School Settings
Administrators can control how student contacts and staff members interact with the center within brightwheel through the school settings.
Sabrina avatar
Written by Sabrina
Updated over a week ago

A program's settings can be managed or altered by program Administrators from the web or mobile app. These settings control how staff and student contacts interact with the program in brightwheel and can be modified at any time to best fit the program's needs!

This resource provides an overview of the available options under Check-in Kiosk, Learning, Access, and Payroll settings that are accessible on the web and on the app.

Table of Contents


Access School Settings

On the Web

  1. Click the My School option on the purple sidebar to expand the menu

  2. Select Settings

  3. Jump over to the School Info tab

On the App

  1. From the Administrator Dashboard, tap School Profile

  2. Scroll down to the School Settings section


Check-in Kiosk Settings

Administrators have the ability to set up their check-in settings in whatever way works best for the program. These settings are split into two distinct categories, Check-in Kiosk Settings and Attendance Settings.

Learn more about the options for check-in settings that are available in our Manage School Check-in Settings resource.


Learning Settings

Administrators can set up learning frameworks or state standards to be utilized when logging learning observations in the app.

Learn more about managing this setting from the web or app in our Setup Your Learning Standard or Framework resource.


Access Settings

These settings will influence how parents will interact with brightwheel in their account. It is beneficial to understand what these settings affect and how they can drive parent engagement!

Default Activities to Staff-Only

Some administrators prefer the ability to approve the activities staff are logging prior to them being shared with student contacts, this can be especially helpful when first rolling out brightwheel. If toggling this setting ON, all new posts will be viewable by internal personnel only, until an administrator has approved them and all newly logged activities will default to 'staff only' as well.

When logging activities on the web, regardless of how this setting is configured, activities will not have the Staff Only option checked by default. We strongly recommend advising your staff how to use this option if logging activities from their account on the web and in general to ensure they're following the program's procedures.

Parents can Edit Student Info

Allowing contacts with parent-level access to maintain, add, or edit information on their student's profiles can be a great way to keep the information up to date. This includes all information in the student’s profile under Personal Information, Address, and Student Contacts.

Some schools prefer to know when records are changing and would prefer to keep this privilege available to school staff only. It's up to program administrators to determine if this privilege is toggled on or off.

Learn about toggling this feature on/off from the Web and App by viewing our Parent Permissions to Edit Student Profiles resource.

Parent can Add Activities

Student contacts that have been added as a Parent contact type may have the ability to add a photo of a student to the student’s feed using the mobile app. This allows contacts to share photos of activities, projects, milestones, and more! Once the photo is added, it will be viewable by school administrators, staff, and other student contacts.


Learn more about how parents can add, edit, and delete photos on their child's feed on the mobile app by viewing our Uploading Photos as a Parent resource.


Payroll Settings

Payroll settings are only available to be modified by administrators on the web. These settings are primarily useful to administrators who are using brightwheel's staff check-in/out options to track payroll.

The Week Start Day setting allows administrators to choose what day the program's week starts from a payroll perspective so overtime can be easily calculated using the Payroll report. The drop-down menu can be used to select the appropriate day of the week.

The Auto Check Out Staff setting allows administrators to choose to auto-checkout staff that has accidentally stayed checked in. If the setting is toggled ON then these open time cards will automatically be closed with a Time Out set to midnight. This setting will help to prevent errors and confusion during staff check-in, and make it more obvious when reconciling timecards that the timecard needs to be updated.


Room Settings

Room Settings are available to be modified on the app as an administrator or staff. Every classroom is different and brightwheel knows that preferences vary by teacher. That's why we have empowered staff to set their Room Settings based on the preferences of those assigned to that room. Administrators will see all options available in the screenshot below and staff will see all besides the Student to Staff Ratio and Room Capacity options.

Learn more about the various options available to manage rooms at a program by viewing our Room Settings resource.

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