Asking more questions

Aug 30, 2023

We are regularly asked if it is possible to ask additional questions when a parent makes a booking using the Parent Booking application.  For example, when a parent is booking for an enrolment interview, a frequent question is in regard to the school (or pre-school) the child was attending prior to enrolling.  Similarly, a confirmation […]

Group bookings

Mar 23, 2022

Suppose you want to run some groups, perhaps tutoring, perhaps to play games, for debating, or just for discussions.  We want out groups to have four students each.  Each group is allocated to a random staff member.  How do we do this? Setting up Start with an MAI booking round – this allows multiple students […]

Exceptional booking

Sep 29, 2021

For the most part booking within SOBS is straight forward, a staff member has available time slots, and as the parent selects each time slot we automatically block them from booking the same time with another staff member, or the same teacher twice.  However, there are times when exceptional booking should be available, allowing parents […]

Locking down parent access

Aug 23, 2021

While the parent booking application allows the school to define ‘Open’ and ‘Close’ dates for parents to be able to access a booking round, we also needed a method for defining a current round but blocking parents from accessing it. The easiest method was to simply hide the booking button from the parent interface. So, […]

Moving a Booking Round

Aug 9, 2021

Moving a booking round is a complex task. For example, what happens when the original date range encompasses five days, but the new date range is only three days long – what happens to the additional time slots and bookings? Warning: if you are starting a new booking round, never reschedule a previous round. Use […]

Extending a Booking Round

You can easily extend a booking round by editing the booking round schedule. See this video for the simple steps: https://vimeo.com/582911895 This method works perfectly when you are extending the date range. However, if your new schedule does not include the original dates, then magical things begin to happen. See this help article for more […]

How to setup Microsoft Outlook to subscribe to SOBS

Aug 6, 2021

Firstly, start by copying the subscription URL from SOBS. Click on your name (in the bottom left corner) Click on “Profile” from the menu At the bottom of the profile you will find the “calendar subscription URL”, copy this URL (the whole line) Open up your Outlook Calendar On the Home tab, in the Manage Calendars group, and click Add […]

How to setup Google Calendar to subscribe to SOBS

Firstly, start by copying the subscription URL from SOBS. Click on your name (in the bottom left corner) Click on “Profile” from the menu At the bottom of the profile you will find the “calendar subscription URL”, copy this URL (the whole line) Open up your Google Calendar page Ensure the main menu is visible […]

How to setup Apple Calendar to subscribe to SOBS

Firstly, start by copying the subscription URL from SOBS. Click on your name (in the bottom left corner) Click on “Profile” from the menu At the bottom of the profile you will find the “calendar subscription URL”, copy this URL (the whole line) Start your Apple Calendar application From the “File” menu select “New calendar […]

PT: Limit parents to a single staff selection

Aug 2, 2021

More often with primary school interviews the parent will be limited to selecting just a single staff member (or class) for each student. With secondary school interviews by default we allow parents to select multiple staff for each student. You can change this option. From the booking round settings page location the staff selection row: […]

How to print your interviews

Jul 25, 2021

Select the booking round from those available. Click on the row to drill into the booking round settings. Scroll down to the “REPORTS” entry and click this row. A dialog will appear displaying a number of report options. Select the report you want. To view your bookings select “View by staff” – depending on the […]

PT: Push requests

Mar 1, 2021

When running regular parent/teacher interviews there are on occasion parents that we want to book interviews in order to discuss aspects of their child’s education.  To achieve this end we can configure a ‘push-request’ that will be emailed to the parent requesting them to make a booking. Where are Push Requests valid? Push Request are […]

PT: Scheduling your first round of interviews

May 4, 2020

Running your first round of interviews can be somewhat daunting to begin with.  It’s a new system to learn and may take you a little while to learn the idiosyncrasies of this particular application.  Be assured however that we have designed SOBS to be easy to use and will give you as much help as […]

PT: LOTE & Translators

Jul 17, 2019

This option is for parents who struggle to communicate using English. The school can configure a list of translators they have available, allowing them to be booked as the parent makes their bookings. Configure the translation services you have available Select the “LOTE translators” menu entry. This will display a list of existing languages and […]

PT: Late Bookings

Jun 4, 2019

June 2019: We rolled out the first iteration of “Late Bookings”. We introduced late bookings to help manage the parents who were ringing after the booking window had closed. Sometimes there were valid reasons, sometimes they were just a few minutes late, however often they were the very parents that the teachers were wanting to […]

PT: Multi-campus configuration

Feb 27, 2019

If you are using a multi-campus implementation of SOBS applications, you can connect the Parent Booking rounds from satellite campus’ to the main campus. Essentially this means parents will only need a single URL to make bookings at each campus. If you are using just a single school for SOBS then you don’t need this […]

PT: Instructions for staff and parents

Feb 1, 2019

Instructions for staff These instructions will assist your staff in marking their availability / unavailability.  There is also instructions on creating and managing time slots for those booking rounds where staff have the option of creating their own time slots: staff-instructions.pdf Instructions for parents These instructions will assist parents with the following steps: Accessing the correct […]

PT: Using staff locations

Jan 23, 2018

If your interviews are all in the same location then you don’t need to use the location option, however if your interviews are located in different areas around the school then locations will help parents find the room / teacher they need to meet with quickly and easily. Loading your interview locations Login as a […]

Volunteer bookings

From the very beginning we have been keen to utilise the Parent/Teacher interview booking system for so much more than just booking interviews with teachers.  Over the years we have added booking with pre-selected staff for career counselling and enrolment interviews.  We also added event management to help with booking seats for school performances.  We […]