Rise School Communicator

Overview

Rise School Communicator is a mobile app for your school to communicate with parents. It is available for iOS and Android, easy to download, and free for parents. With Rise School communicator, you can both talk to parents one-to-one and inform all the parents of school updates, events, resources for important videos and documents, and other. What's more, parents are can see all the paid and due fee balances on one-on-one basis, and you can send them invoices right from the app.
With Rise School Communicator, Schools decrease queries from parents on payments: parents can see their statement in the app. As soon as payments are matched to the students in the Bank Stream, it will reflect in real time on the parents’ mobile smartphones in the school communicator billing feature. The Billing feature also shows Payment history and Past invoices.

Working with Rise Communicator in the System

How to Work with Settings

  1. Go to Quick menu > Settings.
  2. On the Company info tab, in the Company name field, specify your school’s name.
  3. On the School tab, insert the District office and School type.
  4. Click Upload logo to upload your School’s logo.
You can change School name and School logo at any time in the Settings form.

How to View the Rise Communicator App Stats

  1. Click Home page at the bottom left corner.
  2. Under Quick actions you can access News, Events, Resources, and School staff.
  3. On the Home page under the School communicator stats you will see the following stats of your School:
  • Mobile users. How many parents have downloaded Rise Communicator.
  • Linked to members. How many parents were linked to the financial information and can view their children’s statement information.
  • Not linked to members. How many parents are not able to view live billing.
  • Members. How many learners are currently uploaded into RSM.
  • Linked. How many learners were linked to parents.
  • Not linked. How many learners were NOT linked to their parents.
  • Staff. How many teachers and admin staff members have downloaded the app.
  • Assigned users. How many of them were linked to the Rise Communicator.
  • Unassigned users. How many of them were not linked to the RSC.

Linking students

Schools can set up the required info for the parents to enter when they link themselves to the financial records of their children in the Communicator. We recommend that you have at least 3 attributes, and they need to be available in the system.
To set up the required linking info:
  1. Go to School and click Linking attributes.
  2. Select the checkboxes to add the fields that parents will need to fill in Rise School Communicator.
The fields you selected will appear in Rise School Communicator. For example, if you select Surname and Birth date, parents will have to fill the surname and info of their child to sign in to Rise School Communicator.

Channels

You can create channels by Grade, Class, Subject, Extramurals – it is up to you. Your school will be able to send specific news / homework posts / updates to different channels. Only parents that are subscribed to a specific channel will receive posts for this specific channel. The ones that did not subscribe to this channel will not receive the communication for this channel. Your school will be able to create as many channels as needed.
For example: 1. Parents that are subscribed to the Choir Channel but not the Soccer Channel will receive choir-related information and not soccer-related information. 2. Parents that are subscribed to both Choir and Soccer Channels will receive both choir and soccer related information. 3. If parents select the Grade 1 Channel, they will receive Grade 1-related information once it is posted directly into that specific channel.
Note: If you want to post News, Resources, Events for ALL channels, no channel should be selected.
To create a channel:
  1. Go to School and click Channels.
  2. Click Create.
  3. Enter the Description.
  4. To make a channel visible to school staff only, select the Private checkbox. Parents cannot follow such channels. The checkbox is available if the Use private channels checkbox is selected in the School settings (Quick menu > Settings > School).

Channel subscription manager

Channel subscription manager allows you to edit the list of subscribers to your channels (add or remove subscribers). This function only works once parents download the app and are linked to their respective children.

To access the manager, go to School > Tools.

The workplace is devided into two parts. The upper part contains the list of channels and shows the number of subscribers in each channel. The lower part shows the list of subscribers of the selected channel and their emails.
To edit the subscribers:

  1. Go to School > Tools.
  2. Select the required channel in the upper part of the workplace.
  3. Click Select subscribers.
  4. To add a new subscriber, select them in the list on the left, and click > to move them to the right table.
  5. To remove a subscriber, select them in the list on the right, and click < to move them to the left table.
  6. Click Finish.

The list of subscribers will be updated.

Assigning Mobile Users to Staff Members

In addition to being a School Communicator for parents, schools can also use it as a School Staff app. For School Staff to use it as a School’s staff app, kindly download the app onto your smartphone.
You can keep the list of all your staff members: teachers, admin staff, bursars, and others, and assign different rights to them in the Communicator.
To create a staff member:
  1. Go to School and click Staff.
  2. Click Create.
  3. Enter the Name, Position, Phone, and Email.
  4. Under Mobile user, start typing your name and surname as you’ve registered on the app.
  5. Select the related system User.
  6. Select the related counterparty of the School staff type.
  7. To disable a Chat function to prohibit parents to directly message those staff members through in RSC, select the Disable chat checkbox. The Chat function is a one-to-one communication and can be used to directly discuss outstanding school fees, or any questions or concerns that the parents might have.
  8. To allow a staff member to update info for ALL classes and ALL channels, select the Full access for Rise Communicator checkbox.
  9. Go to the Classes tab to assign a specific class or classes if you will need to update info for a specific class.
  10. Go to Channels tab to assign channels to update specific channels.
  11. Once the above is done, go to the app, exit the app, open it again, and you will see that an additional School Staff section has appeared. Now you can create News, Attendances, Incidents and Mark Sheets from your phone.

News

New are events happened in your school you want to share with the parents. It can be, for example, a success story of a student, some changes in the timetable, or even something urgent, for example, a class dismissal. Parents will see the news you create in Rise School Communicator depending on what channels they follow.

Creating News from the System

  1. Go to School and click News. Alternatively, click the News icon under Quick actions on the Main page.
  2. Click Create.
  3. Edit the Date if necessary.
  4. Enter a Title and the text for your news. Under Mobile preview on the right, you will see what parents will see in the app.
  5. If it is something very important, select the Alert checkbox. In this case, the title will be displayed in red for extra urgency and importance.
  6. To attach a file, click Attach file, select a PDF file from disk, and click OK. If you have a Word Doc, save it as a PDF by choosing PDF under Document type.
  7. Select the Channels the news relates to. Only parents following these channels will see the news.
  8. Click Save to save the news as a draft or Post to post it in Communicator.
For each news, you will see whether it is posted or not, and how many people saw and liked it.
On the Rise Communicator app you will see how many parents have viewed the news post and how many have liked it.
To delete news:
  1. Right-click any news and click Toggle deletion mark.
  2. Click Delete at the top.
  3. Select the news you want to delete and click OK.

Creating News from the App

  1. Go to News and click on +
  2. Add your Title and Text for the news.
  3. You can take a photo if needed.
  4. Press the Preview tab to see what it will look like on the parents’ side.
  5. Press Save and press Post.
Note: for parents to see the news, it must be posted.

Creating Incidents From the Mobile App

To create an incident:
  1. Press Add Incidents and then click +.
  2. Select a Class.
  3. Go to the Students tab. Press the arrow opposite the numeral 1.
  4. Select the students who were involved in this incident. You can select as many as you require.
  5. Press Done in the top right corner. You will see all the selected students on the Students tab.
  6. Press the Transgressions tab. Press the arrow opposite the numeral 1.
  7. Select the checkboxes opposite the relevant transgressions
  8. Press Done in the top right corner. The transgressions will reflect under the Transgression bar with points.
  9. Press the Preview tab. You will see all the details of this specific incident: Date, Class, Educator, Learners, Transgressions with Code & Points (individually & a total amount).
  10. Press Save to save your incident.
  11. Check all the details to make sure that everything is correct. Then press POST.
Note: for an incident to reflect in the system and parents to be informed about it, it must be posted. Once posted, the incident cannot be edited any longer. After you post an incident, the learners’ parents under this Incident will be automatically notified privately of this incident via a push notification of the Rise School Communicator.

Creating Attendance Record from the Mobile App

To create an Attendance record:
  1. Go to the main menu and press the “+” sign in the top right corner.
  2. Press Class to track attendance of this specific class and select the class you require.
  3. Choose Absent for the learners who are absent.
  4. To insert the reason for absence (if you have it), press the arrow opposite the relevant learner.
  5. Press the Reason for absence field and type the reason for absence.
  6. Press Save. Press Post. You will see the created attendance record.
Note: you will not see it in the system if you don’t post it.

Creating Mark Sheets from the Mobile App

To create a Mark sheet:
  1. Go to the main menu.
  2. Press My marks sheet.
  3. Press the “+” sign in the top right corner.
  4. Add a Date, Subject, Mark type and select a Class.
  5. Press the student to add a mark.
  6. Press Save. Press Post. You will see the created mark sheet in the app and in RSM.
Note: you will not see it in the system if you don’t post it.

Events

Events are the future activities you want to inform your parents about. You can schedule such events and specify time and date when they'll take place. For example, you can inform the parent about the upcoming exam or a future holiday. Parents will see the events you create in Rise School Communicator.
To create an event:
  1. Go to School and click Events.
  2. Select a particular day and time on the Planner tab or click Create on the List tab.
  3. Choose or edit the From and To date and time for the event.
  4. If the event takes the whole day, select the All day checkbox.
  5. If you want to inform parents about a holiday, select the Holiday checkbox.
  6. Enter the Description and Comment, if necessary.
  7. Select the Channels the event relates to. Only parents following these channels will see the news.
  8. Click Save and close.
On the List tab, you can see the number of views and if someone selected RSVP in the School Communicator for this event.
On the Planner tab, you can see the list of upcoming events by day, week, or month.
The Screen shots below show how the Events will show up on your parents’ mobile smartphone. Parents can also indicate if they will be attending a specific event by selecting Going? A push notification reminder will be sent to parents a day before the event if they have opted to attend.

Resources

To save data for parents, your school will be able to post links to resources, such as Google Docs, PDF’s, links to the school’s website, presentations, and YouTube links. This is a major difference between What’s app where one has no choice and still uses data for the incoming video and media posts. In case of the Communicator, parents can choose when to open the link to view the resource.
There is no limit as to how many links you can post. You can also attach as many PDFs as you need. Just remember that PDFs take some space, even if not a lot in terms of data.
Note: when you post Resources, no push notification goes out to parents. Parents receive a push notification when school creates and publishes News. Schools create a News post to alert parents about the published Resource post.
To create a resource:
  1. Go to School and click Resources.
  2. Click Create.
  3. Edit a Date if required.
  4. Select a resource type: File or External link.
  5. Depending on the resource type, add a File or enter the URL.
  6. Select the Channels the resource relates to. Only parents following these channels will see the resource.
  7. Click Save and close.
To delete a resource:
  1. Right-click any resource and click Toggle deletion mark.
  2. Click Delete at the top.
  3. Select the resources you want to delete and click OK.