Operations troubleshooting

Library, transport, inventory, procurement, and the vendor portal - who may actually change each one, and the settings behind the usual complaints.

Getting started guide for day and boarding schools.

Last updated August 29, 2026

Operations is where the difference between seeing a module and being able to change it bites hardest. Leadership can read almost everything and change surprisingly little: a Principal browses the library but cannot run the desk, and views inventory but cannot move stock. Read the two access lines below before reaching for a data fix, because a large share of these tickets are somebody being shown a screen they are not allowed to act on.

Permission problem or configuration problem?

A permission problem in operations usually shows as a screen that loads normally with the action buttons missing or refused, and it depends on two separate fields: the role name on the account and the staffType on the employment record. Library and hostel decisions read staffType; transport, inventory, and procurement read the role. A configuration problem shows as correct-looking screens with empty or stale data - no duty running, no TRN fee type, no stop fee, no vendor row - and looks the same to everybody. If the person in front of you has the highest role in the school and still cannot act, look at staffType at /school-staff before anything else.

Who may change what

Area	May view	May change
Library catalogue and desk	Teachers, librarians, and staff whose staffType is Admin, Principal, VicePrincipal, or Librarian	Librarian staffType and Platform Admin only
Transport back office	Platform Admin, Principal, Vice Principal, Support Staff - Finance, and the office Admin role	Platform Admin, Principal, and Vice Principal only
Inventory	Platform Admin, Principal, Vice Principal, Support Staff - Purchasing, Support Staff - Facilities	Platform Admin, Purchasing, and Facilities - not Principal or Vice Principal
Procurement and vendors	Platform Admin, Support Staff - Purchasing, and vendors for their own records	Platform Admin and Support Staff - Purchasing

Daily transport

Symptom	Cause	Fix
No live bus for families	No trip is in progress	Live status only exists while a duty trip is running. Drivers start theirs at /transport/duty; the office watches /transport/day-sheet.
Driver cannot start a trip	Another trip is already in progress for that vehicle	Only one in-progress trip per vehicle is allowed, and a completed trip cannot be restarted. Close the earlier trip first.
Charges disappeared when a pupil left the bus	Ending an assignment waives unpaid months	Unpaid pending, overdue, and partial transport instalments for that assignment are waived automatically. Paid history is kept.
Reservations and old records still pile up	The daily job is not installed	Library reservation expiry and the transport and conversation retention purges all run from scripts/run-school-cron.sh.

Common questions

Quick answers in plain language.

A Principal can open the library but cannot issue a book. Is that right?+

Yes. Browsing the catalogue, lending history, and analytics is open to teachers, the office Admin and leadership staff types, and librarians. Changing anything - catalogue edits, the circulation desk, reservation fulfilment, and library settings - is limited to accounts whose staffType is Librarian, plus Platform Admin. Set the staffType on the employment record at /school-staff.

How is an overdue library fine calculated?+

On return, as calendar days late minus the grace period, multiplied by the per-day fine. Working days and holidays are not considered. Both figures come from /settings/library, which also holds the loan period, the maximum books per student, the reservation hold period, and separate lost and damaged charges. Defaults are a fourteen-day loan, five rupees a day, no grace, and three books per student.

Why does a transport assignment not add anything to the fee ledger?+

Two conditions must both hold. The stop needs a monthly fee above zero, and a fee type with the code TRN must already exist at /fees/fee-types. The sync looks that code up rather than creating it and stops silently when it is absent, so an early assignment produces a bus seat with no charge and no visible error.

Which purchase orders need approval?+

The threshold is a fixed 500. A purchase order whose total exceeds it is created with status PENDING and waits for approval; anything at or below is created already APPROVED. Procurement and vendor records are limited to Platform Admin and the Support Staff - Purchasing role.