As you move into the 2nd half of your school year, and likely a new term as well, ensuring SmartPass is properly set up and using the data from your hall passes can help set your students and staff up for success. Here’s your comprehensive guide — it shouldn't take more than 30 minutes.
1. Check and Update Terms 🗓️
If your school is using the Schedules feature and you have classes that change or rotate at a new term you will want to ensure terms are properly set up. If you are not using schedules in SmartPass you have nothing to worry about here.
Head to Bell Schedule on the left.
Click on the school year on the right side.
Check existing and/or add any and all terms you need.
Learn more about editing terms here.
2. Review & Accept Classes 🏫
Now that we know your terms are set up properly you will want to ensure all of your classes are accepted and done so with the correct terms, days and periods selected. Things to consider:
Who has permission to accept classes?
If you want teachers to handle this themselves, make sure you’ve toggled on the appropriate permissions.Are all of your pending classes accepted?
Head over to the Classes tab to double-check that everything is up to date. If your SIS has not sent over classes for your new term yet teachers will want to accept those classes when that happens. If you or your teachers need a hand with accepting classes be sure to check out this how-to.Are there any errors when making passes for students?
If so, teachers may need to verify that they’ve selected the correct periods, days, or terms. Note: If you’ve just added terms, they’ll also need to edit their classes to assign the appropriate terms.
3. Use Data to Make Informed Decisions 📈
Moving into a new term is a great time to explore your data. Using this data can ensure you are being proactive about your student's movement.
Consider targeting the rooms that are the busiest destinations on your Room Usage Report on the Analytics Page. You may determine you need additional hall monitoring or an adjustment the max passes allowed to that room. For example, if you find that your 1st floor RR is very busy, you can head to that room on the Rooms Page and adjust the Max Passes to restrict how many students can be there at a given time.
Explore which classrooms have the most or least passes leaving from them using the Room Usage Report on the Analytics Page to inform you on how teachers are using SmartPass with fidelity. Outliers on the high end may indicate too many students are leaving that room, while outliers on the low end may indicate the teacher is not using SmartPass with fidelity.
With the Frequent Fliers Report on the Analytics Page you can quickly identify which students may be leaving too much, or for too long. With this data consider making Individual Pass Limits for students to ensure they are not spending too much time in the hallways.
For Pro and One customers, use your weekly Detected Encounters Report to establish Encounter Preventions for students who are meeting up to help you be proactive and prevent any issues from arising. We usually recommend checking this report at the start of each week.
FAQ
If I am not using bell schedules do I need to worry about terms and classes?
If you are not using bell schedules, no need to worry about either of these.
Do I need to do checklist this each time a term changes?
If you set up your terms ahead of time, and your staff accepted all of their classes for each term already then you shouldn't need to do much, however we do recommend checking to make sure. Just remember, term changes are a great time to review your data.