We support various ways to populate your school's directory, ranging from using an invitation code and allowing parents to self-register to a full data import.
Please reach out to us at support [at] joinourclass.com with any questions -- we are happy to help you through the import process. Oh, and there is no charge for helping you get your directory imported.
Method 1: School Invitation Code
This is the easiest way to get the family portion of your directory populated. You can provide your school's parent community with a special invitation code, which they can use to self-register.
Build the Class directory first
Before distributing the invitation code to parents, you should first define your classes and staff directory so that parents can select their student's class/teacher when they add their student(s).
Self-registered parents require approval
Once registered, parents still need to be approved by someone who has the right permission before they will appear in the directory or can sign in to see the directory. This is for security purposes so that not just anyone who gets the invitation code can join and see your school's directory. Once a parent is approved in a family, that approved parent can approve another parent/guardian who self-registered to that same family.
Allowing parents to add other family members
After a parent is approved, they can log into your school's directory and, optionally, add other family members. To allow this, your school admin must enable the option to allow families to add/edit their own family members. You can see how to do this in the Method 2 section below.
Making sure a parent is registered in the right family
During the self-registration, parents are asked to search for other family members so they can join them as part of the same family if other family members have already registered.
Before approving a pending registration, you should verify that the parent/guardian is in the right family by looking in the directory. If the person is listed in the wrong family or didn't join their own family, you can use the Move to family button to move them before approval.
Special Notes
- The screens for self-registration and management of the invitation code and approvals are only available in the Web version of Join Our Class.
- The school admin can assign the Administrative/Approve directory members permission to any other user in the directory to help approve pending registrations.
Method 2: Name and Email Import + Allow Parents to Add Family Members
This is a good option if you want parents to help build the directory by granting them a special permission to add their own family members and other family data to the directory.
1. Create your school's classrooms and/or teachers in Join Our Class. This will allow the parents to select the grade and class of their children when they add them.
2. Send us a Google Sheet or Excel file with the following columns so we can import the list to populate at least 1 parent for each family. Once the parents are in the directory, you can invite them to Join Our Class and they can complete their family's family records in the directory.
There should be 1 row per family. You need at least one guardian per family. If you want to add more guardians to a family, they should be included in the same row as shown below with the "Guardian2..." columns.
| Guardian1FirstName | Guardian1LastName | Guardian1Email | Guardian1Relationship | Guardian2FirstName | Guardian2LastName | Guardian2Email | Guardian2Relationship |
| John | Smith | jsmith@dmail.com | Father | Susan | Smith | ssmith@dmail.com | Mother |
| Diana | Smith | dsmith@dmail.com | Mother | ||||
| Rick | Thomson | rthomson@ymail.com | Father | Jennifer | Thomson | jthomson@ymail.com | Mother |
| Luisa | Williams | lwilliams@zmail.com | Mother |
3. Go to Admin/Config and set the Directory Parent Permission's Family Members to Yes. This will allow parents to add other guardians and students to their own family. This permission can also be removed at any time, if your school prefers to remove the permission after the directory is built.
Method 3: Full Data Import
We can import family and staff data from a Google Sheet, Excel, or CSV file that follows our prescribed data columns.
Our data formats are shown in these sample Google Sheets below.
The minimal required fields are indicated by the shaded columns; the other columns are not absolutely required. Some column headings have additional comments that are viewable in Google Sheets if you click on the column heading.
Family Data
Staff/Faculty Data
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