Create a New Meeting Schedule (Post-Primary)

If you are a ‘school admin’ and want to know how to create a ‘new meeting schedule’ for your Post-Primary School, please follow these instructions:

Nb. If you don't see the 'new schedule' button, this is likely because you are not set up as an administrator for your school. To get admin status, speak to someone in the school who is already an admin and they will be able to give you these privileges or email support@equipple.com and provide the name of your school as well as the rationale for requiring admin permissions.

Step 1

•    From the Equipple ‘home screen,’ simply click, ‘new schedule’.  

Step 2

•    This pop-up will appear which will ask you to ‘give the meeting schedule a name’. Choose something unique and specific to that set of parent/teacher Meetings. For example, ‘Year 9 March Meetings 2026’ and click ‘continue’. 

Step 3

•    Now you need to choose your meeting format with parents. If your parent/teacher meetings are in person, click ‘in person’. If your school conducts phone call or video call meetings as well you can select these options here too.  

•    Next, in the ‘meeting duration’ section, you need to decide how long each slot in your parent/teacher meeting will be. You can use the plus and minus symbols to choose the meeting duration time. 

•    Underneath, there is the ‘meeting buffer’ section. If you would like the meetings to be scheduled back-to-back, one after the other, then select ‘None’. However, if you would like a short buffer between each meeting, anything from 1-5 minutes to allow teachers time to quickly make any additional notes, reset themselves and prepare for the next meeting, then select the number of minutes you would like as a buffer.

•    Finally there is the option to send parent communication following the meetings. If you would like to automatically send parents a follow up report which can include assessment data, attendance and even an AI-Generated summary for parents you can select either of these options. There is a short descriptor beside each option to let you know what it means.

For more information on the Forward Focus please refer to this support article: https://help.equipple.com/a/solutions/articles/202000098878

•    Once you are happy with your settings for the upcoming meetings simply click ‘Continue’. 

In this step you are simply setting the permissible formats. Teachers can choose to have fewer formats available for parents to book, but they cannot add additional formats.

For example, if an admin selects 'in-person' an individual teacher can choose to open their availability to 'in-person' meetings only. But they cannot choose to add 'phone calls' as an option. Only the Admin can add extra formats for meetings.

Step 4

•    Select which year groups and classes are taking part in the parent/teacher meetings. To save time and select multiple classes, you can click the ‘magic wand’ icon in the corner of each year group or ‘select all’ for your entire school. Click ’continue’. 

Step 5

•    You now have the facility to limit the amount of meetings that parents can book depending on the size of your school. This can be an effective way of managing the capacity of your staff. A popup will appear which tells you how many pupils, classes and teachers are associated in the meeting schedule that you have just created. If you would like to limit the amount of meetings that each parent can book select ‘yes’ toggle and then click ‘continue.’

•    If you selected ‘yes’ a simulator will appear which tells you how much time each teacher would spend if 100% of all the available slots were booked. You can then either increase or decrease the amount of slots available to parents. When you’re happy with this setting, please click ‘continue.’ 

Step 6

•    A monthly calendar will now come up. Select the date or dates when your meetings are taking place. These will then be highlighted in green. Click ‘continue’. 

Step 7

•    You now need to select the exact times of your meetings. You can scroll up and down until you see the time slots you would like your school to conduct meetings. Click and hold on the earliest meeting slot for the first day and drag down until the final slot. You can leave gaps by clicking on a specific time slot. Double check your timings and click ‘continue’. 

Step 8

•    This page tells you when parents will automatically receive their invitations and also when the booking window for parents closes. We recommend that you open the booking window 10 days before the meetings to allow teachers time to prepare and parents time to choose their slot but you can alter this and select the specific date and time manually that you would prefer. 

•    Then, repeat the process underneath for the ‘booking closure date’. This is the deadline in which the booking system will close and prevent further bookings. We recommend 3 working days before your first Parent/Teacher Meeting but again, you can alter this.

Nb. Teachers and admins can still manually assign parents even once the booking closure date has lapsed.

Step 9

•    You now need to decide if you would like to add any additional instructions for parents to view when they receive their Equipple email. This might be instructions for parking on the day of the meetings, which entrance of the school to use, where parents should wait etc.

•    If you do not want to add any additional instructions, select ‘No’ and click ‘Continue’. Skip ‘Step 10’ and go straight to ‘Step 11’.

•    If you selected ‘Yes’, please go to the next set of instructions, ‘Step 10’.

Step 10

•    If you selected ‘yes’ for adding additional instructions to the Equipple email parents receive, then the pop-up tab should change to what you can see below.

•    You have the option of leaving up to two sets of instructions.

•    Instructions on invitation emails – these are instructions which will be attached to the email inviting parents to book their meeting slot. 

•    Instructions on booking confirmation emails – these are instructions which will be attached to the booking confirmation email which Parents receive when they have chosen and booked their slot.

•    When you have completed your instructions, click ‘continue’.

Note – Ideas for instructions may include:
-    Instructions for parking on the day of the meetings.
-    Which entrance of the school to use.
-    Where Parents should wait for their meeting.
-    Reminders to ensure Parents arrive on time for their meeting.
-    A gentle encouragement to stick to the schedule.

Step 11

•    The final step is to ‘review and confirm’ the details of your meeting schedule. 

•    Check each section and if you’re happy, click ‘create schedule.’

•    Once your schedule has been created you should see it appear on the dashboard. That is how you create a schedule in a Post-Primary School.