Setting up BrightArrow for the First Time

If BrightArrow has never been installed on your PowerSchool server we can do that for you. However if you'd like to do it yourself you can by following these steps. Once you are done let us know so we can finish the parts that are on our end as well.

** You will need access to District Office to perform some of these steps.

  1. Install the Base plugins
    There are 2 Base plugins. Base 1 contains the Database Extensions and must be installed before Base 2. Base 2 contains all the rest of the pieces that everyone gets. If you have custom fields you need such as a state language field, custom phone/emails, activities we'll do that in a separate plugin called the Data plugin. The 2 Base plugins are common across all customers and only contain pieces that anyone can use. Directions for installing the plugins can be found in the article Installing the Plugins
  2. Setup the sFTP connection within PowerSchool
    We will create a unique sFTP folder and login for your school. Information on the assigned server, username and password will be sent to you via a secure program called 1Password. Once you have this information you can set up the connection within PowerSchool by following the directions in Setup sFTP on a PowerSchool Server
    1. CID and Key information will be used in a later step
  3. Enter the basic settings into the BrightArrow Settings page while in District Office
    With the plugins installed you can now enter some customer specific settings that will help make sure your single sign on between PowerSchool and BrightArrow can only point to your server. If you are a single school on a shared server there are slightly different steps than if you are a district wide customer or a single school on your own server.
    1. Switch to District Office if you aren't already there
    2. Navigate to the BrightArrow Settings page
      1. PowerSchool Classic UI: System > BrightArrow Settings
      2. PowerSchool Enhanced UI: System Management > Data > BrightArrow Settings
    3. District customers and single schools on their own server
      1. In the District Row
        1. Find the CID box in the District row and enter the number from the CID row in the 1Password information that you used in step 2
        2. In the Key box enter the value from the Key in the 1Password information that you used in step 2
        3. Set Admin Functions, Report Emailing, and Permission by Person (if visible) to Enable
        4. Set Staff Contacts to Edit My Contacts
      2. In the blue row below District and above the schools you can mass change the options for all the schools
        1. Set Admin Functions to Enable, this will enable all the schools
        2. If there are any schools you do not want change them to Disabled
        3. In the blue (mass add) row set Staff Contacts to Edit My Contacts and Report Emailing and Permission by Person (if visible) to Enable which will only change the settings for the schools you left enabled.
      3. Click Submit to save your changes
    4. If you are a single school on a shared server
      1. Change Setup Type from District to School
      2. In the District Row
        1. Enable all options. Schools can only use the parts that are enabled at the district. By enabling everything at District it allows the school to have control without having to go back and turn things on at District Office in the future.
      3. Find your school 
        1. Set Admin Functions, Report Emailing and Permission by Person (if visible) to Enable
        2. Set Staff Contacts to Edit My Contacts
        3. Find the CID box next to your school and enter the number from the CID row in the 1Password information that you used in step 2
        4. In the Key box enter the value from the Key in the 1Password information that you used in step 2
      4. Click Submit to save your changes
  4. Setup the filters
    There are more filters than we need for the basic setup. For the purposes of getting you started we'll only worry about the basics but you can change other settings as you see fit as well. Our default filters can be found in the article What are the default filters?
    1. Click on the Filters link in the District row
    2. There are 6 tabs
      1. Primary Contacts -> Where do default phone/email information for parents come from. This can be legacy fields (like home_phone, motherdayphone, etc) or contacts.
      2. Alt Contacts -> An alternate filter for a 2nd parent export from contacts. This can be for any situation where you may need different phone/emails from the normal day to day set such as Emergency
      3. Student -> Where does the student phone/email come from. This is normally left alone but some schools put student phone/emails in contacts as well and you can change the setting here
      4. Staff -> Information on what staff phone/emails to use and how to know which lists to include them on
      5. Lookup Rules -> All sorts of settings to make the exports send only the information you want based on your rules. Settings are there for how long before/after an enrollment can teachers see students, attendance rules, missing assignment rules, low grade reminder rules, low/negative balance rules. Skip this for the initial setup but you can cycle back here later for setting up your attendance etc rules
      6. Misc -> Other district wide setting such as PDF Password (if you want to password protect the PDF reports going to parents) and including extra students in the nightly exports such as transferred out or graduated. 
    3. Set the Primary Contact settings
      1. Where should the primary contacts come from -> Set to either Legacy Phone/Email Fields if you are using fields such as home_phone, motherdayphone, guardianemail OR set it to Contacts if your phone/emails should be coming from the contacts module
        1. The custom legacy and custom contacts require a data plugin, don't choose those until told to
      2. Use Custom Language Field -> Set to the option that makes the most sense for your setup
        1. BrightArrow Legacy Language Field: Default. Single field per student to assign a language for messages to the parents of that student. Defaults to English
        2. BrightArrow Contacts Language Field: Field that comes with our plugin that allows you to set a language per contact. Defaults to English
        3. BrightArrow Legacy Language Field as Override: Use when you want to default to using a state field for language. This allows you to override that value for the few parents who do not want to receive communications in the same language that is in the state field without forcing you to falsify the state value
        4.  BrightArrow Contacts Language Field as Override: Use when you want to default to using a state field for language. This allows you to override that value for the few contacts who do not want to receive communications in the same language that is in the state field without forcing you to falsify the state value. Since this is a contact field instead of a student field you can change individual contacts while leaving the rest
        5. Contacts Language Field - Built In: Now that PowerSchool has added their own contacts language field you can choose that if you have it set up and are using it.
          ** Our plugin will not help you set that up, only select if you have already set it up and are using it
        6. Legacy Language Field: Use if you have your own, not state reporting related, field
        7. Contacts Language Field - Custom: Use if you have your own custom built contacts language field.
      3. Language Field (informational only): This field shows only if you pick a language option that requires it. The data entered in the box will be shown to users within a student record to help them know where the language data is coming from. The recommendation is to enter the table.field of the custom field and the user will see "value set in sometable.somefield (English)".
      4. If Legacy:
        1. The 5 default phone fields and 1 default email field will have toggles so you can enable or disable those values from being sent to us. Custom fields will not get their own toggles and will not be included in the export without the custom data plugin
      5. If Contacts:
        1. Who to Contact: Choose how the export will know which contacts per student should be included. You can choose things such as first 3 contacts per student, receives mail checkbox is checked, and combinations. The options combine so if you enable Lives With checkbox checked and Custody checkbox checked then you are requested to only include contacts where both boxes are checked. If you want at least one of the boxes to be checked find the option Either Custody OR Lives With checked which allows for contacts to be included if they have either or both checked.
          1. We also include an "override" option which allows you to include contacts that do not match the normal rules but you need to make an exception. Enable the Allow Filter Override to have the exports obey that setting. If you feel people are entering data that shouldn't then you can disable that and the exports will ignore that setting.
        2. How to Contact: For the matching contacts select which phones and emails should be included
          1. Phones: If you don't know what you want yet we default to Include all EXCEPT 1 specific phone type and then in the exclude phone type option select Work
          2. Emails: We default to Primary, Secondary and Portal Emails to include all
            1. Primary Email -> Email  you entered into the contacts and checked the Primary box
            2. Secondary Email -> Email you entered into the contacts and did not check the Primary box
            3. Portal Email -> Email the contact entered from the parent portal. Many districts like using this field as it has to be verified before the parent account works so you know it was a good email (at least it was at the time the account was created)
    4. Click Submit
  5. Enable only your user to use BrightArrow
    The system will only show itself for users you want to see it. To start only enable your own user, do not enable anyone else until we have created the other users.
    1. Click on the Individual Settings tab
    2. Find the user you are currently logged in as from the list
      ** If you have more than one user still only enable the one you are currently logged in as
    3. Change the option from Disabled to Enabled
    4. Click Submit to save the change
    5. Verify by seeing BrightArrow in the left menu
  6. Manually log into BrightArrow within PowerSchool
    A 1:1 link will be created between PowerSchool and BrightArrow to allow for single sign on. However the first login has to be done manually, the rest will be automatically created later.
    1. Click on the BrightArrow Home option on the left menu
    2. You will be presented with a login. Enter the user and password that was sent to you when you first signed up for BrightArrow. PowerSchool will pass some values that uniquely identify your setup that we'll then use with the other users as well
    3. If you enable anyone else and they try to use the login they will kick you out. It is a 1:1 relationship, we'll automatically create the other users later.
  7. Create the schools
    If you are a single school you can skip this step. For organizations with more than 1 school you'll need to set up the school groups.
    1. Follow the directions in Creating school groups
    2. If you have an MBA plugin that already created some schools you will need to convert them by following the steps in Converting schools from MBA to BrightArrow
  8. Setup the Exports out of Data Export Manager (DEM)
    BrightArrow does not reach in and grab data, you send us data. While current selections will already be available, nightly exports will allow us to have data ready for many situations including if PowerSchool is down. There are many exports you may want to set up, for the purpose of getting you started we'll only talk about 3-5.
    1. Staff: The staff export allows us to auto-create your users, create course lists for ParentHub, and allows you to message staff as needed. To set up the export follow the directions in Setting up Basic Exports - Staff
    2. Parents: Parents can come from contacts or legacy fields. You may also have custom fields you want added. Choose the correct path depending on if you are using contacts or legacy fields
      1. Legacy: Setting up Basic Exports - Parents from Legacy Fields
      2. Contacts: Setting up Basic Exports - Parents from Contacts
        1. Set up the alternate as well, even if you don't need it yet. That way later if you need it you can just tell us to import it and it'll be there already. Setting up Basic Exports - Parents from Contacts - Alternate Filter
    3. Students: Most schools still use legacy fields for this (which includes the built in student email field even though it's not a real legacy field) but some have put the student phone/email in contacts. Choose the path that works for how your data is
      1. Legacy: Setting up Basic Exports - Students from Legacy Fields
      2. Contacts: Setting up Basic Exports - Students from Contacts
    4. Course Enrollments: These are used along with the staff, parents and students exports to create class lists for ParentHub. Setting up the Course Enrollments Export
  9. Schedule the Exports
  10. Inform BrightArrow that the exports are done so they can complete the last steps
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