Jun 17, 2026

Global maintenance for parent and student records NOTE: There are two collections of parent/student detail.  The Parent Booking application maintains a collection of parent/student detail where the parent has self registered and entered their own student information.   Other SOBS applications like Notices, Attendance, Permission Slips and Detentions will use a set of parent and student […]

Managing parent and student details NOTE: There are two collections of parent/student detail.  The Parent Booking application maintains a collection of parent/student detail where the parent has self registered and entered their own student information.   Other SOBS applications like Notices, Attendance, Permission Slips and Detentions will use a set of parent and student details imported […]

Archiving and restoring old booking rounds Overview Once an interview round is finished it can be archived to keep your Booking rounds list tidy without losing any data. Archived rounds and all of their bookings remain in SOBS — they are simply hidden from the main list and can be restored at any time. Archiving […]

PT: Checking tickets Overview For interview rounds where parents are issued tickets, SOBS includes a built-in QR code scanner that runs in a web browser on any device with a camera. Staff at the entrance to the venue can scan each parent’s ticket as they arrive — the scanner confirms the booking, records the arrival […]

Chatting with the parent about their booking Overview SOBS includes a built-in messaging thread that lets staff and parents exchange short messages tied to a specific interview booking. Either side can start the conversation, and the other party receives an email (or SMS, where no email is available) with a secure link back into SOBS […]

May 8, 2026

Pre-booking Interviews (Push Request System) Pre-booking automatically creates interview appointments on behalf of parents, based on the meeting requests generated by the Push Request process. Instead of parents selecting their own times, the system allocates a compact block of consecutive (or near-consecutive) appointments for each family. Your first question might be: “Why would you do […]

May 4, 2026

Push Requests — Booking on Behalf of a Parent If a parent is unable to book online — for example, they do not have access to email or require assistance — a staff member can book on their behalf directly from the push request list. The system temporarily switches to the parent booking view, allows […]

Push Requests — Parent Booking When a parent receives a push request invitation, they click the link in the email or SMS message. No login or password is required — the link authenticates them automatically and takes them directly to the booking page for their child.\   Receiving the invitation The parent receives an email […]

Push Requests — Sending and Resending Once your push request list has been reviewed, you are ready to send invitations to parents.   Send operations and contact rotation Each parent in the system may have more than one contact method — for example, a primary email, a second parent’s email, or a mobile number. The […]

Push Requests — Generating Push Requests Once student, parent, and timetable data has been imported, the system can automatically build the push request list. Generation creates one push request entry for every student/teacher combination in the selected year levels. Before you generate Confirm that the import has been completed successfully and that the data reflects […]

Push Requests — Import Process NOTE: The simplest form of running your interviews is to ensure a current list of teaching staff, and then allow parents to self-register, select the teachers they wish to meet with and select available time slots.  If your school is keen to send the parent a One Click Booking email, where […]

Apr 9, 2024

UPDATE: April 2024 we implemented the ability to include multiple different sessions, as might be run on a student free day.  After creating the booking round you can then add multiple Session Titles.  Lastly you configure the time slots for each session.  You can run the same session multiple times by creating multiple time slots.  […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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: […]

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 […]

Mar 1, 2021

One Click Booking (Push Requests) These are requests that we will send to the parent asking them to make a booking to see a specified teacher.  This might be an individual teacher or a collection of subject teachers.  The parent receives an email – they click the button on the email which opens their favourite […]

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 […]

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 […]

Jun 4, 2019

June 2019: We rolled out the first iteration of “Late Bookings”.March 2026: Documentation review 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]