SchoolBridge Permission Slips & Student Forms

With SchoolBridge you can easily create digital permission slips as well as general purpose forms that can be used to gather any kind of information from caregivers and students. Forms can be sent in bulk to users, or you can create forms that students and caregivers can self-start. Because SchoolBridge has a direct connection to your student management system, it is easy to send permissions slips and form to your groups, year levels, classes or you can create custom groups

Permission Slip = Settings + Form

An important concept to understand is that as a staff member, you don't need to design the form that collects information from your recipients. All you need to do is set the options that determine who receives the form, who can action it, if payment is required and for how long it remains active and then you simply choose the form that matches your purpose from the pre-built library of forms.

Permission Slip vs Self-Start Forms

You can create forms that you send to multiple recipients at once, like a permission slip for a school Trip or a survey you want to send to all caregivers. In SchoolBridge we refer to these as "Permission Slips".

You can also create forms that caregivers and students can self-start, like a form that requests permission to allow a student to drive to school or laptop loan agreement that caregivers can submit. When a Student or caregivers Signs in they will see a "start form" button that when clicked, will show them the list of forms available for them to start.

When you send a permission slip your recipients receive an email notification or a mobile alert if you use the SchoolBridge app. Tapping the notification link automatically signs them into schoolBridge and loads the form in question where they can read all of the details, fill in the attached form and give their approval.

On the status page, you can monitor the responses, see who has paid and send reminders to those who have not yet responded.

Self Start Student & Caregiver Forms

When you create a self start Student Form, Student or caregiver will see a "Start Form" button when they sign in that when clicked, will show them the list of forms available for them to start.

And just like with a permission slip, on the status page you will see a list of all of the submissions as they arrive and you receive a daily email notification alerting you to any new submissions.

Getting Started

From the main staff dashboard you can click 'Permission Slips and student forms' and that will bring you into the Permission Slips and forms are where you can see an overview of all of the Permission slips or forms you have created.

In the status column you can see the current status of the slip or form

Forms showing 'Draft' are forms that you are still working on and have not been sent or opened yet.

Forms that are 'Active' have been sent to caregiver or students, or can be self started by them depending

Forms showing the Expired badge have passed the 'Due-by' date and can no longer be actioned by recipients.

Forms set to closed are complete and are saved for archiving.

Creating a New Permission Slip

To create a new permission slip or form to send to multiple people, click the 'Create button from the main listing page.

The first step is to give it a name. This should be a name that is relevant to the purpose of the form like 'Year 10 Camp 2023' or 'Parent Survey 2023'.

Initial Options

After you have named your form, the next step involves setting some options that decide who can view and action the form.

The first option allows you to send a 'No action required' permission slip. This allows you to send caregivers an announcement about an upcoming event without requiring them to fill out a form or give approval. This can be useful for a sport team where parents have already given consent for the entire season, but you want to send them details about a specific event, without requiring them to action a form.

Viewing and Actioning

The next set of options allow you to choose who can view and who can action the form.

First you can choose if you send the form to the A residence caregivers only or both residence A & B as defined in your student management system. If you choose the residence A & B option, all four caregivers will receive the form, and whoever reacts first will be approver.

The next set of options determine who can view and who can action the form.

Make decision - grants the recipient the ability to fill out the form and give approval or decline the form

Save Only - allows the recipient to enter information to the form but they can not approve or submit it.

View Only - the recipient can view the form and the information entered by the opposite recipient, but they can not enter information or submit it.

Hidden - The recipient will not see the form at all.

In most cases you will set it so the caregivers are the form decision makers, but there are times when you want to capture information submitted by students, like ICT agreements.

Normally the information submitted via forms that you create will be visible to both caregivers and students, regardless of who was set as the decision maker.

The last option allows you to hide the form and the submitted information from either students or caregivers. When you choose this option, the designated group will not be able to see that the form exists, or view the information submitted.

Once you have decided on these initial settings, Click the 'Create' button

Additional Options

Clicking the create button will bring you into the status view of the form. Along the top you will see a row of useful status information that will display once your form is active. To finish setting up the form click 'Edit Options' This is where you can setup all of the specific options that determine when your form needs to be actioned and what needs to be captured.

Due Date
Setting the Due Date sets the date by which you want the decision maker to have responded to your form.

Event Date
The Event date is the date of the actual event. If you are creating a general-purpose form that is not tied to a specific event date, you can set this date to the same day as your due date.

Lock From Due Date
This lock option works in conjunction with the due date you set. When you keep this option ticked, after the Due date passed, caregivers and students will no-longer be able to action the form and will have missed their opportunity to submit it. If you uncheck this option, users will be able to action the form at any time until you manually close the form.

Send Automatic Reminders

This option will automatically resend the form 48 hours before the due date if the recipient has not yet responded. You can also send reminders manually from the status page.

Staff Member Responsible

The Staff Member Responsible setting allows you to send the form on behalf of another staff member. If you want the form to appear that it is being sent by someone else you can search in this field to choose another staff member.

Staff Attending

The Staff Attending setting allows you to add additional staff members to the permission slip or form. The staff member that you add will have access to the form and the data submitted.

Adding additional staff members will also allow you to create groups within the students you add to the permission slip, by assigning them to specific staff members.

Post Event FeedBack

The 'Post-event Feedback' option allows you to collect feedback from caregivers about events that their students have participated in. Ticking this option will automatically send a notification to caregivers five days after the conclusion of the event.

The notification will provide caregivers with a link they can click that takes them to a form where they can submit a star rating and give a comment.

Type

The type setting determines if the form is sent to a group of recipients in bulk or if you want to create a form that student or caregiver and self start. Setting this to 'Permission Slip' allows you to choose a group of users to send the form to all at once.

Setting this to 'Student Form' creates a form that students or caregivers can start themselves by clicking the 'Start Form' button that they see can see when they are viewing their own permission slips and forms. The language presented on the Student Forms is also slightly different depending on the type.

Permission Slips present the user with a button labelled 'Approve'

Student Forms present the user with a button that is labelled 'Complete'

Pre-Populate Form

The final step of the setup will be to choose the form that you want to send to your users and ticking the the "Pre-Populate this form" setting to will fill-in the users previous answers if they have used the same form in the past.

Especially with EOTC events you want to ensure that parents provide you with the most up-to-date information regarding health and safety issue, so please use the setting carefully.

Allow Caregivers/Students to Edit

Normally when a user submits a form it becomes locked so they can not change the information. This setting allows the user to make changes to the form for as long as it is open

Payment Options

The payment options allow you to collect fees related to your permission slip or form. The default setting is No Payment

KAMAR Payment Option
Many schools in New Zealand are set up to collect fee payment via the KAMAR portal. When you set this option, after a caregiver approves your form, they are automatically redirected to the payment page in the KAMAR portal without having to sign in. As it is not possible to load a charge in KAMAR from an external service, so you will need to ensure that you have added the charge you intend to collect from your users BEFORE you send the form.

Payment Gateway Option
The Payment Gateway option provides the most convenience for both caregivers and your admin team. Using this option means that caregivers can pay the fee quickly using their credit /Debit card immediately after giving their approval or submitting their form.

Payment Provider
The payment provider option allows you to choose the provider that will process the payments. The options here will depend on what your school has set up with your school's bank or other payment providers.

Amount
Enter the amount you want to charge the user and then set the minimum and maximum quantities.

Min and Max Quantity
The Max Quantity setting allows you to cater for things like school balls or tickets. For a normal permission slip you would set both min and max to '1'. For an event like a school ball, where the student has the option of inviting a guest, you can set the max quantity to '2', to allow them to pay for up to two tickets.

Staff Internal Notes

SchoolBridge provides several export and reporting options once your form is active and collecting data. Of particular value when conducting EOTC events is the 'event take along report. This report offers you a handy print out that lists all relevant student and caregiver contact information as well as health alert flags from your student management system. The text that you enter into this field will display on the first page of the Take-Along Report, giving you a handy place to note any front of mine issue that you want to highlight for yourself and the other staff members involved in the event.

Description

The text you enter in this field will be displayed in the email notification that the caregiver or student receives and also display to them when they sign in to SchoolBridge above the consent form. This should be used to provide the recipient with a explanation of the event or the purpose of the form. If you have more detailed information that you need to send, you can attach an additional Event Letter in the next option. The text you enter here will also display above the form when the user is filling it out.

Event Letter

The event letter option allows you to add additional detailed information that will accompany your form. The letter you attach will be sent with the email notification email sent to the user and also be saved in SchoolBridge linked above the form when they are filling it out. You can attach your own pdf file, or use the editor to create an event letter that will be converted to a pdf and attached for you. You can also opt not to attach an Event letter if this is not needed. The file you attach will also be saved and available for the recipient when they sign in to SchoolBridge.

Attached Form

The final setup step is to choose the form you want recipients to fill out. When you click the 'Choose Form Button' you will be presented with a list of the forms that are available for you to use. To choose a different form, click the 'Choose Form' button again and select a different form. If you don't see a form that fits your purpose, please contact your SchoolBridge administrator and they will be able to modify an existing form or create a new form to suit your needs.

Adding Recipients

Now that the options are set the only thing left to do is add the recipients.

Because of the nature of how information is stored in your student management system, and the relationship of students to caregivers, SchoolBridge adds recipients by adding 'Students'

Who has access to view and action the form is determined by the overall settings that were set when you first created the form.

There are several options for adding recipients to your form

Adding Students Individually
The Search option allows you to add students one by one to create a custom list. You can add as many students as you need this way by continuing to search and add names. Using the search field you can search for students by name, year level, tutor class or by their student ID.

Adding Student by Student ID
With the 'Bulk Student ID's' option, you paste in a list of student ID numbers and the system will automatically match and add the recipients.

Adding Students From Your Classes
The 'My Classes' option will find all of the classes connected to your staff account for you to select and add as recipients.

Adding Students by Group, Subject or Year Level
The additional options will allow you to add recipients by using the Group, Subject or Year level information stored in your student management system. You can add multiple year levels to groups by selecting more than one.

Viewing Recipient Details

Once you have added the students you will see the total reflected in the statistics at the top. You can hover your mouse over each student and their caregiver to view their details.

Missing Email Addresses
Caregivers that display in red do not have email addresses stored in your student management system and will not be able to receive email notifications.

Emergency Contacts
If the student has emergency contact details stored in your student management system, it will be displayed under the caregiver information and included in the event take along report. Permission slips and forms are not sent to emergency contacts.

Alert Flags
Any students with health flags will show a red exclamation point next to their name and hovering your mouse over this will display the information. This information is also included in the event take along report.

A green tick indicates that the 'EOTC consent' flag is set for the student in your student management system while a green document icon indicates that the EOTC Health Form Accepted flag is set. What these flags mean will depend on how your school uses them.

Removing Recipients

To remove a recipient, click the tick-box next to the student name and click the 'Remove selected' button. To remove multiple students, You can use the filter options to sort your list of recipients. You can select all of the student in the resulting list by clicking the very first tick-box

Be Careful
You should only remove students from a form or permission slip if you are absolutely sure that they should not receive the form. You should be especially careful if you remove a recipient after the slips has been sent or made active. Removing a student will delete any information that has been submitted for the form for that student or their caregiver.

Putting Students into Groups for the Event

You can divide the students you have selected into groups by assigning them to staff members. To do this you must add attending staff members in the option settings, and you can add additional staff members at any time. Each additional staff member that you add will also have access to all of the information submitted by caregivers and students.

To create a group, select the students you want to assign to a staff member and then click 'Edit Leader' and then the 'Choose Leader Option. From here you will be able to select a staff member from those you added.

The leader column for each student selected will update with the staff code of the selected staff member.

Creating Large Groups
To group a large number of students, you can use the filter options to sort them to find the ones you want to group. Once your list of students is showing, you can select them all by clicking the first tick box, then use the 'Edit Leader' option to assign the staff member.

Testing a Permission Slip

Once you have finalised your list of students and caregivers you can test the form by sending a test to your email account.

This allows you to do a test run of the options you have set to make sure your settings, description and event letter are correct. The system will send the notification to your staff email account as thought you are the caregiver or student recipient.

Sending a Permission Slip

Once you are happy with your tests you can send the permission slip by clicking 'Activate and Send'

When you click activate and send you will see a confirmation window that confirms your recipient settings and also allows you to choose to notify Caregivers, students or both. Users of the SchoolBridge mobile app will also receive an alert message on their mobile device.

Receiving Responses

Once the permission slip is sent, the recipients will receive notifications and can begin to action the form.

The permission slip will also be visible to them whenever they are signed in to SchoolBridge and they click on 'Permission Slips and Forms' icon from caregiver or student dashboard.

As recipients respond, the status column will change to indicate they have given approval. Hovering your mouse over the status badge you can view who gave approval. Hovering over a declined response you can view the reason the caregiver has given.

Viewing a Submitted Permission Slip
To see more details, you can view the full permission slip where you can see all of the information submitted.

Printing a Permission Slip
If you have a parent without internet access, you can generate a paper. Version of the permission slip using the Export to pdf option.

Additional Permission Slip Admin Options

There are several administrative functions that you can use for each student added to the permission slip. These actions will be saved for the student to be included when exporting the permission slips.

Mark as Paid
If you are using an external method of payment and you want record that payment has been made, you can use the 'Mark as paid option'

Verify
The verify option allows you to add your staff code to the students record to indicate you have verified their form.

Marking Attendance
You can use the attendance options to mark student attendance for the event.

Resetting a Permission Slip
The 'Reset decision' option allows you to reset the approval given by the recipient and allow them to submit the from again. When you reset a permission slip the caregiver will be sent a notification email informing them that it has been reset and they can sign back in and update the slip.

Working with Self-Start Student and Caregiver Forms

Self start forms work in a similar way to permission slips except that they are not ‘sent’. When students and caregivers sign in to SchoolBridge click on “Permission Slips & Forms”, they will also see a button ‘Start Form’ that allows them to start and submit a selection of forms that have been made available to them.

Creating and Setting Options
Creating a self-start form is similar to creating a permission slip except for a few key differences.

The due date and event can be treated a little differently. In terms of a self start form you can think of these dates as setting the length of time you want to make the form available for

For example, if you wanted to offer your caregivers a ‘Student Driver’ form to allow a student to drive their own car to school, you might have the form open from February to December to allow the caregiver to submit the form to you at any time during the year. To accomplish this just set the due date and the ‘Event Date to the same day. Since self start forms are not sent to users you can ignore the auto-reminder setting.

The only other setting that is different is the ‘Type’ setting. Make sure this setting is set to ‘Student Form’.

Activating
When you are ready to allow access to the form, you can click the ‘Activate’ button from the main status page. Once the form is active, users can find it via the ‘Start Form’ button or by adding the form as an icon on the dashboard. As users action the form, their submissions will appear in the list on submission listing view.

Submission notification Email
The staff member who is set in the options as the ‘Staff member responsible’ will also receive a daily email notification alerting them to any new submissions of the form.

Sending Reminders

If you have created a form with a due date and you are getting close to the cut-off date, it is easy to send reminders to the recipients that have not yet responded. As you can send reminders to recipients regardless of the status of their permission slip, you can use this feature to send updates and additional information to the recipients at any time.

Automatic Reminders
You can have reminders sent automatically but setting this option in the permission slip options. Setting this option will send a reminder notification to your recipients 48 hours before your due date.

Sending Reminders Manually
You can also send reminders at any time from the permission slip status view.

Manually sent reminders also allow you to add an additional notes to provide additional information to recipients in addition to your original description and event letter.

From the ‘Email Actions’ menu you have an array of options that quickly lets you choose who gets sent a reminder based on the current status of their permission slip.

The ‘Selected’ option allows you to choose the recipients manually by clicking the tick boxes or by using the filter options to select groups of recipients based on year level, groups, class and more.

Once you have filter the list of recipients, tick the top most select box to select them all and then choose the ‘Selected’ option from the ‘'Email Actions' menu.


This will invoke a verification screen where you can add an additional note to the recipient informing them that the due date is close and to please action the form.

Updated on: 05/04/2024