Release notes
Release: 13.11.25
This release included new recurring calendar events and other improvements across Administration, Meal Manager, PEMS and Access Management.
Headline
Recurring Calendar Events
Schools can now create recurring events in ReachMoreParents. Events can repeat daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. There is also full flexibility to add exceptions for holidays, inset days or other changes in the school calendar.
This update reduces admin time and helps schools keep families informed with accurate schedules.
- Changes to the way Recurring Calendar Events are Created in ReachMoreParents
- Creating a Recurring Calendar Event
Administration
Clearer role assignment filters
Filters used when assigning roles now display the correct users. The summary of filtered results is consistent with the list shown.
Filter selections now reset correctly
When changing filter criteria on the Apply Roles to Users screen, any previously selected items are now cleared. This prevents accidental role assignments and improves clarity.
Better handling of page selections in tables
Improvements to the Select Page function provide clearer behaviour when navigating between pages. Previous selections no longer carry over unintentionally and individual selections no longer interfere with each other.
Shared Content access extended
System Admins with the relevant permission can now view and manage Forms and Hub content. This prevents content becoming inaccessible when original creators leave the school.
Access Management
Faster permission checks
Permission checks are now cached, improving performance when loading mailboxes and performing common tasks across the platform.
Meal Manager
Meal Manager date issue resolved
Daylight Savings Time previously caused duplicate meal events due to UTC conversions. Meal Manager now uses a date only field which prevents time shifts and fixes the issue.
VAT calculation behaviour corrected
A formatting change linked to Recurring Calendar Events affected VAT calculations. VAT Exclusive and VAT Inclusive fields now update correctly.
PEMS
PEMS Admin
Student leavers appointments can now be removed.
Appointments for students who have left the school can now be deleted without issue. This ensures appointment slots can be reused by other parents and carers.
PEMS Parent
Teacher availability now displays correctly
When teachers change their availability or set quiet times, the correct appointment slots now appear in the View and Edit Appointment screens.
Absence Reporting
**Arbor only
Attendance writebacks updated for historic marks**
Attendance marks for past dates are now written back individually to meet Arbor’s updated requirements.
Bug fixes
Administration
V2 Mailboxes not looking at Users permission resulting in removal of features
We implemented a fix to ensure that when a user is carrying out actions in a mailbox, the system grants access based on the user's roles permissions, and not the mailbox's permission. After our recent migration to remove legacy roles, users could not access Submit to MIS and other functionality in mailboxes. This is now resolved.
Teacher Role V2 - Blocking Teacher Access to PEMS
We have updated PEMS permissions for the teacher role to ensure that Access Parents' Meetings (TES & RMP) permission can be granted.
As part of this change we have also enabled the Book parents evening appointments for my children (all carers) permission for the parent/carer role.
This permission will be turned on, however the Access Parents' Meetings (TES & RMP) permission will be off by default so that parent/carers cannot access PEMS before schools complete their configurations.
Hubspot Chat widget
We are moving away from Zendesk for our support features and moving to Hubspot. As such, the "Chat Widget" has been changed to the Hubspot Chat widget.
Calendar
Notifications on reoccurring events
When creating a new calendar event, we have improved the status management on "Notify Event Recipients" to adhere to the settings saved by the creator.
Forms
Push Notification received for a Form when Notification Type is off on the App
The Forms Events Notification toggle wasn't being captured correctly by the portal, which meant that push notifications were sent regardless of the toggle being on/off. This has been fixed by making the portal match the request from the App.
Meal Booking
Meal Manager Reports: error when running meal booking report
An issue on the Meal Bookings Report was reported whereby an error was displayed when trying to Group By Dates. This has been resolved.
Order Status not showing correctly on Dining Preferences Report
A change from Date-Time to Date-only to resolve UTC errors in Autumn, resulted in the current Meal Event Date being flagged as passed. This meant the Dining Preferences report was showing "No Action Required" instead of the correct Meal Event Status. This has now been resolved.
Meal Ordering behaving strangely when the basket is exited rather than confirmed
We have resolved a Meal Week status error whereby if you had an Advanced meal in the basket and the Order Minimum Quantity was 0 on the Meal Plan, this would incorrectly list the Meal Week as complete when you exited the Book Meals screen.
Register Meals > Simple Meal Plan, Basket inactive as meals flagged as "No Action Required"
Within Register Meals, the Simple Meal plan basket status was being sent to the App as "No Action Required" on the Meal Event Date and preventing the teacher from being able to access the basket and confirm the orders. The correct status is now being applied so that the Teacher can book meals in a simple meal plan.
Register Meals > Meals within a Period Register aren't showing
Within Meal Plan management, changing the Register Meal setting from the AM session to a Period Setting caused confusion because the P1 option seemed to be selected by default when it was not. The P1 option is now truly selected so that there is clarity in the UI.
Parent Portal
Parent Portal > Forename missing from Behaviour
In the App, parent/carers could not see their child’s forename/surname when viewing behaviour information because the role does not have ‘Edit profile’ permission. We have amended the location of the "Forename" and "Surname" data from the "Edit Profile" permission into the "View Profile" to ensure that Parent/Carers can see the child’s forename on the Behaviours screens.
PEMS Admin
PEMS - Unable to Cancel Bookings/Appointments
We have enhanced the functionality for managing bookings in PEMS when an event is in draft status. If an event was published and then returned to draft status, Administrators can now delete any appointments that were created while the event was published, via the Teacher Schedules report.
PEMS Teacher
PEMS - Adding Custom Appointments appears to force a "break" if the appointment start is to match the event end time
In PEMS, administrators were prevented from creating custom appointments immediately after the standard event end time. This was forcing an appointment durations "break" before a custom appointment could be made, this has been resolved.