Structural Build for Track One

AI-generated transcript by Loom.com

0:00 Now, let's just focus again on what exactly we are doing. So, back to our three steps, building the structure, creating the appointments, and finally scheduling the appointments.

0:12 We're beginning the first step now, building the structure of the parent teacher conference night, as a whole using these two screens.

0:21 The first thing you'll do, of course, is go to the school menu on the task bar and select setup. Click on PTC and then PTC setup and organize the nicely for yourself.

0:31 Now, this is very important. There are two set-up tracks. Track one, set up the PTC structure to work with one uniform appointment length for all your appointments.

0:43 Track one will allow you to insert the short one to two-minute load between appointments that we discussed before. This track is compatible with the auto scheduler.

0:51 It is not compatible with the option to allow parents to schedule their own appointments on the parent portal. Track two does not allow for a low.

0:59 This track is compatible with both auto scheduler and parent portal. So here you can screenshot this chart. Track one, one appointment length, has a low, has auto scheduler, no parent portal.

1:13 Track two, two appointment lengths, no low, has auto scheduler, has parent portal. Now it's important to realize we're discussing the standard situation, a school that wishes to either auto schedule their appointments or have parent schedule themselves on the parent portal.

1:28 But on both tracks, you can also manually schedule the appointments. And actually, technically, on both tracks, you will even be able to give appointments other links outside of the one or two official links that you choose.

1:42 And you may end up with many different appointment links in the end. But all of those appointments with random links will need to be scheduled manually.

1:51 So when we say you can create one uniform length or to two lengths. That does not include appointments that you are willing to schedule manually.

1:59 Those can be a variety of lengths. So here are the instructions for track one. With one appointment lengths, a low, auto scheduler, and no parent portal.

2:08 You'll type in the term, and then you'll choose a name for this parent teacher conference night. Pick the date and a start time.

2:16 Now, how long are the appointments and how long is the low? So let's say you want each appointment to be four minutes long.

2:22 Enter four in the appointment duration column. And let's say you want a breather of one minute between appointments. For that, you'll use the appointment interval column.

2:32 The appointment interval tells the auto scheduler how long it's a way between the start times of each appointment. So if your appointments are four minutes long and you set the interval to five minutes as we'll do here, the auto scheduler will to wait an extra minute, because it can only schedule appointments

2:50 to start every five minutes. That gives a one-minute breather between all appointments. Here's a quick example. If the conference starts at 7pm, the first appointment can be scheduled for seven o'clock.

3:01 The next can be five minutes later at 7.05, the next can be at 7.10, and so on. And since each appointment is really only four minutes long, there's a one-minute breather in between each one.

3:13 In theory, if both the duration and the interval were five minutes, there would be no love, of course, because appointments would last for five minutes, and the next one will begin immediately.

3:24 But here in track one, we're making the interval a minute longer to get that love between appointments. Lastly on this screen, you'll fill in the total duration.

3:32 The total duration is the total length of time that conference is going to take. We're going to get back to it shortly.

3:39 Don't worry about the number that's in it right now because we're going to come back to change it. Moving on to PTC Break Setup, click School Setup, click on PTC and then PTC Break Setup.

3:51 Now on this screen, you'll tell admire one to create general breaks in the schedule for everyone. That means the whole conference will break for a set amount of time.

4:01 Now a lot of teachers and parents would rather you get them out of the building faster and for go those breaks.

4:06 So just make sure the breaks are actually the best fit for your school and feel free to skip the breaks entirely as well if you wish.

4:13 You don't necessarily need them. Here's how you actually schedule one or several breaks. We'll start with the explanation for a school that wants several breaks inserted.

4:22 Select the correct conference, fill in how long the break should be in the break duration field. Let's fill in 10 minutes, for example.

4:32 Then, in start date and time, fill in the date of the conference and then make the start time precisely, important, it should actually be precisely a full break length earlier than the conference start time.

4:49 So for instance, if you filled out the conference start time on the previous screen as 7 p.m., and in this screen you decided to set 10 minute breaks, fill out the start time in this screen as 650 p.m.

5:02 And then we move on to the interval, well, just like the appointment interval on the first screen, which hold it higher, how often to start a new appointment.

5:12 The break interval will tell it higher, how often to start a new break. So if we enter 90 minutes, a break will start every 90 minutes beginning from the break start time.

5:23 The little confusing, but if our conference starts at 7 PM and our breaks are 10 minutes long, and our break start time is set to 650 PM, Then the conference begins at 7.

5:41 Your first break, a 10 minute break, will begin at 8, 20 because that is 90 minutes from 6, 50 and then another break will begin at 9, 50 because that is 90 minutes from 8, 20 and so on until you get past the end of the total length of the conference.

6:05 Now what if you wish to have just one single break during the night, then you're actually going to use the break start time very very differently from how we just use it a second ago.

6:17 When we were making multiple breaks in one night, we used the start time just as a scheduling aid for the system.

6:26 We told the system, this is when you should start calculating the break intervals and based on the start time and the break intervals, you'll know when to make the breaks.

6:39 If you only want one break in the night, then use the start date and time to actually say when that one break should begin.

6:52 So, you'll say that the duration should be 10 minutes. So, the break will be a 10 minute break. Say when it's supposed to start, let's say 9 o'clock.

7:03 Preferably take care that it starts at the beginning of an appointment interval. What you calculate, of course, based on the appointment intervals that we entered in the previous screen, the PTC setup screen, not the PTC break setup that we're in now, but PTC setup.

7:19 In the PDC set up screen, we said the interval, so we said five minutes. So in this case, for instance, nine o'clock would be on the five.

7:30 That's on the five minute interval, so that would be a good time. And in the break interval column, just put in an amount of time that's for sure much longer than the entire parent teacher conference night is going to be.

7:46 So we'll just put in 400 minutes here. And that will successfully create just one single break in the night at the exact time that you wrote down at the start time and for the length that you set in the break duration.

8:02 Now, regardless of whether you chose a few breaks or one break, here's the next step to do to make sure that all the scheduling is perfectly smooth.

8:14 To make sure there is no wasted time in your scheduling, make sure that both the break duration and the break interval are multiples of the appointment interval you filled in on the previous screen.

8:27 To check, divide the number you entered as break duration by the appointment interval on the previous screen. And if the number you get is a whole number with no decimal, then divide the number you entered as break interval by the appointment interval from the previous screen.

8:44 If that number as well as a whole number with no decimal, then you're good. It works. The shading style can be left as is and your brakes are good to go.

8:53 Now, we'll have the total duration before, but now we can calculate it. So to calculate the total duration of the entire parent teacher conference evening in this track, figure out which teacher has the most appointments, multiply that number by the appointment interval, and then take that total and 

9:10 add the time of whatever breaks, if any will be occurring during the night, referring here to the big breaks for the entire conference.

9:20 Of course, if some of your teachers are a department based, and if you just subject to several classes or grades, make sure you include all the students they teach in total while calculating the total duration of the conference.

9:32 And don't worry about a few extra minutes to the conference when estimating it won't mess things up. If you're going with setup track one, then you've just completed step one out of our three steps in PTC.

9:43 You completed the structural good. Remember to carefully look over all the numbers you entered in these two set-up screens. Feel like everything over and everything is correct.

9:53 Move on to creating appointments and then scheduling them and adjusting them.