SmartPass Onboarding

This article is designed to help your school onboard and get started with SmartPass!

Updated over a week ago

Welcome to SmartPass! We look forward to partnering with you on your journey to smarter student movement!

This article will help you as you set up your school during the onboarding process. By clicking the arrow next to each heading you can expand the article to learn more. Once you are done with that section, simply collapse it by clicking on the arrow, and head on to the next!

If you ever need a hand, be sure to reach out to live chat in the bottom right hand corner, or reach out directly to your Customer Success Manager.

1) Log into Your Account for the First Time

First you will want to begin by logging into SmartPass by heading to app.smartpass.app

You will want to use the Admin login that was sent you to.


2) Rooms Starter Pack

When you first head to the Rooms dashboard you will see your Starter Pack. Here we will jump into what this includes, and what considerations to make when adjusting your room settings. We will also discuss adding to the starter pack. As you follow along, you may see links to other support articles to help you dive into that setting in more detail.

What and where is the Starter Pack?

When you head to your rooms dashboard, located on the left of your admin page, you will find we have given you the option to use a Starter Pack. This will help give you a jump start on building your school.

The rooms and basic configurations here are designed with best practices in mind, but it is important to note, you will want to configure this in a way that works for your school.

To add the Starter Pack to your school, simply click the + symbol. If you decide this is not for you, hit the X.

What is in the Starter Pack?

The Starter Pack of rooms consists of rooms and folders. The folders are indicated by the arrow next to the title, these folders will help you organize similar locations on your campus.

Restrooms and Water Fountains Folders

First up you will see your restrooms and water fountain folders. When you open the folders you will notice we have placed 2 locations in each folder. You will want to rename these to fit your building, and add any additional locations by using the "new room" button. Your end goal is to build each of your restroom and water fountain locations in these folders.

We have already configured a time limit, but please feel free to adjust for your needs. For restrooms, times of around 5-7 minutes are fairly common. For water fountains, 2-4 minutes is what we often see schools use.

The other item to adjust here is your max capacity. Adjust these to reflect the needs of your building.

Room Restrictions: We have adjusted these for ease of use, allowing students to generate and start their own pass without physical approval needed. If you need staff to approve restrooms and water fountains, or if you would like to learn more about room restrictions and how they work, head to this support article for more information.

Be sure to hit save when you finish any changes in rooms and folders.

Note: With locations like this, there is no need to add closest rooms or add teachers to the rooms.

Here you can see how to open, adjust and save your settings:

Nurse/Library/Main Office Rooms

The next 3 locations in your Starter Pack are all individual rooms.

When you open these rooms, feel free to adjust items such as time limit, counts towards pass limit, room number, and even the room name, color, and icon.

As with any location at your school that is staffed, you will want to make sure you add your nurse to the nurse, librarian to the library, and any clerical staff working in the office to your main office. To do this you would click "+ add" under the "add teacher" section.

Room Restrictions: For the nurse and library, we have these turned off, but in many cases you may want to consider changing the nurse and maybe even library to either "All Teachers In The Room" "This Room" to ensure only the staff member in that location approves passes, and to prevent students from showing up with a pass unexpected. If you decide this is for you, do this for both now and future. You need to hit save after adding your teacher before you can configure this setting. To learn more about how room restrictions work, click here.

For your main office we also have set the room restrictions off, if you need students to have approval for students to head to the office, be sure to configure those settings as well.

As before, once you have adjusted your rooms be sure to hit the green save button!

Admins Folder

This folder is designed to organize your principals, assistant principals and deans. We started you off with a principal and assistant principal. You can add or delete as needed. It might also make sense for you to rename these to reflect your staff's names. For this starter pack we chose to not count admin passes towards pass limits. Be sure to adjust this if you would like to do so.

You will want to make sure you add your admin to their respective rooms by heading to the "add teacher" section. Be sure to hit save before adjusting any room restrictions.

Room Restrictions: For admin, in most cases we suggest setting your admins to "All Teachers In The Room" "This Room" for both now and future to ensure admin are able to accept the student upon arrival. You need to hit save after adding them into the room before you can configure this setting. To learn more about how room restrictions work, head here!

Be sure to hit save when you finish any changes in rooms and folders.

Attendance Folder

By opening the attendance folder you will see we have started you off with "Late Arrivals" and "Early Dismissal" passes. These will help office staff manage student movement, while providing more detail to the purpose of the student's travel when compared to writing a pass to/from the main office.

You don't need to add clerical staff here for them to manage the room, but it might make sense if you have someone dedicated to managing these passes that you add them to the room by following the same steps as above.

As needed feel free to change any settings, but for the most part this should be set to use! Note, that these rooms are set to not count towards pass limits, so be sure to adjust as needed.

As before, when done hit save when you finish any changes..

Student Services Folder

Here you will find your counselors, social workers, and even your student services secretary. We understand many schools have different personnel, and terminology usage here. As such, be sure to add or remove rooms/locations in this folder, and rename it as needed.

We have set these rooms to not count towards pass limits, so be sure to adjust as needed.

Room Restrictions: As with your admins, the same process and recommendation for room restrictions would apply, so in most cases we suggest changing these staff members to "All Teachers In The Room" "This Room" for both now and future. You may decide to leave your student services secretary unrestricted though.

Remember, you need to hit save after adding them into the room your before you can configure this setting. To learn more about how room restrictions work, head here!

Once you have this set up the way you'd like, hit save, and you are good to go!

Classroom Folder

As you might suspect, this folder will contain all of your teachers. You can see we added one room in this folder as a template for you. Here you will build a room for each of your teachers.

Best practice is to add each teacher's room following the settings in the room we built. Usually schools name their classrooms based on the teachers name.

As you build your rooms be sure to add your teachers to each room following the steps above. You will want to add your room numbers, consider any closest rooms, and make any other small adjustments as needed.

Room Restrictions: For classrooms the same basic idea follows for adding teachers and room restrictions. Our recommendation for room restrictions in most cases is "Any Teacher" for now, and "All Teachers In The Room" "This Room" for the future. This ensures maximum security and flexibility for your staff. To learn more on room restrictions check out this article.

Tip: If you have a large campus, you can add multiple classroom folders and name them based on floor, hallway, department or even different buildings. You may even consider color coding these based on location.

If you are building a large number of rooms, you can check out the bulk upload feature here.

As with all of the other rooms, be sure to save each room and folder as you move along.

Things to Consider:

1) This is just a starter pack, you will want to add other rooms such as your cafeteria, gym, etc. Learn how to add rooms here.

2) We have designed this with particular colors to help differentiate locations. As you continue to build, consider using colors to organize.

3) Staff have to be added into their rooms to properly adjust room restrictions.

4) When setting time limits, always consider that it is best practice for students to end passes when they arrive, and create a new pass when returning, so most passes are not much longer than 10 minutes max unless you have a specific use case for this.

FAQ

Do I have to use the Starter Pack?

No, but it likely will save you time. If there are items you do not need in the starter pack you can delete them easily, or adjust them to fit your building.

Where can I learn more about room settings?

Almost every setting has its own support article, including this Room Settings Overview article, use the "?" in the bottom right to look up more articles to help, or reach out to our support team.

How do I expand beyond these rooms to build the rest of my school?

Learn more about creating rooms and folders here!


3) Rostering Your Accounts

Rostering is often best completed by School or District IT. You will need to share this information with them.

Please choose one of the following options below to confirm how your school will be creating and updating SmartPass accounts. By clicking on the arrow it will expand the chosen rostering method and you will be directed on how to complete your rostering.

Note: When rostering steps are completed by your IT team, please reach out to support or your CSM to let us know you are ready to sync.

Clever

Integrate Clever and SmartPass

1. Add SmartPass to Clever

Follow these steps to add SmartPass as an app in Clever.

  1. Follow the prompts to send an integration request. You will need to sign in with a Clever district admin account.

  2. Share all records for the schools that have purchased SmartPass. Make sure to include students, teachers, staff, and/or district admins. Also, make sure to apply any filters if needed.

  3. Notify your Customer Success Manager over email or let our Support Team know about this by opening a chat thread and wait for us to link your Clever records to SmartPass and initiate the sync. This should take a few hours. Our team will let you know as soon as the accounts have been rostered.

Please Note:

If your school is onboarding, please send an email to your Customer Success Manager and let them know when all records are shared. This will greatly speed up the initial integration process.

  • Please include your Clever District Name and Clever School Name(s) (Optional, you can include the school ID) that need to be synced with SmartPass.

Your Customer Success Manager will reach out to our team internally to run the initial sync for your school, and confirm once it is ready.

FAQ

When does syncing occur?

The sync between SmartPass and Clever happens once every 24 hours at 11:00 PM EST. The sync usually takes a few hours to complete.

If you need to sync during the day, please contact our Support Team for assistance via chat or email.

What do I need to prepare for next school year?

As a new school year approaches, it's essential to ensure a seamless transition for your entire SmartPass system, including roster information.

Please view our📝 Back to School Checklist guide for Summer actions when using the Clever integration.

ClassLink

This Guide provides step-by-step instructions for setting up your ClassLink Integration with SmartPass.

With this integration, you will be able to sync your users and provide SSO access directly from the ClassLink Dashboard to the SmartPass platform.

How do you set up the Roster Server application?

  1. Log into the ClassLink launchpad using a ClassLink administrator account

  2. Select Classlink Roster Server

  3. Select Apps on the left-hand side navigation bar

  4. Navigate to the Applications screen and locate the option "Add a new App" situated in the top right-hand corner.

  5. Look for SmartPass Roster Server Connection and click Add.

  6. Establish your data-sharing rules by specifying which student and teacher records require access to SmartPass.

  7. Once completed, please let your SmartPass Customer Success Manager or Support Team know so we can run a resync. This process can take up to 48 hours to be completed

Notes:

Please include your Tenant Name, Tenant ID, and Orgs information (Like Sourced ID, Name, and Identifier) of the schools that need to be linked when you notify your Customer Success Manager or the Support Team.

ClassLink records will be synced in automatically every 24 hours. Alternatively, you can contact our Support Team to run a manual sync anytime (Please view the FAQ at the bottom of the page for more information).

Setting Up the OneClick SSO Application

Once the roster server application has been configured and accounts are synced to your SmartPass school(s). You can enable the ClassLink OneClick integration to allow your students and teachers to sign into SmartPass directly from their Launchpad.

The steps below will guide you on how to accomplish this:

  1. Log in as a ClassLink Administrator to the LaunchPad and navigate to the ClassLink Management Console

  2. Go to Applications > Add & Assign Apps > App Library.

  3. Search for SmartPass and click Add.

  4. The app will now appear in the Add & Assign Applications screen.

  5. Search for SmartPass again

  6. Use the Assign button to make the app available to the students and teachers who should have access to SmartPass. This ClassLink help video explains this step in more detail.

  7. Once completed, we recommend using the Impersonate user feature with a selection of teachers and students who should have access to SmartPass to confirm they can log in successfully.

FAQ

When does syncing occur?

The sync between SmartPass and ClassLink happens once every 24 hours at 11:00 PM EST. The sync usually takes a few hours to complete.

If you need to sync during the day, please contact our Support Team for assistance via chat or email.

What do I need to prepare for next school year?

As a new school year approaches, it's essential to ensure a seamless transition for your entire SmartPass system, including roster information.

Please view our📝 Back to School Checklist guide for Summer actions when using the ClassLink integration.

Google G-Suite

This guide provides step-by-step instructions for setting up G Suite Syncing with SmartPass, enabling you to synchronize your data seamlessly.

1. Create a new G Suite admin for the SmartPass sync

To avoid losing access when an individual leaves your school, please follow these steps to make a new G Suite admin account. This will also allow you to limit what permissions SmartPass has in your G Suite.

  1. Sign in to the G Suite admin console here: https://admin.google.com/

  2. Under Users, create an account dedicated to the SmartPass sync.

    For example:
    [email protected] (Be sure to save the password for later use.)

  3. Next, go to the following page: https://admin.google.com/ac/roles and click on Create new role.

  4. Assign it a name such as "SmartPass Sync Admin Role" and click Continue.

  5. Select the following permissions and hit save:

    • Admin Console Privileges > Organizational Units > Read

    • Admin Console Privileges > Users > Read

    • Admin API Privileges > Organizational Units > Read

    • Admin API Privileges > Users > Read

  6. Next, go back to the main page of the role you just created and click on Assign users or admins assigned:

2. Link SmartPass to your G Suite

Next, we will link your SmartPass account to your G Suite account.

  1. Locate your SmartPass admin account credentials given to you by your Customer Success Manager.

    Typically, you can find these credentials in your SmartPass Onboarding Plan, and it looks like the following: [email protected].

  2. Navigate to our web app (https://app.smartpass.app) and sign in with the account.

  3. On the left, select Accounts, then select Integrations. Then, click on the Setup G Suite button and follow the prompts.

  4. When you are prompted to sign in with a Google account, sign in with the [email protected] account created in the previous steps above.

  5. If successful, you will be redirected back to SmartPass where you can configure and link the Google OUs.

3. Configure Organizational Units to sync

In SmartPass, you can sync any number and any level of OUs into each SmartPass account type.

Sample OU Sharing:

Students: /Students/2022, /Students/2023, /Students/2024, /Students/2025

Teachers: /Staff

Admins: /Staff/Administration

Start by determining what OUs you need for each account type and follow the below steps. If you want to sync your accounts by Google Groups (email groups), please check our FAQ at the bottom of this guide.

Once you've determined the OUs to sync, navigate back to the G Suite settings page under Accounts > Integrations > GSuite Settings in SmartPass:

  1. Click on Edit accounts syncing, then click the Add button to search for and add the appropriate OUs for each account type.

  2. Click Save on the top right, then click Save. When completed, it will take up to 24 hours for your accounts to sync with SmartPass. Alternatively, you can contact our Support Team or your Customer Success Manager so that we can run the initial sync for you.

  3. Congratulations! Your SmartPass account sync is good to go. If you run into any issues, please contact us! We are happy to help.

Important Notes

Teacher/Admin Dual Accounts

In SmartPass, Admins can also be Teachers and vice-versa. Sync any OUs that contain only your building administrators to the Admin user types so that they can automatically be assigned both Teacher and Admin roles in SmartPass.

Accounts that have been suspended in Google, are automatically excluded from the G Suite sync. Those accounts will not appear in SmartPass.

FAQ

When does syncing occur?

The sync between SmartPass and Google happens once every 24 hours at 11:00 PM EST. The sync usually takes a few hours to complete.

If you need to sync during the day, please contact our Support Team for assistance via chat or email.

How do I sync accounts using Google Groups?

To sync accounts using Google Groups (email groups), you'll need to add the following permissions to the SmartPass Sync account created above:

  • Admin Console Privileges > Groups

  • Admin API Privileges > Groups > Read

After you add these permissions, send us a chat and let us know the email address for the groups you'd like to sync and which role each group should have (Admin, Teacher, or Student).

I am getting an error code. What should I do?

Please check our guide on Troubleshooting Google Workspace Error 400, which contains troubleshooting steps to resolve the most common issues that result in an error code when trying to authorize Google Workspace Directory integration with SmartPass.

What do I need to prepare for next school year?

As a new school year approaches, it's essential to ensure a seamless transition for your entire SmartPass system, including roster information.

Please view our 📝 Back to School Checklist guide for Summer actions when using the G Suite integration.

Spreadsheets/CSV

This guide provides step-by-step instructions on how to roster your accounts by uploading them in a CSV to SmartPass.

Setting Up Accounts Template

To bulk-upload accounts to SmartPass, first, we want to download the account template. Please find the link below:

There are three sheets at the bottom. One for each role: Student, Teacher, and Admin.

Please be sure to enter the account information under their respective field. To create your accounts, we need the following data: Email address, First Name, Last Name, and Password.

Important notes:

  • Our team will assign a random password to those accounts that are left blank under the password field/column. Users can always change their password upon their first login.

  • By default, all users listed in the Admin sheet will receive both the Teacher and Admin roles. You can later change this in SmartPass, from the admin view.

Bulk-Upload Process

Once you completed the spreadsheet, please follow the steps below to upload your accounts to SmartPass:

  1. Log into SmartPass with an Admin account.

  2. On the left-side panel, click Accounts

  3. Click the green +Add button at the top-right of your screen

  4. Click on Bulk add standard accounts

  5. This will open up a chat window with our support team. When asked if you are looking to bulk upload accounts select “Yes”

  6. When asked to confirm if you do not want to use any other integration, select “Correct, I do not want to use those integrations”

  7. Send the complete template by pressing the clip icon or dragging the spreadsheet to the chat window

  8. Wait for our Team to confirm that accounts are rostered. This process can take 24-48 hours.

  9. Once our team is done uploading your accounts, they will reach out through chat and let you know.

Congratulations! You have successfully rostered all your accounts to SmartPass!

Note:

Alternatively, you can email the completed sheet to [email protected], or instead, email it to your Customer Success Manager.

FAQ

Are users notified when their accounts are uploaded?

No, users are not notified by SmartPass. In this case, you want to reach out to your users and share credentials and steps to log in with them directly.

What if I need to upload additional accounts?

You can follow the steps in this guide and submit a new CSV with the additional accounts you wish to upload. Alternatively, if you are only adding a few, you can manually add them manually.

I have users that need access to multiple campuses. What should I do?

Please be sure to provide a separate list of users that need access to more than one SmartPass school, specify the names of the schools that they should have access to, and any other details like having different roles, etc.


4) Adding New Rooms and Folders to Your School

As you can see you have our amazing starter pack to build from. Undoubtedly there are a few more places you will need to add. We will do this by adding new rooms and new folders!

Rooms are great for standalone places like your cafeteria, while folders are an amazing tool for organizing similar places, such as placing all of your water fountains into a water fountain folder.


To create a new student location on campus, you’ll first need to toggle to the rooms dashboard displayed on the left side of your Admin screen.

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Video Walkthrough on Creating A Room

Creating New Rooms

To create a new Room, click the + Add button in the top right and select "New Room" from the drop down.
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Administrators must enter each of the required Room Settings and Appearance Settings, and then click Publish. You must have a name, number, travel type, time limit, color, and icon.
If an item is not filled out properly, it will be highlighted red and alert you to the issue.

You will see there are a bunch of settings to help you customize your rooms. Don't worry, we will explore the settings found here in more detail later on in this plan!

Creating New Folders

Folders are used to keep rooms organized by grouping similar rooms together (example: bathrooms in a bathrooms folder, teachers in a classroom folder.) To create a new folder, click the + Add button in the top right, and select the "New Folder" option from the drop down.

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Administrators must set the color, icon and name for the folder before being able to save it. The easiest way to add a room to a folder is by clicking "+ new room". To see the various other ways to add Rooms to a Folder, click here.

Top Tips:

1) Rooms and Folders may be rearranged to allow quicker Pass creation. This organization can be achieved by simply dragging and dropping the Rooms and Folders in the arrangement desired. This arrangement will be in the same order for all Students and Teachers as it is for you.

2) Use colors and icons to help organize your building for easy pass recognition!


5) Configure Your Room Settings

Once you have added a room, you likely noticed a bunch of options and settings to add to these rooms. As a school administrator, it's crucial to tailor the configuration of each room to meet the unique requirements of your school. Here's a guide to help you understand and set up the room management that best suits your needs.

Video Walkthrough of Rooms Settings

Room Settings Options

below you will find an explanation of each setting. If there is a hyperlink, feel free to click to learn more about that feature!

Room Name

The Room's name is limited to 15 characters. Each room must have a distinct name. As of now we don’t have the ability to have two of the same names. Hint: Classrooms are best named with the teacher's name rather than the room number!

Room Number

The Room number can be alphanumeric and has a maximum length of 5 characters.

Travel Type

Determine whether the room is available for round-trip passes, one-way passes, or both. For example a Restroom would be round trip, while an office visit might be both.

Time Limit

Set the maximum time limit for student-initiated passes, ranging from 1 to 999 minutes. Consider, how long does it take for my students to move from one place to another with the goal of students ending their pass upon arrival.

Teachers in Room

Specify which teacher(s) should have visibility into the Pass activity for this room. For classrooms and offices, you will want to add the person who's room it is. No need to add people to restrooms, etc. It is important to remember, staff can write passes to and from every room, so no need to add every teacher to every room.

Closest Rooms

This is an area where you can add what rooms you would like suggested to your students. This is usually where a school will pair a 2nd floor bathroom to a 2nd floor classroom. To explore configuring this at your school, click here.

Count toward Pass Limits

Should this room count towards pass limits? If so, check to ensure this enabled. Schools usually count restrooms, water fountains and lockers. This article will walk you through how to adjust this setting.

Show as Origin Room

Is this room not somewhere a student can start from, meaning this room only be allowed as a destination? Learn more here.

Room Restrictions

Important Note: Restrictions apply only when the room is the destination, not the origin.

  • Restriction for Now

    • Apply restrictions for "Now" passes if teacher approval is required. This ensures passes won't become active until it has been approved. We usually suggest these for all classrooms, offices, etc. For Classrooms "any teacher" is a suggested setting. For admin, guidance, social workers, nurses, etc. we recommend "all teachers" "this room".

  • Restriction for Future

    • Apply restrictions for "Future" passes if teacher approval is necessary. Scheduled passes won't be scheduled without teacher approval. We recommend toggling this on for classrooms, admin, social workers, etc. The preferred setting is "all teachers" "this room".

We will explain these in more detail later in the plan, as well as review best practices, click here to learn more now!

Restrict Ending Passes

Passes must end using the following:

  • Room Code

  • Teachers Pin

  • From the Teacher dashboard on a Teachers device

Learn more about how to configure this here.

Max Capacity
This is the maximum number of active passes to a specific room.

For example, if you want to limit the number of active passes to a specific bathroom you would select max capacity and add the maximum number you feel is appropriate. When this number is reached passes, students will wait in line before passes become active. Checkout our support article to dive into more detail.

Visibility

This will hide or show the room for certain students by selecting one of the following options:

  • Show room for all students

  • Show room for certain students

  • Hide room for certain students

This is great for figuring in accommodations for certain students!

Learn more about visibility in the related article by clicking here.

Lastly you’ll want to select the availability to be either open or closed, select a color, and select an icon for your room.


6) Applying Room Restrictions

What do Room Restrictions Do?

Room Restriction settings will allow you to have the level on control you need in your building to ensure student safety. You are able configure these restrictions so students can create certain passes with ease, such as a student being able to start their own bathroom pass. However, you can also customize it so that certain passes have approval before they start, such as the principal having to approve a pass to his/her office before the pass becomes active.

Video Walkthrough of Room Restrictions

Important Things To Note about Room Restrictions:

1) Room restrictions are always focused on the room as a destination room. So if you are adjusting restrictions for Ms. Frizzle's room, those settings are from the perspective of a student requesting a pass to go to Ms. Frizzle's room.

2) Pass approvals behave differently on kiosks and for teacher written passes. The settings explained in this article are based on students generating the request on their 1 to 1 devices. Teacher written passes will always bypass any restrictions, and if room restrictions are set, a kiosk will always send those approvals to the origin room teacher.

Where to Find Room Restrictions

Room Restrictions are adjusted from within the Rooms dashboard by clicking into the individual room. Remember that you are editing a room's restrictions from the point of view of the room being the student's destination.

What options are there for Room Restrictions?

Toggled Off
This means students can create and start their pass without need for an approval from a teacher. This is a recommended setting for restrooms and water fountains.

Toggled On

This means students must have their pass approved before it starts based on the following selections. We recommend configuring these to work best for your offices and classrooms.

Any Teacher- This presents the student with a list of teachers in the origin and destination room to send the pass to, but using the search bar students can look up any staff member they might need.

Any Teachers In Room- This presents the student with a list of teachers to send the pass to based on the selection: "This Room" "Origin Room" or "Both" - please note that "both" does not require both to approve, it sends the approval to both, and only 1 needs to approve.

All Teachers in Room- This sends the pass to all teachers added to the room based on the selection: "This Room" "Origin Room" or "Both" - please note that "both" does not require both to approve, it sends the approval to both, and only 1 needs to approve.

Certain Teacher: This option allows you to send pass requests to a certain teacher without having to assign them to the origin or destination rooms.

The same restriction options are available to be set for both "Now" and "Future". Future is a schedule pass, while now is exactly as it sounds, a student creating a pass at this moment to leave immediately.

What Do Schools Usually Set?

For Restrooms, Water Fountains, Lockers and other neutral locations

In general, most schools set Restriction for Now as toggled off. This allows for an ease of use within the classroom by allowing staff to simply give a verbal approval for a student to begin the pass process.

With this setting a student can create and start a pass on their own. You may wish to toggle Restriction for Future on to prevent students from scheduling a bathroom pass, as scheduled passes are excluded from pass limits.

If you toggle Restriction for Now to on, then teachers would have to also physically approve the pass via a PIN on a student device, or by clicking to approve on their own device. This might be needed in some school settings, or if you find students are continuing to abuse passes. If choosing to toggle restrictions on for Now, be sure to also toggle Future on as well.

For Classrooms

On any given school day there are a variety of reasons students may go from one class to another. Having the proper settings for restrictions can account for all of these.

For Restriction for Now a best practice is to toggle this on for Any Teacher. This would prevent a student from creating a “fake” pass to class after a late bell and ensure students are not just "showing up" to a teacher's room. By selecting Any Teacher as the setting, this would give staff flexibility in who to have the student send the approval to, the origin or the destination room teacher.

For example the origin teacher may want to approve the pass themselves in the case of sending a student to get a notebook they left in class, while other times they may have the student send the approval to the destination room teacher to ensure that teacher actually wants/needs to see the student before releasing them.

For Restrictions for Future the best practice in most settings is to set this to All Teachers In Room - This Room to ensure when a student is scheduling a pass, that approvals are sent to the teacher the student wants to see, aka the destination room teacher. Think of this as the student requesting an appointment, with the teacher able to approve or deny that time/date. Passes will not start unless the teacher has approved the pass. Staff members also will receive notifications of these requests per the settings they have configured.

Note: Please be sure you have your teachers added and saved to the room before playing with restrictions.

For Admin/Guidance/Nurse and staff who meet students 1 on 1

For staff who meet with students 1 on 1 and/or are often out of their office or in meetings, a preferred setting here is to configure both Now and Future for All Teachers In Room - This Room.

This will allow passes to function like setting an appointment. No student can start a pass, whether now or scheduled, without approval of the person they wish to see.

This will prevent students from walking down to an office to find the staff member unavailable to meet, keeping them in class and learning until their pass is approved.

As you receive the pass requests you are given the option to approve, deny or deny with a message. Staff members also will receive notifications of these requests per the settings they have configured.


7) Manage and Organize Your Folders

Folders are used to organize your school and as a way to store and present similar locations such as Bathrooms in a Bathrooms folder.

In order to properly use a Folder, it must contain Room(s). There are several ways to do this to ensure the process can be done as quickly as possible depending on the situation.

Folders Video Walkthrough

New Rooms within a folder

Selecting + New Room on the new Folder form, it will start the creation of a brand new Room that will be created within the Folder that is being made. Because the Room is in a Folder, the Appearance Settings are not available. For more information on the Room Options available, look here.
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Importing Rooms within a folder

Rooms may be imported from a document for faster Folder/Room creation by selecting the Import Rooms button.

This list consists of Room Names, Room Numbers, and Teachers in Room from an Excel spreadsheet or CSV. To do so, please download the template provided on the Importing Rooms page labeled "Download Template".

After creating and uploading the document, all of the Rooms will be parsed and added to the Folder. If there are any problems with the file, the form will indicate which sections of the file did not load properly.

Add Existing Rooms to a Folder

A Folder can be created from existing Rooms that were not previously in a Folder. By selecting the Add Existing button, a list of Rooms that are not already in Folders will be presented. Simply click the desired Rooms and then Add. Please note that all Appearance Settings of that Room will now reflect those of the folder.


8) Set Pass Options

SmartPass is committed to making our Digital Hall Pass system as flexible and customizable as possible and we have included many of these settings in the Pass Options Menu. The Pass Options menu is located in the Options configuration tab in the Rooms page.

These controls will allow admins to limit the total number of students in the hallway, prevent students from using their mobile devices, and much more. Read on to see how you can customize SmartPass to fit your school.

There are 8 different settings for Pass Options:

  1. Allow Students to Use Phones

  2. No Fly Time

  3. Overtime Passes End After...(min)

  4. Pass Cooldown (min)

  5. Hallway Max Capacity

  6. Show Room Numbers on Passes

  7. Enable Wait In Line

  8. Time zone

Pass Options Video Walkthrough

Pass Options Menu

1. Allow Students to Use Phones
In today's digital age, smartphones have become an integral part of students' lives. Our "Allow Students to Use Phones" feature gives administrators control over whether students can access the SmartPass platform on their mobile devices. When disabled, students will need to use a different device, such as a computer or tablet, to use SmartPass.

With this feature, you can balance the need for convenience and accessibility with rules and guidelines for phone usage, providing a flexible and adaptable solution for managing student movement.

Students can still access their ID cards with this toggled off.

2. No Fly Time
This setting allows you to prevent passes at the start and end of your class periods, or even your school day.

3. Overtime Passes End After... (min)

This setting allows you to set a specific amount of time, beyond the expiration of a pass, before the system automatically ends and moves it to the "Expired Pass" section. It provides a grace period accommodating delays in students' movement, ensuring that a pass doesn't expire prematurely while a student is still en route.

For example, if you set the "Overtime Passes End After...(min)" to 5 minutes, that means a pass that has reached its end time will remain active for an additional 5 minutes before it's automatically ended and moved to the "Expired Pass" section.

4. Pass Cooldown
This feature will prevent students from spamming hall passes and messing with the system.

When any student creates a pass, a cooldown period will begin for when they are allowed to create another pass. If the student tries to create another pass while the cooldown period is still active no pass will be created and they will see an error message in the top right of the window as you can see below. When the cooldown period is over the student will be able to create another pass and another cooldown period will be set once again. This cooldown period is defaulted to be 0 minutes and can be set by administrators to what they see fit.

5. Hallway Max Capacity
This is where you can set the maximum number of active hall passes allowed at any given time in your school.

For example, if you set the "Max Hall Passes" to 10, only 10 active hall passes can be generated across the school at any given time. Once this limit is reached, no new hall passes can be created until an existing one is deactivated or expired.

This feature is extremely useful in managing the crowd flow within the school premises and ensuring a balanced distribution of students across various facilities at any given time.

6. Show Room Numbers of Passes
The "Showing Room Numbers" toggle allows you to control how room names are displayed on hall passes.

For instance, if you have designated your Economics room number as "Econ101", enabling the "Showing Room Numbers" option will add that room number to the pass; "Economics (Econ101)". This feature offers a concise and clear way to reference rooms, making it easier for students, teachers, and staff to identify the correct rooms quickly and efficiently.

You can also change any of your room number designations by clicking on any of your room tiles in the same "Rooms" view.

7. Enable Wait in Line
This toggle allows you to enable and disable the Wait in Line feature. When Wait in Line is enabled, students will be able to wait in a virtual line for a room when it is full. When it is disabled, students will be prevented from making a pass and will have to retry later. We recommend that all schools enable Wait in Line, as a result this is default turned ON.

8. Timezone
The timezone should be set correctly for your school when you get started. If it is incorrect, you may see scheduled passes appearing at the wrong times. This is where you can correct it.


9) Setting Pass Limits

Now that we have configured your rooms and your pass options, it is time to explore how to set how many passes students may have in a day!

Pass Limits Video Walkthrough

Setting Up Pass Limits

To set up pass limits, make sure you're signed in as an administrator. Go to the Accounts tab on the left, and click on Pass Limits near the top right.

From here, you can turn on the Limit for All Students. Simply select the number of passes you wish each student to have. Note, this will only count rooms/passes toggled to "Count Towards Pass Limits".

There is also an option to set an Individual Limit for specific students. Individual pass limits overrule the Limit for All Students. This is great to provide further intervention, or to accommodate your students with IEP/504/Medical needs by providing more passes than your Limit for All Students amount.

Teachers and administrators can also see a student's pass limit from the Student Snapshot page. Only administrators are able to change the pass limit.

Important Note: When a student reaches their daily limit, they'll still be able to create passes, however, each pass will be shown as restricted with a lock icon and require teacher approval before it begins.

Pass Limits for Certain Rooms

You can disable certain rooms from counting toward the pass limit. This helps schools manage student movement more effectively by restricting passes to other areas without impacting access to specific locations. Click here to learn more.


10) Set Up Encounter Preventions

One of the most important pieces of productive hallway management is making sure that certain students don't meet up in the halls together. Don't worry, we have you covered with Encounter Preventions.

Video Walkthrough of Encounter Preventions

What is Encounter Prevention?

Encounter Prevention is a feature that allows admins to prevent 2 or more students from being in the hallway at the same time.

To find Encounter Preventions head to the accounts tab on your Admin page and click on the tile with the Encounter Prevention label located at the top-right corner.

How to create an Encounter Prevention Group

  1. Start by clicking Encounter Prevention

  2. Select +New Group.

  3. Now add the Students you would like to be in this group.

  4. Assign a Group Name (Optional)

  5. Add Notes that will be useful for other teachers such as the date the Group was created and for what specific reason.

How does it work?

When an encounter prevention comes into play when 1 of the students in the prevention group has a pass and another student in the group tries to make a pass. That 2nd student's pass will not start and a message will appear on the screen that says: Sorry, you can't start your pass right now

Encounter Prevention not only prevents 2 or more students from being in the hallway at the same time, but it also keeps a log of each prevented encounter. To view this go back to Accounts and click Encounter Prevention and you'll notice a number inside a red octagon next to the name of the Encounter Prevention group that represents how many times this group has been prevented from meeting up. Clicking on this symbol will open up the log to show details of the attempted meetups.

If you have this encounters log open, clicking on the 3-horizontal dots gives you access to the following options:

  • Prevention Enabled- you may toggle this option off to disable Encounter Prevention temporarily for the selected group.

  • Copy Private Link - a link is copied on the clipboard which you can send to other school staff to point them to the corresponding group.

  • Edit Group - lets you add or remove students from the group.

  • Delete Group- this permanently deletes the Encounter Prevention group


11) Write your First Pass!

Let's get you started right away and show you how to create your first pass!

1. As an Admin you need to switch to Teacher View to write passes.

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2. +Create Pass vs. Schedule Pass

To get started, teachers can create passes for students by choosing between two options: create a pass on the spot or schedule a pass for the future.

Here's how it works:

  • +Create Pass: If a teacher wants a student to have a pass for an immediate request, they should click the green "+Create Pass" button located at the top right hand corner of the screen. The pass is automatically sent to the student(s) and starts immediately.

  • Schedule Pass: If a teacher plans to schedule a pass for a future time, they should select the white "Schedule Pass" button in the same area. Teachers have the option to send it as a pass request or as a scheduled pass. For more details about scheduling passes for the future, you can refer to the relevant section.

3. Select Student(s)

Teachers must specify the student(s) to whom they want to send a pass. They can easily search for students by name within the school and then select them from the search results. Teachers can also send multiple passes to multiple students simultaneously.

4. From where?

After selecting the students, teachers can choose the room where the student(s) are currently located. They can search for all available rooms within the school or select from a pre-defined list. To expedite this process, teachers can customize their favorite rooms in the Settings.

5. To where?

Next, teachers should choose the room to which they want the student(s) to go. Administrators have the ability to customize this list of rooms in the room setup. Additionally, any rooms that a teacher is assigned to will appear first in the listing, making it even more efficient.

6. Duration

Teachers need to specify the duration of the pass. These options are customized by administrators in the room setup. They do this by setting the maximum time they expect the student(s) to require for the pass.

And just like that you have made your first pass in SmartPass! Congrats!


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