Users and roles setup

Create accounts in the right order, pick a role that actually grants something, bulk import from Excel, and link parents to children.

Platform & access guide for day and boarding schools.

Last updated August 29, 2026

Identity is the second thing you configure, after the academic year and before anything that references a person. Order matters because a role name is not a label here - it is the string almost every access check reads. Create the account with the right role first, then attach it to the roster record, then give it the assignments that scope its data. Getting this backwards means redoing the assignments.

Prerequisites

An active academic year, because teacher assignments are held per year.
Classes at /classes. A student with no class placement is invisible to the attendance register and to fee generation.
A working SMTP setup, proven at /settings/email-test, before any credential email is sent.

Order of work

Review the seeded roles at /roles. Both /roles and /users are Platform Admin only, at the page and at the API.
Create the Platform Admin and Principal logins first, one account per person.
Add teaching and support staff. A Teacher, Principal, Vice Principal or Support Staff role sets the user type to staff automatically, which is what puts the person into the staff directory and the assignment pickers.
For volume, use the Excel workbook on /users: a Users sheet, a Roles reference sheet and an Instructions sheet, with role names resolved to ids before the import is posted.
Add students at /students and place each one in a class.
Create parents at /parents last and link each to their children. Parents cannot link themselves.
Set the class teacher and co-class teacher on each class at /classes. Attendance follows those two fields.
Set subject and class assignments in Timetable, under Configure. /teachers/assignments is a redirect to /timetable?tab=teachers-assignments.

Routine tasks

Task	Who	Where
New teacher joins	Platform Admin	Create the login at /users, then the assignments in Timetable → Configure
Parent cannot see a child	Leadership or office Admin	/parents - add the student link, then have the parent reload
Staff member leaves	Platform Admin, Principal, Vice Principal	Deactivate the /school-staff record rather than deleting it
Forgotten password	The user	/forgot-password; an administrator can resend the verification email
Find who changed a record	Platform Admin	/activity-log, filtered by user, module or date, then export

Common questions

Quick answers in plain language.

Why does a new support staff user not appear in the teacher assignment picker?+

The picker lists accounts whose user type is staff, and that is inferred from the role name when the account is created. Teacher, Principal, Vice Principal and any role beginning with Support Staff map to staff. Roles such as Warden, Nurse, Security Officer and Transport do not, so those accounts need the user type set explicitly before they appear in staff directories.

Does giving a teacher a subject assignment let them mark attendance?+

No. The attendance register follows the class teacher and co-class teacher fields on the class record, edited at /classes. Subject and class assignments in Timetable → Configure control grade entry, which timetable slots a teacher sees, and which exam marking tasks reach them.

Can a Principal create user accounts or edit roles?+

No. /users, /roles and the APIs behind them are restricted to Platform Admin. A Principal or Vice Principal can manage the student, staff and parent rosters, run calendar operations and create committees, but cannot create logins or change role definitions.

Is the bulk import a CSV?+

No, it is an Excel workbook downloaded from /users. It contains the Users sheet you fill in, a Roles reference sheet listing the valid role names, and an Instructions sheet. Role names are matched against that reference before the rows are submitted, so a typo fails at the workbook rather than creating an account with no access.

How do I add staff users and assign roles?+

Create users at /users with the correct role template. Fine-tune capabilities at /roles if needed. Teachers need subject assignments at /teachers/assignments before attendance and timetable work.