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📝 Back to School Checklist

Updated this week

With the new school year approaching, ensure a seamless SmartPass transition. Here’s your comprehensive guide to a smooth rollover — it shouldn't take more than an hour.

Looking for Back-to-School Training? Click here to sign up.

1. Update Rooms 🏫

Update room configurations in SmartPass to reflect any changes for the new school year.

  1. Reassign room(s) to the new teacher(s) if assignments have changed.

  2. Rename/edit teacher and staff locations for those who have departed, and add your new teachers' rooms.

  3. Adjust any room visibilities you have set to include new students. You may use this setting in rooms such as a Walking Pass or Cooldown Pass

  4. Add any rooms for passes you want students to use this year.

💡Tip: Rather than deleting classrooms and remaking them for the new teacher, consider renaming the classroom as to retain settings such as Closest Rooms, Time Limits and Room Restrictions.

2. Add Bell Schedules and Accept Classes 🗓️

Adding your bell schedule(s) in SmartPass unlocks a ton of capabilities, including teachers having their current class roster on their home screen, faster pass creation since students/teachers won’t have to select an “origin” anymore, and teachers can look up where any student is currently located.
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The 🕘 Schedule Editor in your admin account is ready for the new school year! We've built a fully self-serve experience so you can set it up exactly how you need, modified days and all.

If you had your bell schedule in SmartPass last year, you still need to use the Schedule Editor to create your 2025-26 schedule.

  1. As an admin, click the Schedules tab and enter the Schedule Editor.

  2. Add your school year and create your (first) regular schedule.

    1. Create regular days, holidays, and add regular day rotations and holidays to the calendar

  3. After your regular bell schedule is complete and published, your teachers can begin to accept classes and rosters.

  4. If you have another regular bell schedule to add, go for it! SmartPass supports multiple "regular" schedules for schools that have different schedules per grade, etc.

  5. Modified schedules will be available through this same process later in the year.

Note: We are still refining the Schedule Editor tool. If you encounter a bug or unexpected behavior, start a live chat to talk with our team or report a bug to [email protected].

Have more questions? Read the guide to get started.

3. Review Data & Adjust Settings ⚙️

Double-check settings like Pass Limits (including individual pass limits), Encounter Prevention, and No Fly Time. Make any necessary adjustments to align with your school's policies and safety measures for the upcoming school year.
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Now is also a great time to dive into last year's data using your analytics to help guide you!

4. Schedule PD Training 🎓

Once you have made all of your settings changes, be sure to consider if your staff need a refresher training. It may also make sense to have new staff attend a SmartPass training as well.
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SmartPass Academy offers pre-recorded training sessions for admin, teachers, and clerical staff to help ensure you have a smooth start to your school year.

SmartPass Academy

5. Check Your Integrations 🔄

If using G Suite...

Follow these steps to roll over your SmartPass <> G Suite integration.

1. Roll over students and staff accounts

  • If using Multiple organizational units (OU) for each grade level...

    1. Remove any inactive or graduated students' OUs.

    2. Add the OUs for incoming students.

  • If using School-level OU...

    1. Ensure that the inactive students are removed from your school's organizational unit

    2. Add the incoming students to the OU.

  • If using Google Groups to sync information...

    1. Remove the groups for inactive or graduated students

    2. Contact us if you need to add new Google Groups.

2. Share classes from Google Classroom (optional)

SmartPass now supports displaying class rosters on teacher homepages! Please reauthorize the sync to share classes from Google Classroom..

If using Clever...

Follow these steps to roll over your SmartPass <> Clever integration.

  1. Update your SIS: Make sure your SIS is up-to-date with accurate student, teacher, and admin data for the new school year.

  2. Sync data with Clever: Set up automatic data syncing between your SIS and Clever to ensure that your digital resources are always up-to-date.

  3. Archive old data: Use Clever's Data Browser to archive old data that is no longer relevant for the upcoming school year.

If using ClassLink...

Follow these steps to roll over your SmartPass <> ClassLink integration.

  1. Update user profiles: Add incoming students, remove graduated or inactive students, and update teacher assignments as needed.

  2. All done!

If Rostering with Spreadsheets...

Follow these steps to get your accounts in SmartPass updated.

  1. Fill out this template to send us account information for all of your incoming students and new teachers (email address, first name, last name, and password).

  2. Send the file to our support team.

Switch to an Integration
Consider switching to G Suite, Clever, or ClassLink for next year. Integrations allow new students to get added to SmartPass automatically. Switching to an integration takes <1 hour.

6. Explore New Features and Tips 🚀

Check out a few of the latest SmartPass updates. If you aren't taking advantage of these, now is a great time to do so!

Kiosk Login Export

Looking for a way to help set up your kiosks for the start of the year? Use the new Export Kiosk Login button.


Not using kiosks yet, learn more here!

Max Passes From A Room

Max Passes From A Room is a great way to support teacher who need it, and help align SmartPass with you building policies. This feature allows you to establish a max number of students allowed to leave a classroom at a given time.
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To learn more, check out this article on how to set it up, as well as best practices around this setting.

Tips and Tricks

We recently add a resource to our Help Center completely dedicated to helping you get the most out of SmartPass. Explore tips and tricks on on everything from scheduling exams, to utilizing kiosks.

Tips and Tricks

Flex

If you haven't heard yet, we completely overhauled Flex. Flex is a tool designed to drive visibility, engagement, and accountability across all student activities before, during, and after the school day.
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Explore what Flex is all about here.
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Need Help Walking Through These Steps? 🙋‍♂️

We'll be hosting Back-to-School Webinars every Tuesday in August at 12pm EDT to provide live training and walk through the rollover process.

Register for the Webinars

Join us for open Office Hours every Thursday in August at 2pm EDT to ask questions and collaborate with other administrators.

Register for Office Hours

FAQ

Where can I get a quote to renew my SmartPass subscription? Please reach out via live chat. They will be able to provide you with a quote for renewal.

Related Articles
Teacher Overview
Room Usage and Staff Usage Reports
Late Arrival and Early Dismissal Passes
Using Kiosks
Supporting Teachers In Their Classrooms
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