This is the definitive guide to accompany your Admin/Portal training or to use as a quick reference guide for advanced administrator tools. This guide will break down the advanced concepts into several sections so that you can start at the beginning and work your way through, or you can reference each section as need be. Here is what will be covered in this article. 

• Setting Permission Levels for Admin Users and Other User Account Settings.
• Email Accounts and How to Set Them Up
• How to Send Signup Links
• How to Set Up Alerts
• Client Settings and Portal Setup

User Account Settings

Setting permission levels for admin users

Now is the time to quickly revisit a concept you learned in our Overview 1 training; the difference between the Admin site and the Portal. Remember the Admin site is for behind-the-scenes data management for your office’s day-to-day operations and requires permissions to access. The Portal is where all users, such as parents, teachers, donors, volunteers log in to access information. It is their role with the school that dictates what they have access to. It is very important to understand that only admins with permissions to the Admin side will ever be able to access it. All non-admin users will access the portal and DO NOT need to have permissions set up for them, nor will they be able to access the Admin without permissions. This is a key concept with BigSIS and one we want to solidify as you are learning the system! To revisit this concept in more depth Click Here and review our Portal vs. Admin section.

NOTE: When you start with BigSIS we will grant a few admins, based on your preference, access to the following System menu so that those individuals have access to set permissions for other users at any time. We commonly refer to these admins as Super Admins. Once you have decided should have Super Admin permission access, or if you need to add permissions to an existing user, follow these steps. If you do not have access to this menu you should stop and consult your Super Admin.

1. On the left navigation menu, click System > User Management > Manage Users.
2. From the Manage Users table, edit the user record whose permissions you want to change (either double-click on the user or select the user and click the blue Edit action button).
3. In the User record, there are several checkboxes under the blue “Permissions” header. Selecting and deselecting these checkboxes sets different permissions for users. 
   PRO TIP! For more information on each permission level, you can hover over the blue question mark to the right of the permission. 
4. When your selections are complete, click Save. 

Other user account settings

Learning how to set permissions is our first step, next is to learn more about what you can find and edit in a user record. Let's start by exploring the user record from the top of the Edit User screen.

1. The Username field will tell you the current username for this user. For more information on how to edit a username see Changing a User's Username.
2. The Person drop-down menu shows the person this user is tied to. If a user is tied to the wrong person you can edit by selecting the correct person from this menu. 
3. Person Default Email Address shows the default email address for the user. This is important because this is the email that a forgotten username or password will be sent to if they use the Trouble Logging In option on the login screen.
4. The status will let you know if this user is Active (highlighted in green) or Inactive (highlighted in red). 
   
   • If a user is Active you will see a red button labeled Disable User. You can use this to disable a user if necessary. This will mean the user will no longer have access to login to the Portal and the Admin (if they have permissions for the Admin).
   • If a user is Inactive and needs to be made active, click the green Enable/Unlock User button.
     NOTE: You may need to enable a user account if they lock themselves out. This occurs if a user enters their password incorrectly 5 times. After they lock themselves out a Super Admin will need to enable their account for them. Remember, the user can request a username or password from the Trouble Logging In option on the login screen.
5. Change Password is an expandable field that will let you enter and confirm a new password for this user.
   PRO TIP! We HIGHLY recommend that you reserve this option for instances where you are helping a user who is having difficulties with requesting their current password. In most cases, you should always direct a user to the Trouble Logging In option, but if completely necessary, you may use this option. If you use this option, always remind the user to change this password in their My Account tab once logged in.
6. Email Accounts is another expandable field that will show all of the email accounts this user is tied to. We will cover more on email accounts later in this article.
   
   

Impersonating a User

Impersonating a user is an extremely useful tool for seeing what a portal user will see. This tool allows you to see exactly what a portal user will see and can be helpful for several reasons. For example, if you want to see what a specific parent or any parent might be seeing in the portal, you can impersonate them. If you want to see what a specific teacher or any teacher might be seen in the portal, you can impersonate them. In this article, we will show you the steps for impersonating a user from the Manage Users screen. For the steps to impersonate a user from the person record sees Impersonating a User. Keep in mind, you cannot impersonate admins on the admin side.

1. Go to System > User Management > Manage Users.
2. Search for the user you wish to impersonate.
3. Select their Username and click the Impersonate button.
4. Click Impersonate Person and you will be brought to their portal view.

Special Note About Deleting a User vs. Making Them Inactive

Deleting a user is something that we typically will not recommend. If a user has been created, the user is most likely tied to several areas of the system and, at the very least, is tied to a person. With this in mind, BigSIS will NOT let you delete a user that is tied to a person record. You would need to take several steps to allow this, we highly recommend that you make the person inactive as this will restrict the user's access to the Portal/Admin side (if they have permission).

Email Accounts

If you would like to send email from BigSIS you will need to set up an email account. 

Click Here for Information on Email Accounts in BigSIS

Click Here for Information on How to Connect Gmail Using OAuth (Direct Connect)

Signup Links

At no time will BigSIS automatically make a person a user account. As an admin, you decide who to send signup links to and when. This also allows how a user chooses to access BigSIS whether it's creating a username and password or single sign-on (Facebook or Gmail). Below are detailed steps on how to send signup links. 

How to Send Signup Links

Sending signup links can be done from both the People table and the Enrollments table. The steps to send the signup link are the same, the only difference is you will only be able to send them to parents and students from the Enrollments table. When sending signup links from the People table you can send to any person necessary (e.g., employees, teachers, volunteers, donors, etc). Keep in mind that each signup link is unique and cannot be reused more than once.

 From the People table:

1. Select the records you want to send the signup link to.
2. Click on Communicate > Send Signup Link. This will take you to the Send Signup Link page. NOTE: If this screen shows a message stating “There were no email addresses to send to.” then you have selected users who are tied to an existing user or who are missing an email address to send the link to.
3. On the next screen, you can select and preview the templates types to use for the signup link.
   PRO TIP! The admin template will have separate links for the admin permission/role access.
   
   
   Special note on markers: We discussed how email markers are specific to the table you are sending the email from. For signup link emails you will notice a few common markers like {{Firstname}} and {{Lastname}}. The very unique email marker you will see is the {{SignupLink}} marker. This marker has to be included in a signup link email! Without this marker, the recipient will not have a link to click on. This marker will be replaced with a link that will say Signup and this is what they will need to click on to follow the steps to sign up. If this marker is not included the recipient will simply have no signup link to use.
   
4. Once the template you want to send is ready, you can preview the email or generate and send.

Alerts

BigSIS has a variety of email alerts your admin community can use to make sure you are notified when a change or certain action occurs in the portal. For example, perhaps your team would like to be alerted when a new inquiry comes in, or a new online donation. There are a variety of email alerts you may set up. Here are the steps to get these set up!

NOTE: when you set up an alert you will need to tie a Distribution List to it. A distribution list is a list of users that will receive Alerts triggered by different events in BigSIS. For more information see Distribution Lists.

How to set up an Alert

1. Go to System > Settings > Alerts. Click the New button.
   
   
2. Select the Alert On from the list for the type of alert you are creating.
   
3. Now, select "Email" as the Output Type.
   
4. Then, select the Distribution List from the drop-down menu, this will tell BigSIS who to send the alert to.
   
   We do have a Distribution List table, but it's often quicker to add and/or edit Distribution Lists by choosing either combo box in the Distribution List field. 
5. Now, Select the email account where BigSIS should send the email from.
   
6. When you are finished, click the Save and Back button. 

Client Settings and Portal Setup

Client Settings

Client Settings are a host of different settings Super Admins can control. This myriad of settings ranges from what academic year to show in the Admin or in the Portal, health record options, attendance options, donation options, and much, much more. This section will teach you how to locate the Client Settings menu but we will not go through each setting. We will reserve more detailed discussions on specific settings in various articles and training sessions as necessary. However, we highly encourage you to take a moment and explore what options you have. Although we will discuss specific settings when appropriate it will go a long way to your learning this system if you spend a little time exploring what settings you have. We guarantee you will find some that you might want to change now! 

1. Go to System > Settings > Client Settings OR click on this icon on your dashboard.
   
2. Select the tabs to see and customize the variety of options for that module that portal users will see from widgets to tabs.

Portal Setup

Portal Setup will allow you to decide which tabs are active in the portal, edit tab titles, and edit snippets (messages shown with each portal tab). Remember it is the role that a person has that dictates if they will see a tab in the portal, not Portal Setup (e.g., a teacher will see the teacher tab but a parent who isn't a teacher will not).

How to Control Different Portal Tabs: Choose what tabs to show for each role.

1. Go to System > Settings > Portal Setup.
2. Click on the tab you wish to make active/inactive to expand the settings.
3. To make the tab active, check the Show in Portal checkbox. To make inactive, uncheck the box.
4. Click the Save button in the tab you made the changes to. 

How to Insert Snippets: A snippet is a message you can provide as a friendly reminder for parents/teachers.

1. Go to System > Settings > Portal Setup.
2. Click on the tab you want to add a snippet to.
3. Click the Activate Snippet button.
4. Click the Refresh button at the top left of the Portal Setup page (not your browser window refresh button).
5. Now click the correct tab again and click the Edit Snippet button.
6. Write what you want into the textbox.
7. Click the Save or Save and Back button. 

How to Change Tab Headings in the Portal: You can customize the current headings into what works for your school.

1. Go to System > Settings > Portal Setup.
2. Click on the tab you want to rename.
3. Type the new tab title into the Display Title in the Portal field.
4. Click the Save button in the tab you made the changes to.