This lesson will review the approval process for student pre-registration.
Where to Start
1. Select the Admin Cog Wheel.
2. Select Manage Pre-registered Students.
Pre-registered Students Overview
This pages become both the approval for the request to register and the approval of the information. Features on this image below may also be part of partnering with DecisionInsite, an Enrollment Boundary Verification program, to help appropriately pair a student's address with a correct school site.
- Filters by default follows a users visibility and affiliations, however they can be changed to further filter the list and records coming in to be reviewed.
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Contact Name is the person who began the process and is considered the primary household contact to the student.
- if the contact name is blue, it can be selected to view basic contact information, update the email address, and provide a parent with their portal information
- Portal Registration reviews if the contact has registered for the portal, which is where registration takes place.
- Academic Year is which Spring term the registration record is for.
- Grade Level is which grade level the student is registering for.
- Pre-registration Date is when the record was submitted for review or requested to register by the parent.
- Approved Date is the date the form was approved.
- Effective Date is the first day of the term for the academic year they are enrolling for.
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Local School is set by default when using DecisionInsite, an enrollment boundary verification service, where the address triggers an affiliated school site.
- An option is to enable parents to suggest an Other Preferred School Site in case the designated school is full, doesn't have the services their child will need, etc.
- If not using DecisionInsite, this field will be the school site the parent manually chose.
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Designated School is which school has been set to the student's record.
- This is part of the process for Decisioninsite users only
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Form Status shows every step in the process that the parent or staff is at.
- Set School is the first step, specifically for DecisionInsite users.
- Once the school is set the form must be sent, changing the status to New Form.
- Additional status' will now appear based on the process.
- if Attachments are being used in the form, they can be downloaded and viewed here.
- To mass select more than one record, select the checkbox. Once a record is selected, there will be an Action Menu at the bottom of the page to set the school, send the form, delete, approve, etc., for all records selected.
- Delete a record to avoid duplicate student records later, or release a parent who accidentally pre-registered and shouldn't have.
The Approval Process
It is very vital to the success of your Online Registration Procedures to use the following steps as a best practice guide to your registration requirements.
Before starting to review or confirm pre-registration records, you want to avoid duplicates. To do this, select Pre-register Student at the top of the page.
1. Type in a portion of the student's name to see if they already exist in the system.
2. Check the box to Include Pre-registered Students Click, Search.
In Process of Pre-Registration
If the student you are searching for is only found once as the indicated (Pre-registered) student, click on the student's name to proceed with their registration
- If the student name is blue, this means they have an active pre-registration form submitted and waiting for review
- Selecting the student's name will take you to review their form
- Always recommended to also verify birthdate and Middle Name, just in case
Current or Former Record
If the student you are searching for is only found once as the indicated (Pre-registered) student, then there is already a live student record for a student matching your criteria
- Always recommended to also verify birthdate and Middle Name, just in case
- Chances are this student is the same or has been found, a new enrollment record for the academic year they want to register for
- If so, an enrollment record needs to be added for the future year
- If so, the primary contact needs to be provided a reset portal access key to get back onto their previous parent portal account
- The parent will then continue registration using Custom Forms as opposed to Pre-registration.
- Need to manual pre-register a student and get the process started for a parent? Select Pre-register student. This will navigate to the Create a New Student search page to get started. This pathway for registration is called Office Initiated, where the office starts the process. VIsit Online Registration Workflow: For Parents (Parent Initiated through visit to the office) for more information.
No Duplicates?
Proceed with pre-registration!
If using DecisionInsite, the first step is to confirm and Set the School Site a student is requesting to register for.
If you are not using Decisioninsite, you may proceed to the next section. Once the parent requested to register, the form automatically is sent to them to get started along with their portal access key information.
- By default of the request to register, the Local School will be of the site provided by Decisioninsite. The school site has to be set before a form can be sent.
- If using DecisionInsite, there is an option to collect a parent's Other Preferred School site. This is a "good-to-know" detail on if a parent would like a different site than want is designated, however does not confirm any site information.
- You can select select under the Loca School select a Designated School Site in the dropdown. By default, this does populate when the Local School is set. However, this does provide opportunity to change the site to a different one.
- To mass select records to set the school or send the pre-registration form, select all the records and its appropriate checkbox.
This area is auto-save once a school is designated. Up until this moment, the Designated School site can be changed. Once a form is sent, the site cannot be changed until after the student record has been approved.
At this point, parents have received an email to register for the portal and wait. Notice that School Review is a status showing the school is reviewing their request. Any additional changes to tehir status will notify them via email immediately upon a change has been made. The portal becomes their hub to continue the registration process.
If using DecisionInsite, after the school has been sent the form must then be sent.
If you are not using Decisioninsite, the form was already sent to the primary contact requesting to register. You should see a status of New Form in the Form Status column. You are able to move forward to the next section.
- Select the checkbox to choose all of the records you wish to send the pre-registration form to.
- In the Mass Actions menu below, select Send Pre-Registration Form.
- Select Action to confirm sending the form to all selected records.
A message will appear to confirm what you are trying to do. If you changed your mind and want to go back, just select Close.
To confirm, select Submit.
If the form was able to be successfully sent to the selected students, a green message bar will appear at the top. Now all you have to do it wait for the form to come back to you.
If you don't see this message then most likely the student record wasn't set to a designated school site.
At this point, parents will have received an email that a New Form is available in their portal via email. Upon entering the portal, they will notice a status change to New Form and the ability to Complete the pre-registration form.
If a Pre-Registered Student was assigned to the incorrect grade level (either by the parent's choice or office workflow), this can be edited using the Mass Actions tool.
- Select the Pre-Registered Student
- Click on the drop down menu under "Select Mass Action" and choose Change Grade Level
- Click the Action button
- Choose the Grade Level
- Click Submit
Note: A warning message will appear indicating that parents will need to start over with their Pre-Registration after changing forms.
Grade Level can only be changed on the Manage Pre-Registered Students page if the student has not been approved. If the student has already been approved, the grade level can only be changed by editing Enrollment History.
*If the Pre-Registration form is different from the original grade level to the new grade level, the form will change to the one tied to the new grade level selected.
When a parent completes and submits each of their student's designated form, it will come back to Manage Pre-registered Students for review.
If you haven't already setup Notifications and Emails for Pre-Registration and Custom Forms, now is the chance! Visit Online Pre-Registration: Permissions and Notifications to learn how.
Other statuses available help to see where in the process the parent is with the form.
You can use Filters to narrow the records you wish to review or keywords such as Ready to begin. Search for 'Ready for Review' or filter with 'Non-Approved' to see all non-approved statuses
To review a record, select the Student Name to begin.
By default, when you enter a record for review it is the Page by Page or Details of the form.
- Review and audit the information that was entered by the primary contact. Select pages as you go to review and it will autosave for you.
- You can also just choose to Save & Next Page which is similar to the parent experience in the portal.
- Want to see a different view? Select View Summary/Print.
This view allows for a Scroll and See option when auditing and reviewing. At any time you can select Edit to return to the Details page to review.
Scroll down to view all pages.
The last page of any form will have the following options to choose from as part of your approval needs:
- Approve
- Form Incomplete
- Requires Additional Information
If you wish to print a paper version of the form, select Print to do so.
At this point, parents will have received an email that there form is Under Review. Upon entering the portal, they will notice a status has changed. They are unable to open or change the form since someone at the site is reviewing the information.
But what do we choose? Great question and great moment to come together and talk as a team about what each of these statuses may mean to your registration needs. It is recommended to create an Online Registration Guide as to which information is required and optional to collect to consider the various approval options.
There are three different approval options to choose from for each student record that comes in: Approve, Form Incomplete, and Requires Additional Information.
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Approve means that the form and information are correct.
- When the form is approved, a student demographic, contact, and any other information collected is created instantly.
- The student is considered enrolled for the academic year they registered for.
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Form Incomplete is an option to request more information from parents and send a message to them saying that there are areas of the form that are incomplete.
- This is a powerful option because it unlocks and sends the form back to the parent, allowing them to complete what is needed and send it back.
- You can do this option as many times as you wish to get the data requested complete.
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Requires Additional Information notifies the parent that in order to complete registration, they must come to the school site.
- If physical copies of documents are required in your process, this button locks the parent from the form and tells them to visit their school site to complete registration.
- Great recommendation for students who are EL, SPED, or have information where more review is required.
- Some sites even use this to share a calendar link for parents to schedule an appointment to come in and visit one-on-one with a staff, principal, or counselor if need be.
If selecting Approve, you will need to approve and confirm the enrollment date for the academic year they are registering for. It will default to the first day of the term.
- For current year pre-registration, it will default to the first day which is probably surpassed. You will need to change the date to the first day of school.
- For future enrollment pre-registration, it will default to the first day of the future academic year. No need to change anything, since that is the official start date.
Once approved, the student record becomes live in your site, complete with a Student Demographic, Contacts, and any other information collected records.
The student's status will be set to Approved.
Form Incomplete allows for requesting parents to add or edit information before approving the form. The form is re-opened for the parent to continue to complete and can resubmit.
Once the status is changed, you will notice Form Incomplete is the new status option which is also considered marked Non-Approved.
If marked as Form Incomplete, the parent will see the change instantly in the portal. The status will change to Form Incomplete, along with a message provided by the person who marked it incomplete. Parents are prompted to Review/Edit Form.
It is helpful to the parent to include as much information as possible for them to fill out that form as best as possible. Adding extra information such as "On Page 2, please add an additional contact" would best explain to the parent why the form is incomplete.
If selecting Requires Additional Information, you will be prompted to include a message to parents on what their next steps are.
The student record can only be approved by a staff member. Notice the student's status changes to Requires Additional Information.
Parents cannot change details or information in the form and must visit the school site to complete registration. This is a great option for sites who want parents to book one on one meetings with counselors, staff, or turn in physical documents not made into an electronic form. Some organizations consider this is the fastpass line for parents since it is more of a quick turnaround than a parent who does not have anything complete.
Next Steps
The approval process may take quite a while! As student's are being registered and approved, remember you can always visit Pre-Registration Forms Audit Log to review information that was submitted and changed.
Looking for attachments? Once the student is approved, any and all attachments are available. Visit Online Registration Attachments to learn more.