Security Administration for Families and Pupils

While the heading of this section refers to “Families and Pupils”, in fact, it is only pupils that are assigned login permissions. The permissions are then assigned to them or their parents. Thus an important point to note at the start is that it is not possible to set up different access for different parents of the same pupil. That means that if one parent can see the pupil’s profile, all the pupil’s other parents will see the same information for that pupil. This is also true for pupils linked to multiple families.

Login Group Principles

Unlike staff permissions, pupils can only belong to one security group. This can be changed individually, per pupil, or can be set for a whole class. Note that giving staff permissions to change permissions for a whole class should be cautioned against since they might inadvertently override a permission group for an individual that they might not be aware of.

Managing Login Groups

Navigate to the Pupils tab, and under the Security heading is an option to Manage permissions groups. Clicking on this link, brings up a list of security groups:

Next to each group is an option to edit, disable or manage the privileges of the specific groups. At the top of the table is an option to add a new login group.

If a pupil is a member of a disabled group, even though their login will be successful, they will not see anything when they login to ADAM.

Adding or Editing a Login Group

The information required to add a new group is very simple.

Simply provide a group name and, if you wish, an optional group description for the group. The description is not used anywhere, but may serve as a reminder to you or another administrator of the purpose of the new group. The group name is used to refer to this group in other places in ADAM, so it is important that it is clear and conveys its meaning well.

Two “No information” message boxes are also shown. These messages are shown on the login screen to a user who does not have permission to see any information on their login, an example shown below:

If you are creating a permission group that is meant to give access to a parent or pupil, then ADAM will ignore these messages entirely as soon as one of the permissions gives permission to a parent. These messages are only displayed to a parent if no permissions are granted to the pupil.

If the group is meant to block access, then this message can provide context. It would therefore be possible to have different groups for different reasons. If a parent hasn’t paid the school fees, one could assign them to a group specifically to address that issue, as opposed to a pupil who has perhaps been suspended due to disciplinary issues.

Please note that if a family has multiple pupils and each has no access but from groups that have different messages, each message will be concatenated together (although no duplicate messages will be shown). Additionally, these messages will only be shown if NO pupil or family information is permitted to be shown in the profile. Where a family has multiple children and one has access but others don’t, these messages will not be displayed.

Once done, click on Save this Pupil Group.

Managing Permissions

If you click on the option to manage a group’s permissions, you will see a list of available pupil permissions, including any options that might be already selected for the group. Most options include a description of what they allow, but there are a few issues to note.

Most options in the list will have separate tick boxes for “Pupils” and “Families”. There are some exceptions to this, however, where this distinction doesn’t make sense. For example, it is never possible for a pupil to see into their parents’ document repositories or see records of communications sent to parents.

The first option is the most important since it governs whether the pupil’s record will show in the portal or not. Everything else can be ticked (all “Pupil” and all “Family” options in the lists that follow), but the pupil will simply not appear. An example of how this might be used: in a prep school, families are allowed to see some information, but there is no reason for a prep school pupil to log in. Thus the “Pupil” option at the top would remain unticked. This means that even if they did log in, ADAM would show an error message explaining that no information is allowed to be shown.

Assigning pupils to login groups

When a pupil is first added to the database, their account is preemptively assigned to the default permission group as configured in Site Settings. This can be changed but be aware that this setting will only impact pupils who are added to the database after the change is made.

Changing the default group

Navigate to Administration → Site Administration → Edit the site settings. On the Security tab of the settings, scroll down to the heading Pupil & Family Login and change the setting Default pupil & family login privileges to reflect the appropriate group. Any additional groups that have been added to ADAM will also show.

Save the settings once you’re done.

If you wish to change permission groups for pupils who may already be on the system, this can either be done individually or by class. Both are discussed below.

Assigning pupils to groups individually

Navigate to the pupil’s information page and click on the “Login Privileges” section. You will see the current permission group that has been assigned to the pupil, an option to assign a new group and, below that, a history of the pupil’s permission changes:

To assign a new group to the pupil, simply select it from the dropdown list at the top of the page, enter a note if required, and click on the “Update Permissions” button.

Assigning pupils to groups by class

From the Pupil tab, look under the Security heading and click on the option Change permissions groups for a class.

Choose the class of pupils whose permissions you would like to change.

In the list that is shown, you will see the pupils’ current permission group as well as a potential new permission group that will be applied when you click on the Save changes button. If the “Current Group” column is blank, it is because the pupils have not yet been assigned a permission group.

You can either go and change individual pupils or use the option at the top to update all pupils to a new permission group. You can add a note, if required.

Once completed, click on the Save changes button.