1.3 The console

The band across the top, the areas and More, the tabs under a page's title, the way back, and what the home page shows.

Written forRegistrarFront officeTeacherHead of house or yearWellbeingCounsellorLearning supportChild safety officerCase managerDeputy case managerNursePrincipal and executiveBusiness managerIT

What the console is for

The console is the part of Kestrel your school's staff work in. Every screen in it is drawn the same way, so once you have learnt one you can read the others. The band across the top tells you whose record you are in and where you can go. The page under it does the work.

You see only what your role lets you see. A registrar and a nurse open the same console and find different areas on it, and a screen your role cannot read is not offered at all.

The band

The band is the white strip across the top of each console page, with a line in your school's colour under it. Reading from the left, it has these parts.

School name and crest

Your school's crest and name, with Kestrel's name under it. On the home page, today's date sits beside Kestrel's name. Press it to go home.

Areas

A row of pills, starting with "Home", one for each part of the record you can open. The pill for the area you are in is drawn as the current one.

More

The areas that do not fit in the row, or are not pinned to it. Press "More" to open the list.

Search

A field labelled "Find students, classes or pages", with its shortcut beside it: Ctrl K, or the command key and K on a Mac.

Colour mode

A button that switches between light and dark. Its label says which mode it switches to.

Account

Your photo or initials. It opens the account menu: your account page, guides, support, the family portal if you have access to it, and "Sign out".

Areas and More

An area is a part of the record that has several screens. The band pins the areas used most: Students, Classes, Timetable, Attendance, Enrolment and Medical. The rest are under "More": Activities, Assessment, Wellbeing, Fees, Reporting, Staff, Calendar, Messages and Returns. A wide screen keeps more areas in the row, and a narrow one moves them into "More".

Your role decides the list. A teacher does not see Fees, and a nurse sees Medical where a teacher would not. If an area you expect is missing, ask your administrator which role you hold. A greyed entry marked "Soon" in the "More" list cannot be opened.

On a phone or a narrow window the row is replaced by one button, labelled "Show the record's areas". It opens a list of the same areas in the same order.

1. Press the pill for the area you want, for example "Attendance".
2. If the area is not in the row, press "More" and choose it from the list.
3. The page opens on the area's first screen. Its other screens are the tabs under the title.

The tabs under a page's title

An area with several screens shows them as a row of tabs under the page title. Attendance, for example, has "Rolls", "Arrivals and departures", "Unexplained absences", "Absences" and others. A tab appears only for a screen your role can open, and an area with one screen shows no tabs.

A page may also have a second row of choices that change what the page shows, such as "Students", "Applicants", "Former students" and "Everyone" at the top of the students list. These change the answer on the same page, and they are kept in the page's address, so you can send the link to a colleague.

The way back

Each console page starts with a line above its title. On the left is a back button that names where it goes, such as "Back to Students". Beside it is a small history button for recent pages.

• Back returns you to the page before this one, exactly as you left it. A students list comes back with the search and filters you had.
• If you opened a link in a fresh tab and there is no page before it, back goes to the page's parent: the list a record belongs to, the area's first screen, or home.
• The history button lists up to five pages you opened last in this tab, newest first. Choose one to jump straight back to it.
• Changing a filter, a search, a tab or a day does not add a step to back. One press of back leaves the page.

The home page

Home is the first page you reach after signing in, headed "Today". It is a set of tiles, each leading with one figure and what it counts, with the rows behind it folded away. A tile appears only if your role has what it needs and your school has not switched it off. Each tile fills in as its own answer arrives, so a slow tile does not delay the rest.

The tiles are in the order a day is read, in four bands. A band has no colour of its own: colour on the home page marks something that needs attention, with a word beside it.

A quiet tile says why it is quiet and is drawn last, so a busy tile is never pushed below the fold. If your school has switched all the tiles off, the page says "No panels on the home page". If your account is linked to a person's record, a link labelled "Your profile" opens it.

• Home

  /app

  The staff home page, headed "Today": the tiles for what needs your attention, what is waiting on you and what is on today.

• Read a person's day Read a person's day

Journeys

• 1.4 Finding things
• 1.5 The calendar and your tasks
• 2.4 Daily rolls

Settings

An administrator sets the school's colour and crest on the "Theme" page of Settings, and chooses which tiles the school shows on the "Home page" page of Settings. Each person's access decides the areas.

• 5.2 The school
• 5.3 Staff and access

Training notes

Everyone needs this chapter. It takes about ten minutes at a screen, and it is the right place to show each role the home tiles it will use. Ask staff to find the area for their own work through "More", press back from a record, and open the history button.