SDS:Manage pt.php

This is the SMUS parent/teacher interview module. There are several steps involved in setting up PT meetings. Please follow along as you go through each step.

Choose or create a PT session

If you're setting up a new PT session, you need to enter the name of the PT session, when parent signup should start and end, and whether comments should be allowed for the PT meetings. These can all be changed later. Signup end should be right around the start of the PT meetings, so that parents can't modify their meetings while the sessions are going on.

If you're modifying a PT session that already exists, simply pick it and click the "Manage Existing PT Session" button.

Setting up PT Sessions

Once you've created or selected a PT session, you're taken to the page where you can set up PT dates, select teachers, and configure meetings. There is help for each step on this page.

PT Basics

You can change the name of the session, the signup start/end, and whether comments are allowed from this section. Once you have changed your parameters, click the "Save PT Basics" button. If you want to scrap this session, click the "Delete PT Session Entirely" button.

Step 1 - Meeting Dates

This is where you set up each set of PT meetings. For example, you may have 2 different dates to choose from. You can have multiple dates on the same day, for example there may be a morning set of PT meetings and an afternoon set as well. Each date configured here will appear as a separate tab on the PT booking and meeting list pages.

You should not set up meeting dates for each available PT meeting slot. You will configure these later.

For example, if you are having three separate PT blocks (January 15 from 10:00 am - 2:00 pm, January 15 from 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm, and January 16 from 10:00 am - 2:00 pm) then you would set up three PT dates, one for each of the times mentioned above.

Step 2 - Teachers

Not all teachers are present for all PT sessions. You may be having a PT session for just specialty teachers, or just homeroom teachers, or some other set of teachers. Here, you pick which teachers will be present for the PT session. If a teacher will be around at all for the PT session, you should pick them here (you can set which PT dates they'll be available for later).

Step 3 - Meetings

This is where you start telling the system which teachers will be available on which day, and how far apart their meetings are. You also select which courses are eligible for meetings, as a teacher may not be giving PT interviews for all of the courses they teach.

First, you should select which courses the teacher is doing interviews for. Hold CRTL and select courses for each teacher, then click the "Save Eligible Courses" button at the bottom of the page. This step is important, as the parent portal will automatically figure out which teachers the parent needs to meet with based on the courses selected here.

Second, you should set up meeting slots for each teacher. Each teacher that you haven't set up yet will list each PT day and give you some options you can tweak. You can set when they're available (some teachers may not be available for the whole PT date) and you can change how long their meetings are on each day. If a teacher is unavailable for a specific date, set the start and end times to the same time and no meetings will be generated for that teacher on that day.

You can create meetings en masse by clicking the "Generate Meetings For All Teachers" button at the bottom of the page. Alternatively, you can do each teacher separately to make sure you get things right.

After generating meetings for a teacher, the view changes slightly to show you all of the meeting slots that a teacher has available for a day. You can give the teacher a break by deleting some meetings to create a gap. Click the "x" beside a time to scrap that individual meeting.

Fixing Mistakes

There are several options to fix mistakes. You can delete the entire PT session and start again using the "Delete PT Session Entirely" button at the top of the page. You can also delete one PT day and recreate it if you'd prefer by clicking the "Delete" button beside the PT date. You can remove a teacher (and their meetings) by clicking the "Delete" button beside the teacher.

For individual meetings, you can delete a teacher's meetings by clicking the "Delete Meetings for this teacher" button after you've set up some meetings. You can delete all meetings set up so far by clicking the "Delete Meetings for all teachers" button at the very bottom of the page. These buttons only show up after you've set up some meetings.