only to the student's Contacts page but also print on the student's Emergency Card.
Scenario: I want a parent to assign a priority to contacts who are entered as Emergency contacts. For example, while Mom is a primary and emergency contact, Dad actually works at the school site and would be the better first contact to reach out during an emergency.
Solution: The benefit of collecting Contact information during the registration process is that the data can also be used on Illuminate's Emergency Card. If you want to establish or provide a parent the ability to list a priority, I would recommend creating a Custom Field called Emergency Contacts Notes where parents can establish some information that can be pulled into a Custom Report and onto the Emergency Card. Currently, a priority cannot be assigned to contacts.
Duplicate records or requests to pre-register can happen until the a) the parent confirms parent portal registration, and/or b) the parent is approved to register.
Scenario: I visit the Managed Pre-Registered Students where I see two similar requests for student Nadeem Stefano. All the information is the same and neither record has been approved. Why do I see two?
Solution: A registered portal email is a measure the tools use to not allow parents to have duplicate portal accounts using the same email. However, until approved, the request is just that - asking to register. Their information is not confirmed or stored in Illuminate yet because you haven't allowed them to be. Best advice is to communicate and provide support to parents once they request to pre-register to check their email to complete their Parent Portal Registration. Even if you have not approved their request as of yet, they have a portal account confirmed and can wait for a status update about their pre-registration.
Technical Considerations
Yes they can. Currently, as long as the phone has the ability to use a selected browser, they can log into their portal account or access the pre-registration link.
All browsers that can access to provided registration link or portal link do support online registration. For best performance, it's recommended to use a web browser on a computer rather than a mobile device.
Learn more about Illuminate's Home Connection For Parents.
Next Steps
Continue learning about how Pre-Registration can be helpful to your registration process by visiting: Manage Pre-Registered Students.