Creating Future Parent/Student Accounts

Overview

Some schools want to create user accounts in Veracross for Parents of Future Students and Future Students. Typically this is wanted in order to push the user accounts out to a third party vendor (most often the school website).  It is possible to create accounts for this purpose in Veracross, but users with the Future Parent or Future Student security roles will NOT have access to the Veracross portals. Only once users switch to become Parents and Students can they access the Parent and Student portals in Veracross.

Creating Accounts

Before creating any user accounts in Veracross, it is important that the username convention for each security role be reviewed to ensure the account usernames are created in the proper format. Check the “Security Roles” query on the System homepage to ensure the Future Parent and Future Student security roles have the naming convention you want to use. These should match the Parent and Student username conventions.

Learn more about setting Username Conventions.

To create user accounts for Future Parents and Future Students, use Action menu option on the System homepage in Axiom to run the following two procedures:

• Create Parent of Future Student Accounts (no Portals access): Creates user accounts for all Parents of Future Students. These user accounts will receive the Future Parent security role but do not have access to the Parent Portal. This can be used to create accounts before becoming Parents in VC for website integration or mail merge letters with user account information.
• Create Future Student Accounts (no Portals access): Creates user accounts for all Future Students. These user accounts will receive the Future Student security role but do not have access to the Student Portal. This can be used to create accounts before becoming Students in VC for website integration or mail merge letters with user account information.

Learn more about Batch User Account Management.

Assigning ‘Parent of Future Student’ Automatically

During the nightly scripts, Veracross will examine person records and automatically assign the ‘Future Parent’ security role to Persons who meet the following criteria:

• Must be related to a future student
• Must not already have the Future Parent security role or any of the SysAdmin security roles
• Must have legal custody of the student

If all three of these statements are true, the person will only then be automatically be assigned the “Future Parent” security role, and will be access the Future Parent Portal. The Future Parent portal does not come with the regular Parent Portal, and, should a school want this functionality enabled, they should speak with their Account Manager.

Sending Welcome Emails

Future Parent and Future Student accounts must be setup (by choosing a password) before they are able to be used. The link to setup the account needs to be included in the welcome email template when it is setup.

Welcome Email Text

To populate the body of the email to be sent to Future Parents and Future Students, edit the System Email Template that will be used. It is most likely that your school’s configuration will include templates titled “VC_Welcome_FUTURE_PARENT” and “VC_Welcome_FUTURE_STUDENT” but any email template may be used. These email templates can be populated to say whatever the school would like and can include the following merge fields:

• name_prefix
• first_name
• last_name
• nick_name
• year_applying_for
• username
• account_url
• person_pk
• household

The welcome email should include the {account_url} merge field as that link is used to choose a password and finish the setup of each account. In addition a note should be included notifying the user that they cannot access the portals (yet) with this account. Portals access is not available until they receive the Parent and Student security roles.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The body of this email should be carefully considered, as this will be the only welcome email that can be sent to these users through Veracross. If this welcome email is sent, the VC_Welcome_PARENT and VC_Welcome_STUDENT emails cannot be sent at a later date to the same users without some significant workaround (to avoid sending updated passwords over email). The system logs that a welcome email has been sent to someone, in order to avoid sending it a second time to a batch of people. A separate email using a distribution list may be sent to notify the users they can login to the Veracross portals once the accounts are changed to Parent and Student accounts, and that email will not include their username and password. It is important to make a thoughtful decision on what information to present when sending this welcome email.

Sending Welcome Emails

To send the VC_Welcome_FUTURE_PARENT and VC_Welcome_FUTURE_STUDENT emails, use the Action menu on the System homepage to run the following two procedures:

• Send Future Parent Welcome Emails: Sends a welcome email to anyone with the Security Role of “Future Parent”. If the only security role those users accounts have is “Future Parent,” then this is simple and they receive the email template configured for that security role. If however those user accounts have more than one security role, then which email template all Future Parent user accounts receive is determined by the relative precedence setting on those security roles. Read more about relative precedence for security roles here. Note: If this welcome email is sent, it will be logged as an individual event, and the VC Welcome PARENT welcome email typically can’t be sent at a later date to the same users (to avoid sending unnecessary duplicates).
• Send Future Student Welcome Emails: Sends a welcome email to anyone with the Security Role of “Future Student”. If the only security role those users accounts have is “Future Student,” then this is simple and they receive the email template configured for that security role. Otherwise, the same rules about Precedence settings apply as documented here.

Website Integration

If your school is integrating with a third party website vendor, please be sure to contact your website provider and ensure you have completed the necessary steps with them in order to make this work.