Help & Support
We made a promise to you when you joined us that we’d support you and your team to get the most from our software.
Our experienced Customer Support Consultants are available from 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday.
What’s new to support you this month
Top Tip
Learn how to mark off children in bulk and reallocate the funding in the Connect Childcare management system. Head to this article on our helpdesk to gain an overview of how to use the Day Session Assignments screen to Mark Children Off, either as paid or unpaid.
Feature Focus Sessions
Throughout June, July and August, we are holding free customer Feature Focus sessions to help you prepare for the new academic year.
The sessions will be split into two parts and will be repeated in the build-up to September. Sign up today!
Win a Free Health Check
We are conducting a short survey to identify parental engagement best practices. We are looking for childcare professionals to share their expertise and pearls of wisdom to help us understand how successful parental engagement can be achieved in early years education. You have until Wednesday 31st May to take part.
Customer Feature Focus Sessions
We have recently launched our new Connect Feature Focus Sessions held by our software training and development coordinator, Charlotte Woods. Throughout June, July and August, the sessions will focus on helping you prepare for the new academic year.
See dates and topics for the next sessions and book here.
Join the Connect Community
Here you can interact with the wonderful community of Connect Childcare users to ask questions, post ideas, get useful advice and generally share the joy of childcare with a like-minded group. You’ll also keep up to speed with latest updates, tips, and insights directly from the Connect Childcare team.
How to Guides
Connect Childcare
Click on Children and select the child’s name.
Once you have added the contract for the child, you then need to set up the room movements. This ensures that the system knows which room the child will be in now and in the future and also what rate to bill them at. When allocating the room movements by age, the system will move the children based on their date of birth and the age bands set up in the site details.
To set up the child’s room movements, select the Contracts tab in the child’s record, then click on the Rooms button from the top right-hand side. This is where you will allocate the child to a specific room or additional site for bookings across multiple sites. Press Allocate by Age for the system to move the child based on their age and birthdays.
Setting up the room allocations will also tell the system which sessions to offer, so if your babies can’t have a breakfast club session, the system won’t display it in the booking panel.
Once you are happy with the room movements, select Confirm. This will take you back to the Contracts screen.
Adding Room Movements Manually
If you wish to manually assign the rooms, double click the room name in the Room Movements window, select each room in turn and type in the dates you expect the child to be in each room. You can alter these later on if necessary.
Once you are happy with the dates selected, select Confirm. The room selected will now be displayed as a green bar in the Room Movements window.
Click on Children and select the child, then select the Contracts tab. The child will need to have a contract added to their record. If the child does not have a valid contract, then you will not be able to create bills for the child. To add a contract, please select the Add Contract button at the bottom of the screen, remembering to allocate the child to a room.
Once you have allocated the rooms for the child you can add the recurring booking pattern for them. To do this, select the Add Bookings button from the top of the screen. This will bring up a blank booking panel.
To add a new booking, you will need to select a session from the Add Bookings button. The sessions available will be determined by which sites and rooms the child is allocated to in the room movement window set up previously.
To book the session in simply select the day in-line with the session and click on the days attending (one click will book the child in, two clicks will add them to the waiting list). Once a session has been selected, click on Done.
Click Apply
Changing a Booking Pattern
If a change in circumstances means that a child requires a change in their regular booking pattern. All you need to do is go into the child’s record from Children, search for the child and view the child details. Select the Contracts tab, you will see all historical and future planned regular bookings.
Please change the end date for the existing booking pattern before you add a new pattern. You can do this by clicking on Edit at the bottom right of the panel, then selecting an end date, then click on Done.
To start a subsequent booking pattern, select Add Bookings, the end date of the previous booking pattern will determine the start date of the new booking pattern. Then all you need to do is to add the new recurring pattern.
The system will check that no booking patterns have overlapping dates as this means they will appear twice on registers and be billed twice.
To add additional sessions for a child on an ad hoc basis you would use the Specific Days or One Off Bookings screen. This can also be used when changing a child’s booking as a one off.
Select the days that require the additional bookings within the Specific Days calendar. If you wish to add bookings for a whole month, you can select all days in a month by clicking on the name of the Month at the left-hand side. Once the required days are selected, select the Add Bookings button from the bottom right-hand side of the window. This will open up the Set Specific Day Attendances window as displayed:
To add a new session, select the relevant contract from the Site drop-down menu, then select the required session group / room from the Session Group drop-down menu. A list of available sessions for the specified site and group will now be displayed in the sessions grid.
There are three billing options available to you when adding an additional session. These are available in the Billing Session Extra Options area at the bottom of the window. The three options are: System Derived (set as default), Bill as Normal Session and Bill as Extra.
If you have left the tick box to System Derived, the system will flag this session as extra if the period is already billed and this session has missed the bill run. If you have not billed this period, the system will bill a system derived session in with the usual sessions.
Once the correct session and relevant billing options have been selected, select Add to create the booking.
Click Children and then select your child
From the Extras tab within Billing in the child record, you can add either a one off extra or a recurring extra. To add a new extra select the Add New button from the right hand side of the screen. This will open a Client Extras Entry window. Within this window will be a list of all extras set up for the current child’s billing site and should look similar to this:
To add an extra for this child, select the extra required from the list, enter the extras start date and extras end date (if this is a one off extra, set the end date to the same as the start). Once you have entered the correct dates you will need to select the frequency for the extra
- One off extra
- Per session
- Per week
- Per month
- Per quarter
- Per year
- Per attending day
- Per week attending day (extra will be charged per week as long as the child is on on the day of week selected)
Then, if required, change the quantity of the extra. Once you are happy with the details specified, select Confirm. Once the extra has been confirmed, it will now be listed within the Extras tab on the child record.
Booking extras ‘per session’ may require a system billing flag to be altered within Configuration and Data Items. By default, per session means if a child was in for a full day, it would be 1 extra booked, the flag means if you have your system split into time slots, per session means time slot.
Select Children and click on your child
On the child’s record you’ll see various tabs. Select Health / Doctor, Dietary Needs, Permissions / Other and Medicines.
These screens are where you will answer any registration questions that were set up within Configuration and Data Items. To answer questions either select Yes, No or Not Known and type any notes required in the notes section of the question. The notes field can be used to log the severity of reactions to certain things and will filter through to the relevant reports.
Within the Health/Doctor tab you will record the doctor’s details for the child i.e. Name, address, telephone etc. You can also log the date these details were last checked, again, these details can be reported on later on, to ensure all important information is kept up to date.
You can add additional tabs along the child’s record for whatever purpose, for example, a Family Profile tab might include the number of siblings, if the parents are teenage parents, if the parents have just gone back to work etc.
Click on Sites
Select your sites and click Check Availability
Type in the date period you wish to look at, select the room if you wish to look at a particular room, then click on Search.
You also have the option to include children that have been marked off in the room totals by ticking Include Marked As Off.
All columns are colour coded, the colour green signifies there is space, amber signifies you are at capacity, and red shows you are overbooked.
If you click on the Week Commencing date, the system will bring up the register screen which will allow you to see exactly which children you have booked in during that week, this would allow you to plan for future occupancy levels i.e. John Smith is in the baby room, he is walking at 9 months, he could be moved up into the toddlers room, making a space for another child in the baby room.
Click on Main and then select Change my Password
Enter your new password information and click Change
Select Register
If you have more than 1 site you can choose the site you wish to run a register for
Next, you have the option to run the register for just one room (Please note when the registers are printed they will be separated by room)
Then the date section please select the Sunday before the week you wish to view.
Next click search, this will now run your register for you on screen.
The colour coding matrix will let you know the status of the child on the register
Printing Registers
To print a register off simply click on the register drop-down at the bottom of the screen and select the style you require.
You will be shown a print preview before actually printing off your register.
View the full help desk article
iConnect
The Today screen is the first thing you’ll see on iConnect.
Here you’ll see information on your key children as well as upcoming events and any staff or parent requests.
You’ll be able to see the site and room you’re assigned to and how many children are booked in today.
Click on Due In to take you to today’s register
Click on your name to take you to your Profile
Click on Last Observation to see when your key children were last observed in each area of learning
Click on the iConnect logo to come back to the today screen at any time.
You can set a 4 digit security pin to use when switching users on iConnect
Click on your name to view your Profile
Select Change PIN
Enter a 4 digit pin and Save Changes
Select Register
Click Check In to see a list of all children due in today
Select the child and click Mark off
Enter the reason for absence and select a mark off category if required
The child will now show in the Off section of your register
You can change your personal details and preferences in your Profile by clicking on your name in the top right hand corner.
You can add or change your profile picture and view your shifts for the day.
If you’re using a shared device you can switch users and log out from here too.
Click a field to update the information and click Save Changes
Once updated, an approval request will automatically be sent to a Manager or Administrator.
Accounts will be locked after 3 incorrect password attempts.
If this happens you can reset your password by clicking Forgot Password – or it can be reset by a Nursery Manager.
You’ll receive an email to reset your password.
Create a new password that contains 6 characters and 1 number and fill out a secret question and answer.
If you have not already set a secret question, or if you have forgotten the answer you will then need to contact a manager at the nursery who will be able to send you a password reset email.
Your Nursery Manager will need to go to
- Settings
- Manage contacts and Staff
- click Staff
- Enter the staff member’s name
- click Filter results
Click on the arrow on the Registered button, then select Reset password to send a password reset email.
To check a child in, select Register
Click Check In and you’ll be shown all of the children due in today.
Select the checkbox next to the child, change the check in time if needed and then Check In
- From here you can also mark a child off and select the reason
You can obtain a signature from the parent on check in. Simply slick Sign and the parent can sign directly on your touch screen.
Follow the same process to check a child out
Select Register
Click Check Out to see a list of all children that have been checked in, alongside their leaving times.
Select the checkbox next to the child, change the check in time if needed and then Check Out
Again, you can obtain a parent signature by clicking Sign
If you check a child in or out by mistake you can click Undo
Select Staff Register
(if this option isn’t available – call our support team on 01282 507 945 who will be happy to switch it on for you)
From here you can view the staff due in today with their expected shift times.
Select the Staff Member
Change the time if needed and click Check In
You can select staff individually or click Select All
You can obtain a signature from staff checking in or out by clicking Sign
Use the same process to check staff out when leaving
Select Settings
Click Manage Contacts & Staff
Select the Contact or Bill Payer that you’d like to invite to ParentZone
- The contact will need a valid email address to receive the invitation
Click on Unregistered and then select Register
This will trigger an email invitation to be sent out and the button will change to Pending
Once a parent has activated their account they will show as Registered
You can use this same process to unregister parents when required, this will prevent them from logging into ParentZone.
Additional Training
Get the best out of Connect Childcare by building your knowledge and expertise with our additional training sessions.
