- About PBL Mentor Kidplan
- How to set up the website
- PBL Mentor Kidplan on mobile and tablet
- Noticeboard
- Weekly schedule
- Images
- Children log
- Messages
- SMS and email
- Employees and departments
- Child and parents
- Pages
- File archive
- Menus
- Permissions
- Groups
- Delete function
- Tally sheet
- About PBL Mentor Kidplan
Collaborate with parents online with PBL Mentor Kidplan. Forget reminder notes, emails and hectic messages in the locker room. PBL Mentor Kidplan allows parents to get all of the information in one place.
The child log affords the kindergarten the option to register whether children have been dropped off, picked up, sick, on vacation, free or absent for another reason. Sleeping times, meals, toilet visits and diaper changes can also be recorded.
PBL Mentor Kidplan also allows you to create a simple and professional website for your kindergarten. PBL Mentor Kidplan has created the framework – you decide the content.
Some of you may find working on the kindergarten’s website to be both exciting and fun. Others find it both extensive and demanding. Either way – Do not despair!
For example, PBL Mentor Kidplan allows you to choose from a variety of backgrounds, fonts and menu types. You can add text and images to highlight the uniqueness of your kindergarten, and to change backgrounds as desired. To mention but a few.
- How to set up the website
Open a browser on your computer. Enter the kindergarten’s URL, which is in the email you received when you ordered PBL Mentor Kidplan. Log in with a username and password.
The username and password are the same as you use to log into pbl.no (email and password). Click on My Pages to proceed to the administration page.
You can always go to the administration page by typing your URL (e.g.: www.mykindergartendomain.no) and clicking on My Pages at the top right of the page.
- Logging on
In order to administer the website, you must log into the administration page (hereinafter called administration page), which is the dashboard on your website. This is where you administrate the website. You can always return to the administration page by clicking on My Pages at the top right.
- Create departments
The first thing you need to do before the solution can be used is to register units. Units are listed under Units on the Administration front page. During initial start-up, you will be prompted to register units.
NB: You must register at least one unit before the solution can be used.
- Choose design
After you have entered employees and departments, you must choose the look of your website. Under Design on the Administration Front page, you can:
- Select the wallpaper and style of your website
- Primary colour and front page template of the website
- Select the look of the main menu and upload your own logo
- Select a font on the site
Keep in mind that you can always go back and make changes to the design along the way. To check the look of your website, click View Website on the administration page.
NB: If you have your own logo, select Upload Your Own Logo and upload the image. Remember that not all logos equally suit the page.
- PBL Mentor Kidplan on mobile and tablet
PBL Mentor Kidplan is an app that is easy to use on tablets and mobile phones. We recommend that you create a shortcut to the administration page on your mobile phone and tablet.
Safari on iPad/iPhone:
Open Safari and go to the kindergarten’s website. Click on the icon with a square and an upward-pointing arrow in the browser. You will then be given the option of adding the website to your home screen.
Standard browser on Android:
Open the browser and go to the kindergarten’s website. Click on the three dots in the upper right corner and then on the plus symbol. In the menu that appears, select Home Screen.
Chrome on Android:
Open the browser and go to the kindergarten’s website. Click on the three dots in the upper right corner and choose to create shortcuts on your home screen.
- Noticeboard
A noticeboard is an information channel the kindergarten can use to communicate with parents. This can be used instead of sending notes about what the kindergarten has done. You can write daily and weekly reports here, or other information you want to put on the parent page. Items you post to the Noticeboard is only visible to parents who have logged into the website or app.
You can easily edit a post on a noticeboard by clicking on the small arrow on the right side of the noticeboard, and selecting edit. The parents will receive push notification on the app.
- Weekly schedule
Each department of the kindergarten has its own weekly schedule. These are only visible on the noticeboard to employees and parents who are logged into the website or app. Parents can print out the weekly schedule by clicking on Calendar and then selecting which week to print.
- Photos
PBL Mentor Kidplan makes it easy to create photo albums. Click on Pictures in the administration panel to get started.
Photo albums are only visible on the noticeboard to employees and parents who are logged into the website or app. It is also possible to restrict access to a photo album by department.
If the photos are in the wrong order following uploading, you can rearrange them by clicking the arrow icon and dragging the photos to wherever you want them. Simple photo editing (cropping and rotating) can be done by clicking on the pencil icon on a photo.
Parents can browse the photo albums by clicking Photos in the menu on the noticeboard. The Latest Photos tab contains all of the photos the department(s) has/have access in chronological order after uploading.
- Children log
Children log is a feature that allows the kindergarten to record whether children have been dropped off, picked up, sick, on vacation, free or absent for another reason. Sleeping times, meals, toilet visits and diaper changes can also be recorded. In other words, everything that was previously done with pen and paper, can now be easily posted electronically.
To record the status of a child, click on the child in question and you will then enter the child’s record screen. The record screen will display all of the different event types you can choose from. Some events will change name depending on the status of the child. For example, if you record a child as dropped off, this button will change to picked up.
If you click on the stamp symbol you can record dropped off/picked-up/sick/free/unauthorised absence and vacation at that particular time. You can consider the stamp symbol a type of quick record for the statuses dropped off, sick, free, unauthorised absence and vacation.
- Messages
Messages provide the kindergarten and parents an effective tool for sending messages to each other. Parents can now easily send a message from the parent page to the kindergarten or directly to the department the child belongs to. The kindergarten can send messages to individual parents or several parents simultaneously.
In addition to receiving notifications in PBL Mentor Kidplan, parents and kindergartens can also receive an email notification when new messages arrive.
- SMS and email
PBL Mentor Kidplan makes it easy to send messages to parents and employees by email and SMS. Click on SMS and Email on the administration panel to get started.
To send an email, click on Email in the menu. As the sender, you can choose
- Kindergarten (only for kindergarten administrators)
- A department (only for department users and kindergarten administrators)
- Yourself
Enter a subject and message, select the recipients of the email and click on Send Email. If someone in the recipient list is not registered with an email address, a warning triangle will appear next to the name. Email addresses are registered on the Employees and Departments pages and Children and Parents pages.
To send an attachment, the file must first be uploaded to the file archive. When that is done, click on the link icon on the toolbar to add it to the email.
SMS
To send an SMS, click on SMS in the menu. Add text, select the parents/guardians to receive the message and click on Send SMS. If someone in the recipient list is not registered with a telephone number, a warning triangle will appear next to the name. Telephone numbers are registered on the Employees and Departments pages and Children and Parents pages.
If the kindergarten has a mobile number, this can be registered as the sender. Contact PBL IT Support.
Sending SMS from the website costs NOK 0.5 – per recipient.
History
The History menu item provides an overview of sent messages.
- Employees and departments
When you register an employee with an email address, he or she will automatically receive an email with login information to the kindergarten website. You can choose from three different roles which the employee must have:
- Read Access gives the employee read access to the parent pages (noticeboard).
- Department User provides administrative access to the department(s) to which the employee belongs.
- User with Record Privileges only affords access to the children log.
- Kindergarten Administrator affords full access to all of PBL Mentor Kidplan’s features.
Employees who are also parents cannot be registered with the same email address.
An overview of kindergarten employees and departments is displayed on the front page under the About Us → Employees menu, and is visible to all visitors to the website. If you want to hide the contact information of employees from there, click on an employee in the list, select Edit and select Do not show contact information on the online pages.
It is also possible to hide the entire page. This is done under Menus on the administration panel.
- Child and parents
When you enter a new child, you can also register the parents with an email address. They will automatically receive an email with login information to the kindergarten website. Parent users only have access to content related to the department(s) in which they have children.
Any notes you write about a child are only visible to employees.
Parents who are also employees cannot be registered with the same email address.
An overview of the kindergarten’s children and parents is displayed on the noticeboard under the More → Parent List menu. Parent users can also hide their contact information from the list if they wish.
- Pages
When the kindergarten’s website is created, it will have four system pages:
Employees
An overview of the kindergarten’s employees and departments is displayed on the front page under the About Us → Employees menu. If you wish to hide the contact information of employees, this can be done under Employees and Departments on the administration panel. It is also possible to hide the entire page. This is done under Menus on the administration panel.
Parent list
An overview of the kindergarten’s children and parents is displayed on the parent pages (noticeboard) under the More → Parent List menu. Parent users can also hide their contact information from the list if they wish. This page is only available to employees and parents who are logged in.
Contact
The kindergarten’s contact information is displayed on the front page under the Contact menu. The departments’ email addresses and phone numbers can be edited under Employees and Departments on the administration panel. The kindergartens postal and visiting addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers can only be edited by PBL.
The coordination committee
A list of representatives on the coordination committee is displayed on the parent pages (noticeboard) under the More → Coordination Committee menu. To remove or add representatives, go to Employees and Departments or Children and Parents on the administration panel. This page is only available to employees and parents who are logged in.
To create your own pages, click on Create New Page.
The main text can be formatted with the various functions on the toolbar. For example, you can add a document (or another file type) by first uploading the file to the file archive and then clicking the link icon on the toolbar. Photos need not be uploaded to the file archive first, they can be inserted directly from the computer; Click on the photo icon on the toolbar. Videos can also be added to the page, but the video file must be uploaded to an external service with an inclusion code; e.g. Vimeo or YouTube.
When the page is ready to be published, label it as visible.
If the page should be accessible from the menu on the front page, a new menu item must be created. This is done under Menus on the administration panel. The page can also be promoted as the main topics, highlighted topics or front page link. This is done under Edit Front Page in the administration panel.
- File archive
This is where you upload files to be linked from the website or sent as attachments in emails. There are no file type restrictions, but the size may not exceed 15 Megabytes (MB).
The file archive is only available to employees with the Department Users or Kindergarten Administrators access roles, but the files can be shared with anyone by clicking on the link icon and copying the address of the file you wish to share.
- Menus
The PBL Mentor Kidplan menu structure consists of main and sub-menu items. Each menu item is linked to a page.
The website is created with four main menu items:
- Home/front page link: Goes to the front page. Cannot be edited or deleted.
- About us: Contains the sub-menu item, Employees. The sub-menu item can be hidden but not deleted.
- Contact: Goes to the system page, Contact. Cannot be edited or deleted.
- For parents: Goes to the noticeboard. Cannot be edited or deleted.
There are also three blank main menu items, which can be used for anything you want.
Edit Front Page
You can select what appears on the front page on Edit Front Page. Before you can choose the main topics on your front page, you must first create this on pages or news.
Main topic
You can specify pages or current articles that will be used to put together a scrolling main field on the front page. If your front page choice does not have a scrolling main field, the top entry will be displayed (see front page template).
The introduction and main image of topics chosen as main topics will be displayed on the front page.
Option 1 has a large, static main field and small topical boxes containing only title and date.
Option 2 has a large, static main field and small topical boxes containing only title and date.
Option 3 has a scrolling main field and large topical boxes containing title, image, introduction and date.
Option 4 has a large, static main field and large topical boxes containing title, image, introduction and date.
- Permissions
This feature allows the kindergarten to register permissions in the solution, and allows parents to respond to them on their pages. This means that both employees and guardians have a full overview of permissions regarding the child. A tab called Settings has been added to the front page of PBL Mentor Kidplan for employees.
By clicking on Settings, employees are provided an information page for the kindergarten.
The kindergarten can register new permissions under the Permissions tab. Upon initial use, there will be an opportunity for the kindergarten to use predefined permissions.
The permissions tab will look like this after the kindergarten has registered several permissions. You can only create new permissions and delete old ones here. Existing permissions cannot be edited. Details of the permission may also be added, if necessary.
In order for the kindergarten to have an overview of the permissions and response of parents, two different reports have been added. One provides an overview based on the permissions and the other based on each individual child.
The report based on the permissions will contain information about the number of responses. By clicking on details, a list of all children will be displayed, sorted by response.
The report based on each individual child looks like this. The kindergarten receives information about what the parents have responded to the various permissions here, in addition to who has responded and when.
Information on which guardian responded, how they responded and when is stored as history. This is only available in the database and must not be visible to users.
- Groups
Create groups across departments in the kindergarten. The group may consist of children and/or employees. This makes it much easier to get an overview.
Groups is a filter in the Children Log, in which you can sort into single groups to only show the children belonging to the individual group.
For example, you can create a group for all 5-year-olds who are beginning school, or tour groups in which the children participate in different departments in the kindergarten.
Photos:
You can also choose to make photo albums visible only to the groups you choose. In which case, only the parents of the children in the selected group with access will see these photos, and the staff in the kindergarten who belong to the group.
These have access:
You must be a kindergarten administrator to create and register who shall be a member of a group.
All employees with read access can view the content related to a group.
Under Employees in the administration tool, you can check the box if you want to afford an employee access to all of the groups.
- Delete function
In line with tightened data protection rules (GDPR), which comes into effect on 25 May 2018, it is important to be able to delete images and records. The delete function takes care of this in a simple and straightforward manner. On the Administration page, you will now find a new tab called Maintenance.
This allows you to choose whether you want to delete items on the noticeboard or photo album.
You can then choose whether to delete items that are older than one year, or whether you want to define the date range for the items you want to delete.
If you want to delete items or photo albums older than one year, you can choose to display the relevant items/albums before deleting.
If you want to define the date range yourself, you can either deselect the selected items/albums or select all before deleting.
- Counting List
The first thing you need to do before you start counting is to choose the counting range. This is done by clicking on the Settings icon, then on the Settings tab. You choose a range here that applies to the whole kindergarten.
There are two ways to count the children in the kindergarten. One way is via the Children Log tab, and the other is via the Count List tab.
To start the count list in the Children Log, click on Start Counting, then record the count by clicking on the child. Exit the count by clicking on Exit Count. You can filter by groups and departments in the Children Log.
To start counting lists in the Count List tab, click on the Count Me button to the right of the child to record a counting of the child. After you click on Count Me it will be unprintable for two seconds thereafter. This to avoid double recording. You can filter by groups and departments here.
If a child is registered as sick, absent, on vacation or picked up in the children log, the child will be greyed-out in the count list, indicating that the child need not be counted. You can reactivate the count by clicking on the child and clicking on Activate Counting. You can delete counts by clicking on the child and Delete on the count you want to delete.
Colour codes:
White/Blank: the child has not been counted today, but can still be counted
Green: the child has just been counted
Orange: The counting of the child approaches according to the counting range
Red: The counting range has passed, and the child should be counted.