Why Do I Now Need to Enable Parents?

Understanding parent access - why there's a new step.

Recently, we introduced the Manage Parent Access dashboard, giving schools direct control over who can access the RollCall Parent App.

Since launching the feature, we've received a common question:

"Why do I now need to enable parents?"

The short answer is because schools asked for greater control.

Previously, once a parent's email existed in RollCall, access to the Parent App was largely automatic. The new Enable / Disable function allows your school to decide exactly when parents can access the app.

This is particularly useful when:

• Setting up RollCall for the first time.
• Preparing for a new school year before inviting families.
• Temporarily restricting Parent App access while making major changes.
• Preventing access for specific parents where required (for example, family court orders or other school-directed access restrictions).

Understanding the three parent statuses

Setting	What it controls	What it means
Current / Past Parent	Relationship to the school	A parent must be linked to at least one current student. If they are only linked to past students, they become a Past Parent and cannot access the Parent App.
Engaged / Unengaged	Parent activity	Engaged means the parent has accepted their invitation, created a password and logged into the Parent App. Unengaged means they haven't completed this process yet.
Enabled / Disabled	School permission	This is controlled by your school. Enabled parents can access the Parent App. Disabled parents cannot log in, even if they have previously used the app.

We've also made the new step easier

We know Enable Parent is a new step in the onboarding process, so we've updated the workflow to make sure it isn't missed.

If you manually create parents and students in RollCall using Add Student/Parent, you'll now be prompted to enable the parent before sending their invitation.

If your school uses an integration with your Student Management System (such as TASS, Compass or Sentral), newly imported parents will also prompt you to review and enable their access.

These prompts are designed to make the new workflow as simple as possible while ensuring parents don't miss out on access because one final step was overlooked.

Remember...

For a parent to successfully access the RollCall Parent App, all three conditions below must be true:

• They are a Current Parent (linked to at least one current student).
• Their access has been Enabled by the school.
• They have become Engaged by accepting their invitation and setting up the app.

If any one of these isn't true, the parent won't be able to access the Parent App.

A small new step - but one that gives schools much greater control over who can access their transport information, and when.