Table of Contents
Thank you for your interest in Silent Dismissal. This page contains the information necessary to set up your school's program. Before working with the program, it is crucial to understand the structure of the application. Please take your time while reading, and feel free to contact our staff for assistance if you have any questions.
NOTE: This page applies to new clients. Existing clients should refer to the yearly conversion page for instructions about starting a new year with Silent Dismissal.
Using the wiki as your guide, the following information will have step-by-step instructions to assist in Silent Dismissal's initial configuration.
The Silent Dismissal system relies on five major user groups, the most important for setup and maintenance being the Administrator group. Once the initial invoice and payment have been processed, your school should receive the credentials for one administrative account. With this account, it will be possible to create user accounts for each faculty & staff member according to their role throughout the school day. For example, teachers with children in their classrooms would have Classroom user accounts and dismissal faculty would have Dismissal user accounts, etc.
Each user account type will have a unique view of Silent Dismissal that is tailored to the functions of their role. Administrators have the most access to data of all user account types, and it is recommended that office staff or the director(s) hold these accounts. However, our team is dedicated to providing a service that promotes integration of our service and our client's needs, so this can be decided at the school's discretion.
After the admin account has created the various user accounts to satisfy their school's demands, student lists can be loaded into the database either manually or by bulk. Groups, locations, and messages can then be added to the database so students may be assigned to them.
All of the data input into Silent Dismissal can be edited at a later date, with any exceptions being changed by contacting Silent Dismissal staff.
The first step in acquiring the Silent Dismissal service is to obtain a quotation and the associated invoice.
One of these four items must be completed to obtain service:
- Receipt of payment by Silent Dismissal
- Receipt of payment for trial period
- A purchase order or binding letter of intent to purchase. (Must include the number of licenses by type and the total purchase amount)
Once the purchase order has been processed, you will receive the URL for your school's Silent Dismissal site along with credentials for the admin account. The link should take you to a log-in portal for your school that looks similar to the image to the left.
The log-in credentials given in the e-mail are for the user account that will be performing each of the initial database creation tasks mentioned previously in the overview.
NOTE: To preserve the security of your school's site and avoid data breaches, it is good practice to change the admin account password after the first log-in. This process is described here.
Loading Initial Database
Immediately upon obtaining a quotation, the next step is to compile the required information to load into Silent Dismissal. While you will have the ability to manually create/edit individual entities like user accounts, students, etc. through our user interface, this information is best delivered bulk in a spreadsheet (ex. Microsoft Excel, Google Spreadsheets, etc.).
The four categories of required information are:
- Faculty & Staff Accounts
- Groups, Locations, and Messages (may be individually and manually created within the service, or loaded from a data file)
- Bus Stops (optional)
The exact fields of information required for your spreadsheet are described on the spreadsheet file format page. Please refer to this page before going further, as it will increase efficiency.
Initial Setup Review
After the data has been loaded, it must be reviewed for errors. To accomplish this, please perform the following tasks using the navigation bar at the top of the page from the admin account:
- Review the data
- Select REPORTS / DATA REVIEW / SET UP CHECK
- Select REPORTS / DATA REVIEW / POSSIBLE ERRORS
- Print parent tags
- Select TOOLS / PRINT TAGS / CLASSROOM
- Print student tags
- Select TOOLS / PRINT TAGS / STUDENT
- Select GROUPS / LIST BY TYPE / BUS
- Click on the roster count (it should be a number), then click Student Tags
- Verify faculty & staff user account access
- Select ACCOUNT / LIST
- With this view, check the Last Access column to verify user access
To assist in educating your faculty & staff on their account usage, please refer to these guides:
- Quick Start
- Best Practice
Student Bookbag Tag Holders
If your school will be scanning individual students as they leave the school, then you may want to order waterproof holders for each student. Here are links to some recommended products.
Testing and Training
You may want to test the operation of the service and allow dismissal and classroom staff the opportunity to experience their roles. Here are some additional instructions on performing a live simulation.