User Account Management Overview

Username Conventions

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. See more on Username Conventions.

Create a Single User Account

Before creating a user account, make sure the person does not already have a user account by running a Veracross User Accounts query from the System homepage.

1. Run a Find Person query from the Main page and click on the record of the person for whom you are creating an account.
2. On the person’s detail screen, click the Action menu and select “Create VC User Account.” This will prompt you to verify that you really do want to create a user account. Click Ok.

When a user account is created, the Veracross person roles will determine which default security role is assigned. For example, if a person has a role of Staff when the user account is created, the system will generate a default security role of Staff_1 for that person.

This person will also have the account status “Account Setup Needed.” Next, a welcome email needs to be to the user, which will provide a link to a page where he or she can select a password and finish setting up the account.

Create User Accounts in Batch

See the documentation on Batch User Account Management.

Set or Change a Security Role

1. Run a Veracross User Accounts query from the System page.
2. In the Security Detail column, click on the Security Admin link for the person whose security role you would like to change.
3. On the Person Security detail screen, click on the Security Roles tab and select (or deselect) the appropriate security roles for the person.

Users logged in at the time when their security roles are changed will need to refresh their browser to see the update to their access to the database.

Read more about the different security roles in Veracross here.

Rename a Parent, Student, Staff, or Faculty Account

1. Run a Veracross User Accounts query from the System page.
2. In the Security Detail column, click on the Security Admin link for the person whose username you would like to change.
3. On the Person Security detail screen, type in a new username and click “Update Person Security” when finished.

Please note that schools integrating with Active Directory/LDAP will not be able to update usernames within Veracross for synced accounts. Instead, the change must happen within Active Directory.

Convert a Parent Account to a Faculty/Staff Account

Since we have two different kinds of user accounts (parent portal accounts and faculty/staff accounts), you will need to do the following if you wish to add faculty/staff security roles to someone that has a Parent of Applicant, Parent of Future Student or Parent user account:

1. Ensure that the parent has the “Staff” person role from their person detail screen.
2. Run a Veracross User Accounts query from the System page.
3. In the Security Detail column, click on the Security Admin link for the person whose security role you would like to convert.
4. On the Person Security detail screen, click on the Action menu and select ‘Convert Parent Account to Staff Account.’
5. Still on the Person Security detail screen, click on the Security Roles tab and select additional security roles as desired (such as Staff_1 or Faculty_1) in addition to the Parent, Parent of Applicant, or Parent of Future Student security role.
6. Contact your Account Manager if you encounter any issues with this procedure.

Once a Parent account is converted to a Staff/Faculty account, the employment tabs appear on their person record.

Managing Account Statuses

All user accounts have one of the following statuses:

• Disabled
  The user account exists, but is disabled. The user will not be able to log in to Veracross.
• Portals Login Disabled
  The user will not be able to log in to Veracross Portals; however, API authentication is still enabled.
• Enabled
  This is the standard status for the majority of users. The user can log into Veracross.
• Password Expired
  You can set this status on a particular user to force a password change next time he or she logs into Veracross.
• Account Setup Needed
  This status is only set for newly created accounts that have not yet been activated with the initial login. Once the users receive a welcome email, they can click the included link to go to a special page to select their own passwords. Once this step happens, their accounts are set up and the status changes to Enabled.

Passwords

No characters are restricted from passwords that are created.

You can give one or more users the account status Password Expired to force them to select a new password upon login. This can be done via batch update in a User Accounts query.

You can also force passwords to expire automatically. See more about managing password expiration here.

Automatic Account Creation

Veracross will automatically manage the creation of parent and student accounts during the school year. After the first day of school, new parents who have custody of a current student and have Portal Access permissions, or who have students with a current grade and the student role specified will automatically prompt the creation of accounts. This automation only works for parents and students who enroll after the start of school.

In addition, the VC Welcome email can also be triggered automatically if the parent or student role, Send VC Welcome Email parameter is checked on the Person Roles query via the System Homepage.

Accounts Needing Setup

When accounts are created and welcome emails are sent, recipients have three days (72 hours) to use the link within the welcome email to set up their accounts by choosing a password. After three days (72 hours), the link can no longer be used. When an expired link is clicked by a recipient, the user will be taken to a page with a message informing the user that the system will send another copy of the welcome email that can be used to set up the account.

Removing User Accounts

Veracross will automatically remove Parent and Student security roles in certain cases when the school year is closed. These cases include:

• Student: The person no longer has a Student, Future Student, Program Student, or Future Program Student person role
• Parent: The person is no longer related to a current Student, Future Student, Program Student, or Future Program Student

The close school year procedure automatically changes roles for those people who have become alumni and former students.

And the inverse is true: No automated process removes user accounts for Students/Parents who withdraw or graduate – only a process initiated by the school will remove those accounts. During the school year, after the student’s Exit date, and even after the final day of school, the user accounts for Alumni, Former Student, Parent of Alum, and Parent of Former Student people must be removed manually, which gives schools control over parent/student access to portals throughout the year.

In final consideration, user accounts for leaving/graduating students and their families are only removed under three circumstances: (1) Manually removing a user account 1 by 1 for individual people, (2) Batch removing user accounts for Former Student/Alumni people may be done whenever desired via the System homepage “User accounts” menu, and (3) When running Close School Year, that also removes user accounts for Former Student/Alumni people in batch.