Caregiver Portal - Setting It Up

The Caregiver Portal is not a separate application, it is the same portal used by staff however it will behave differently based on the type of user logging in. When a caregiver logs in, unless they are also a staff member, they will be restricted to seeing only the children they are associated with. Just like staff, the controls caregivers see are governed by the "security user" they are following. It is possible to have different cohorts of caregivers seeing different controls... this is particularly necessary to restrict access to certain features based on court orders...

One of the powerful features of the caregiver portal is allowing them to pay for fees and other incidentals online. Setting up a Payment Portal takes some additional time and you need to work with a payment provider as PCSchool does not handle the secure transaction, this is left to companies who specialise in this field.  Click on this link Setting up a Payment Portal for further information. 

1. Establish a strategy for how you wish caregivers to use the portal. Establish a campaign to educate your users on it functionality and how you would like them to interact with it.
2. Decide what you want to give caregivers access to.
3. Ensure the caregivers belong to a security group.
4. Confirm the securities necessary and allocate to the security group.
5. Ensure they have a login name assigned. once checked, send these out to the caregivers along with the ability for them to create a password using the "User Management" control.

1) Establish a strategy

Have a strategy in place to advertise not only how to log into the portal, but what controls the caregivers are going to see. For some schools it may be a location for finding their child's school report, for others a preferred way to pay their school account. Some schools use a beginning of year caregiver meeting time to share this information whist other schools create online guides they email their caregivers. Be mindful that every year there is a new intake of caregivers so this process should be repeated annually. The following link takes you to a case study where the thinking behind Northcross Christian School's launch is discussed. You need to put in some basic registration details first however the video will play immediately. Webinar - Launching your Caregiver Portal

2) Decide what controls to allow access to

• Student Info Page - This gives the Caregivers access to a range of information, all governed by securities. These include Attendance, Documents (Assessment reports, receipts etc), Result analysis, medical information and standard information such as addresses. Each has its own security so you do not need to include them all

• Absence Notifications - The Caregiver can notify the school of any absence via the portal
• Parent Teacher Interviews
• Online Subject Selection
• Online Co-Curricular selection
• Calendar - They would not see all calendar entries - again just those they have securities for.
• Online Payments - Please click on the link above for help in setting up a payment portal.
• Quicklinks - This where caregivers can access eForms and other website shortcuts you add. The Quicklinks in the web application are the same as in the App.

3) Ensure the Caregivers belong to a security group

The Caregivers are usually assigned to a standard security group upon creation. However, not all schools have done this and it may be necessary to allocate these. Happily, these can be done in bulk.

If none of your Caregivers have a security then you can do this via Portal Administration > Manage Identity Securities

4) Allocating Securities to a Group

Now that you know what you want to make available you will need to assign the securities to the group.

Portal Administration > Manage Securities

5) Sending out Logins

It is advisable to check what a caregiver can see before sending out the invitation. We recommend you manually change the password of a caregiver and use their login to see what access they have. If you need to make changes, you must log out of the caregiver first, then log back in to see the changes. It is best to use a separate web browser when testing this as once a different user type logs into the same web-browser, the securities the previous user has gets super-ceded by the new user for that particular session. 

Setup & Utilities User Account Management