Notification Live Documentation

Notification Live is our mobile application designed for colleges.

It can be used by different roles associated with the college including staff, students, parents, applicants etc.

Users can search for their colleges on the Google Play or Apple App store and download onto their phone then login with their college credentials.

The App can be branded with the college’s logo, name and colour themes.

The App has two main components - Push Notifications and a menu/page builder to show any information you want to users.

Push Notification popup on the user’s mobile device in much the same way as a text message. They can be clicked to view more information. The college can send bulk notifications e.g. the college is closed today, you have the following lessons this week. Or staff can send ad-hoc notifications for example for all the students in their class.

Notifications are fully tracked to see how many have been sent, received, opened and replied.

The page builder allows the college to build menus up to 3 levels deep and decide on the text, colour and icon for each menu. The college can build different menus for each type of user or allow anonymous access for certain menus.

The college can decide the information to show on each page. Options include:

A hyperlink to a website.
A web page embedded directly into the page.
Rich Text to build their own page.
Data Grid to show specific information from a datasource with the college e.g. a student’s timetable.
Charts to visually display data.
Data Capture Form for saving information against a student record e.g. induction questions, surveys, etc
Action Form to gather information from users that they are meant for a member of staff to follow up on e.g. an enquiry form, absence form etc

Components 4

General Features 9

Homepage 10

Adding/Viewing AdHoc Notifications 11

Bulk Notifications 16

Organisation Structure 47

Academic Years 47

Search 50

Template Reporting 50

Dashboard Reporting 50

Components

Notification Live compromises of the following main components: a Website, a Web Service, a SQL Server database, a Windows Service and a Mobile App.

Website

The website provides the front end of the system where all college staff will login to access. Used primarily for configuration and sending notifications. This website can be hosted locally on the college’s intranet and/or made available externally. Typically the website can be accessed from a url which appears as follows http://ServerName/CollegeLive or www.college.ac.uk/CollegeLive. Colleges will often embed this link on their intranet page for a seamless experience.

Prerequisites

Windows Server 2012 or above

IIS7 or above

10 GB Hard Drive

3Ghz Quad Core Processor

8GB RAM

.NET 4.6.2 Installed

Please note that hardware requirements are estimates and may be higher or lower depending upon the volume of concurrent users. Additionally if the server has other systems installed that are taking up resources then the resources available to the system may be considerably lower. Please contact support if unsure.

Web Service

The Web Service is used by the Mobile App to communicate. The Web Service needs to be externally facing and have SSL enabled. Port 443 needs to be enabled to communicate.

Prerequisites

Windows Server 2012 or above

IIS7 or above

10 GB Hard Drive

3Ghz Quad Core Processor

8GB RAM

.NET 4.6.2 Installed

Database

The data behind the system is stored within a SQL Server Database.

Prerequisites

SQL Server 2014 or above

100 GB Hard Drive

3Ghz Quad Core Processor

8GB RAM

.NET 4.6.2 Installed

Please note that the Website and Database can be hosted on the same server. However the resources required will be higher to accommodate this.

Windows Service

The Windows Service known as the Process Agent will perform background processes required by the system. This includes scheduling data to be imported into the system and sending messages.

Mobile App

A Mobile App for Google Android or Apple iOS devices which can be downloaded from the Google Play or Apple App Stores.

Prerequisites

Device with Android v4.4 or above

Device with iOS v8 or above

Installation

The Installation Wizard should guide the users in how to install the Website, Web Service, SQL Server Database and Process Agent.

Configuration

Once installed there are various steps required before using Notification Live. This outlines the minimum steps required but other steps might be needed.

User Authentication for Website

The college will need to decide how they want users on the website to be authenticated. There are 4 methods:

Windows Authentication - Users will be automatically logged in based on their windows username.
Azure Active Directory - Users will be logged on using their Microsoft 365 account.
LDAP - Users will be logged in by supplying their network username and password
College Live - Users will be logged in with a username and password created in the system.

In order to use windows authentication the following settings are required in IIS. Under the website navigate to authentication. Make sure that ASP.NET Impersonation and Windows Authentication are turned on, and that Anonymous Authentication and Forms Authentication are turned off.

In order to use any of the other authentication methods the following settings are required in IIS. Under the website navigate to authentication. Make sure that Anonymous Authentication and Forms Authentication are turned on, and that ASP.NET Impersonation and Windows Authentication are turned off.

The system ships with a default administrator account with username: administrator and password: Password. This should be altered as soon as possible to have a password of your choice.

System Password or college Password for Mobile App

Users will need to enter a username and password to access the Mobile App. Passwords can be configured within Notification Live for each user, or LDAP configuration can be used so that users use their college network credentials to login. Please see the System Setting sections for information about configuring LDAP. Please see the Manage Users section for information about setting passwords.

Even if using LDAP, users without a college account will fallback to the password within Notification Live e.g. for parents.

Multi-Factor Authentication

The college can decide to turn on Multi-Factor authentication. When logging into the App the user will be prompted for a Verification Code sent to the user’s email address or texted to the user’s mobile. Two system settings are used to turn this option on - ‘Use MFA Email’ and ‘Use MFA SMS’

Emails and SMS

Notification Live can be used to send out emails and SMS for example to send a link to the mobile app. For emails the links to your Exchange server need to be set up. For SMS the account credentials for Janet Txt need to be configured. Please see the Email and SMS sections for more details.

Notification Setup

Each college needs to add their own Google Firebase Key under System Settings in order to send push notifications. This will normally be added during the installation phase by System Live.

Imports

The system requires data from other systems to be used. At a very minimum staff/users and students need to be imported with the staff and student import. Other useful imports include:

Enrolment
Course/Group - Send notifications for all users on a course or group.
Timetable - Teachers can log in and see their groups and send notifications to all users in their group.
Organisation Structure - Sets up to 4 levels of organisation structure and their managers. Useful for reporting and sending notifications to all students/staff within an area.
Organisation Structure Staff - The staff associated with each organisation structure.
Organisation Structure Course - The courses associated with each organisation structure.
Parents - Import parent users.
Other User - Imports accounts for other types of users e.g. applicants.

Branding

The college will want to change the default branding to include their logo, name and college colours. Please see the Themes section for more details about branding.

Sending Links to App

The college can bulk send either SMS or Emails to users with a link to download the App from either Google Play store or Apple App store. This will include information about how to log in with their username and password. Please see the System Settings and Manage Users section for information about how to do this.

Menu/Page Builder

The college will need to decide what information to show in the App. Notification Live comes with a Page Builder which mostly requires no technical expertise (some areas may require SQL knowledge).

The college can decide the information to show on each page. Options include:

A hyperlink to a website.
A web page embedded directly into the page.
Rich Text to build their own page.
Data Grid to show specific information from a datasource with the college e.g. a student’s timetable.
Data Capture Form for saving information against a student record e.g. induction questions, surveys, etc
Action Form to gather information from users that they are meant for a member of staff to follow up on e.g. an enquiry form, absence form etc

The college can decide to make one of the pages the homepage.

Please see the Page Builder section for more details.

Sending Notifications

The college will need to decide how notifications are sent out.

Notifications can be sent out in bulk by an administrator. These can be one off notifications e.g. college closed today. Or can be scheduled every week based on data within the college e.g. these are your lessons this week, or you have the following assessments due this week. Please see the Message Creator section for more details about how to create these.

Notifications can also be sent on an adhoc basis by staff. For example a teacher could send a notification to all students in their groups or a head of department could send a notification to all students in their area.

Online Demo

There is an online demo for Notification Live which can be found here http://www.demo.system-live.com

This can be useful to see an example of how the system can be configured. This can show you sample Notifications. The system can be logged in with different types of users.

To access the demo site the following credentials should be used.

Type of User: Administrator

Username: Administrator

Password: Password

Type of User: Head of Campus

Username: Kady.McPhee

Password: Password

Type of User: Head of School

Username: Linzi.Stephenson

Password: Password

Type of User: Head of Department

Username: James.Morris

Password: Password

Type of User: Teacher

Username: Felicity.Jones

Password: Password

Type of User: Student

Username: Karen.Nelson

Password: Password

Type of User: Parent

Username: Parent

Password: Password

Type of User: Applicant

Username: Applicant

Password: Password

Please feel free to try out the demo site and edit information. Please note that the demo site may be regularly reset so any changes will be lost.

General Features

Notification Live has many General Features used throughout. Please see the General Documentation for more details.

Login

Please see the General Documentation for more details about how to login to the website. The website is just for staff users to login. Teachers can use the website to send ad-hoc notifications out. Administrators can use the website to send bulk notifications or to configure the system.

Once the user has downloaded the app they can enter their username and password to login. The Password can be Revealed/Hidden by pressing the ‘Eye’ button.

The Text above the Username can be configured by the college under the Theme ‘NotificationLiveLoginMessage’.

If the college has turned on multi-factor authentication then the user will be emailed or texted a 6-digit code. This needs to be entered into the Verification Code box and then the User clicks the ‘Log In’ button again to enter the App. The System Settings which turn these options on are ‘Use MFA Email’ and ‘Use MFA SMS’.

Below the Login button there is a ‘Forgot Password’ button. When pressed the user can enter their email address and request their username and password to be emailed to them. If the user is set up to be authenticated using LDAP they will just receive the message to use their college username and password to login so this is primarily aimed at parents who have forgotten their password.

There is an option to use the test environment for administrators only (users with the permission ‘Can Use Test Environment App’). This will connect the app to your test environment rather than your live environment once logged in. This is useful for trying out new ideas before they are made live for all users to access. To Activate this option first log into the live environment with your admin account then go to the About screen within the App and click the Activate 'Use Test Environment' Login Option button. Once you have logged out of the app the ‘Use Test Environment’ option should be available to select.

Homepage

The first page after logging into the system is the homepage. This displays your user with appropriate timely information about the notifications you have sent out.

Notification Overview

Created - The number of notifications you have created.
Sent % - The percentage of notifications which have been sent to devices.
Received % - The percentage of notifications which have been received by the devices.
Opened % - The percentage of notifications which have been opened.
Replied % - The percentage of notifications which have been replied to which can be replied to.

Users

For students and parents of students within your groups.

% Student Downloaded - The percentage of your students who have downloaded the app.
% Parents Downloaded - The percentage of parents of your students who have downloaded the app.
% Student Interacted Recently - The percentage of your students who have interacted with the app in the last 7 days.
% Parents Downloaded - The percentage of parents of your students who have interacted with the app in the last 7 days.

Latest Sent Notifications

The last 10 notifications sent by your user. Shows the Title, Number of notifications sent and the percent Opened. Click the … button for more information about the notifications.

Latest Replies

The last 10 replies sent back from the notifications. Shows who sent the reply, the reply text and reply option sent back.

Notice Board

Administrators can set messages for everybody to appear on the Notice Board. This can provide standard users instructions regarding the Notification process.

My Groups

The Side Panel shows all your Groups. Clicking on the groups allows you to quickly create a notification for all students in that group.

Adding/Viewing AdHoc Notifications

Under Communication > Notifications

This page allows you to view notifications and create new notifications.

4 Tabs are available:

Created By Me - All the notifications created by your user.
For Me - All notifications created for your user.
For My Students - All notifications created for students in your groups regardless of whether you created them.
In My Area - All notifications within your organisation structure area if you manage that area.
All - All notifications in the system. The Permission ‘Can View all Notifications’ is required to access this tab.

By default the grid shows each group of notifications. So if you sent a notification to 10 students the row will show an overview of all 10 notifications. You can see each individual notification by clicking the button on the grid.

The grid shows the following information

Created By
Created Date
Title
Text
Reply Option Choice - The type of reply option available
No. Notifications - The number of notifications created.
% Sent - The percentage sent out to the device.

Notifications are only sent to users who are logged into the App.

% Received - The percentage received by the device.

Notifications are received when the user clicks on the notification which pops up on the device or loads the notification page within the App.

% Opened - The percentage opened.
% Replied - The percentage replied.
% App Downloaded - The percentage of users who have downloaded the app.
% Interacted Recently - The percentage of users who have used the app in the last 7 days.
Notification Group ID - A unique identifier to identify the group of notifications. Useful for reporting.

Clicking the … button will show more detailed information about the group of notifications including the status of each individual notification - whether it has been sent, opened, etc.

Notifications can be added by clicking the + button

For:

Decide whether the notification is for:

Student/Parent
Staff
User

The options change depending on which is selected.

For Student/Parent

Add notification for all students/parents in an organisation structure area, course, group or individual student.
Click the + button to add users.
Click parents to include parents as well as students.

For Staff

Add notification for all staff in an organisation structure area or individual staff.

For User

Add notification for all users in a permission group, custom user list or individual users.

Note that only users with the permission ‘Can Add Bulk Notifications’ will be able to add all users within an organisation structure or permission group at once.

The system tries to work out an appropriate organisation structure to associate with the notification but this can be altered as appropriate and is mainly used for reporting purposes.

Once added the users who will receive the notification will appear in the grid. They can subsequently be removed individually or in bulk. The Notification Icon at the beginning or the row will show all previous notifications for the user.

Next choose whether to ‘Send As’ College or User. College means that the notification comes through with the App Logo and the name of the App as the creator. User means that the notification comes through with the photo and name of the member of staff who creates the notification. This option is only available for users with the permission ‘Can Add Bulk Notifications’. If the user does not have this permission then the notification will always be sent as ‘User’.

Next choose the Title and Notification Text and any resources to send.

The ‘Schedule Date/Time’ option means that the notification can be scheduled to be sent at a later time. Leaving this option blank will send the notification immediately.

The notification can be replied to if appropriate (if none of these options are selected then the user will not be able to reply to the notification).

Reply Option Choice - The list of reply options available for the user to select. These can be configured under Maintenance > Notification Reply Options. Examples could include 1-10, Agree/Disagree, Yes/No
Can Send Reply Message - Whether the user can send a text based reply.

The Link to Page option allows the notification to be linked to any page within the menu. A button will appear within the notification which when clicked will go directly to the page.

If a bespoke list of users has been created. For example all users going on a field trip then this list can be saved to be reused later. Under ‘Custom User List Name’ if a name is supplied then the list of users will be saved under that name. If the name already exists the list of users will be overwritten with the new list. This list can be quickly accessed under the ‘User’ radio button. All user lists can be maintained under System > Manage Users > User Lists.

Click the save button to create the notification. These will then be processed and sent to the Mobile devices in due course.

Other Places to View/Add Notifications

The Notification Selection page is not the only place to View or Add Notifications. Other locations include:

Organisation Structure Detail
Student Selection
Student Detail
Group Detail - both Notification and Enrolment tabs
Staff Detail
User Detail

These pages will just show/add new notifications specific to the element viewed. For example choosing a group will allow the user to send a notification to just that group.

If you use ProMonitor for student tracking, the Student Detail page can be embedded as a custom page into the ILP to quickly add a notification for a student. The custom url can be added in the form <WebsiteRootURL>/Search/StudentDetail?StudentRef=<LearnerRef>&StudentSelectionTab=MyStudent&AcademicYearCode=<AcademicYearID>

Similarly a custom page can be added on the Student Group page to quickly open up the Group page in Notification Live for a teacher to quickly add a notification for the entire group. The custom url can be added in the form <WebsiteRootURL>/Search/GroupDetail?GroupCode=<StudentGroupCode>&CourseCode=<CourseCode>&GroupSelectionTab=MyGroup&Tab=Notification&AcademicYearCode=<AcademicYearID>

Mobile App

When the user first logs into the App they are asked if they consent to receiving notifications. If they allow permission when the user receives the notification within the App it will appear as a notification much like a text message.

The Notification will show the title and who sent the notification.

Clicking the notification will open the mobile app on the notification page.

The notification will just show the Title, how long ago it was created and the user who created it. Clicking the notification will show further details.

The extra details include the message itself.

Depending on the notification options when sending the notification the user may be able to reply either by text or choosing from a list of options (or both).

If attachments have been added to the notification they will also be able to download these onto their mobile device.

If the notification has been linked to a menu page then a button will show which when clicked will go directly to the page.

In addition the user can search for a particular notification. This will filter the list for a particular text string in either the title, the message body or the user who sent the notification.

The lower panel allows the user to quickly navigate back to the notifications page in the app. The number next to the icon shows the number of unopened notifications.

Bulk Notifications

The Message Creator under the System menu allows the college to send bulk notifications. This allows for many possibilities.

These can be one off for example send a notification to all users saying the college is closed today.
The notifications can be scheduled to send at a particular time. These schedules can be repeated every week. For example send every student a reminder of upcoming assignments due within the next week.
Notifications can tap into your college’s SQL datasources to pull specific information to send to each user. For example you have the following lessons this week or you have the following smart targets due.
When sending bulk notifications attachments can be included.
You can decide whether the user can reply to notifications and how they can reply - either a specific list of options or text. This could be useful to conduct a survey for all your students.
When sending bulk notifications you can also choose to send an email and text to the user in question to ensure the message is received. In addition it is likely that not every user will have downloaded the app so there are options to only send SMS/Email to users who have not recently interacted with the Mobile App in the last 7 days.

Please see the Message Creator section of the General Documentation for more details about how to use this feature.

Page Creator

Under the System Menu. This facility allows the colleges to create their own menu structure and decide what appears within each page. Different pages can be set up for different permission groups so for example students could see different information to parents.

The main page screen shows all the pages in the top level of the menu. The college can have up to 3 levels of menu. 2nd level menu items can be added to 1st level menu items. 3rd level menu items can be added to 2nd level menu items.

Mobile App

Pages can be viewed by clicking the menu item in the bottom menu.

The Search button will search for any pages which contain the search text under the Page Name, Page Description or Search Tags.

Adding New Pages.

Clicking + will allow the college to create a new menu item.

Page Name - The name of the page within the App.
Page Description - A way to identify what the page does. This is not shown within the App.
Search Tags - Add search terms which would result in a match to the page when the Search functionality is used on the menu,
Page Order - The order which the page will appear in the menu
Background Colour - The background colour of the menu item. Either choose a new colour or one that has been used for another menu item.
Text Colour - The text colour of the menu item. Either choose a new colour or one that has been used for another menu item.
Border Width - The border width of the menu item.
Border Colour - The border colour of the menu item. Either choose a new colour or one that has been used for another menu item. This option will only be available if the Border Width is greater than 0.
Corner Radius - The curvature (in pixels) of each corner of the menu item.
Login Required - Whether the user needs to login to see the menu item. If this is unticked then anybody who has downloaded the app can view this page. This can be useful for showing marketing information to users e.g. term dates.
Permission Groups - The types of users who can access the page. For example, is this a page for students or a page for parents (or both). Permission Groups can be set up under System > Permissions.
Display Under Parent - Whether to display the child page directly underneath the parent on the menu. Only available for pages at level 2 or 3. If there are child pages under the parent page which have ‘display under parent’ set to false then a ‘More…’ button appears as a child page to indicate more pages are available. This takes the user to the parent page menu.
Enabled - Whether the page shows within the App at all.
URL - Instead of the menu item opening up a page in the app it will open a URL directly in a browser window. This can be useful if you want to use the app as a collection of links to different systems e.g. College website or Student Tracking system etc.

The main grid allows the user to:

Reorder the page up and down.
View more details about the page.

The side Actions Panel allows the user to:

Export Pages - The user can choose which of the pages to export into a .page file. These can be imported into another version of the website. For example you may wish to create the pages in the training version and once done export them out and import them into the live version.
Import Pages - The user can choose a .page file to import into the system. Note that if the page name already exists you will not be able to import the file. The top level pages will first need to be deleted or renamed. Please also ensure that the following data already exists:

The Datasource if these are being used for Data Grid page sections.
The Action Type if these are being used for the Action page section. These can be exported and imported under Maintenance > Templates.
The Permission Groups assigned to the pages.
If there is no match in the system the import will still go ahead but this data will not be imported.

Homepage

The Homepage tab sets the page which will be first loaded when the user opens the App. Different permission groups can have a different homepage set.

Choose the Permission Group
Choose the Homepage Type - either Notification or Page. Notification will open the Notification page. Page will open the main menu if a specific page is not chosen.
Page - If a specific page is set then it will open on this page.

If no homepage is set for the permission group then the App will load the Notification page.

The App homepage button will navigate the user back to the Homepage.

Search Text

The Search Text tab will show a list of all the search terms created by users of the mobile app.

No. Searches - How many times that search term has been searched for.
No. Pages - How many pages have this search term contained within the name, description or search tags.

This will allow the college to see searches that are being made that do not result in any hits. The college can then potentially add search tags or create new pages to accommodate this.

Page Details

Once the page is created allows any of the above options to be altered.

In addition the user can add an icon to the page which appears alongside the text in the app.

The Side panel Action called ‘Move Page’ allows the page to be moved around to sit within a different page within the menu. Firstly choose which Page Level to move to - either 1,2 or 3. 1 is the root of the menu. If choosing 2 or 3 then choose the Level 1 or Level 2 page where the page will now sit within.

Child Pages

This section allows the users to see any pages which live within the higher level page.

From here new child pages can be added and existing ones altered.

Here we can see an example 2 level menu structure.

My Information

Timetable
Exams
Enrolment
Attendance

Comments
Meetings
SMART Targets
Work Experience

Page Section

This part shows the sections which live within the page and allows the page sections to be edited.

This part of the system is very flexible. Different types of sections can be added here.

Clicking to edit page sections will take the user to another page.

This will show all the editable sections on the page.

From here new sections can be added by clicking ‘Add New Section’ in the Action Panel.

There are many things you can do here.

Type - Decides the type of Section. Different types allow different configuration options.

Web Page - A web page embedded directly into the page.
Text - Rich Text to build your own page.
Data Grid - Data Grid to show specific information from a datasource with the college e.g. a student’s timetable.
Charts - Show data within one of several chart types.

Bar Chart
Column Chart
Gauge
Headline
Line Chart
Pie Chart
Scatter Chart

Editable Section - Data Capture form for saving information against a student record e.g. induction questions, surveys, etc
Action - Form to gather information from users that they are meant for a member of staff to follow up on e.g. an enquiry form, absence form etc.

Name - The name of the section which appears within the App.
Order - The order which the section appears within the page if multiple sections live on the page.
Enabled - Whether the section appears in the App or not.
Width - Not used by the App at the moment. Can be left as 12.

Web Page

URL - The URL which will open within the App.

In the App this will allow the website to be browsed as in a normal browser but embedded within the App itself.

Text

Text - The Rich Text to show in the App. This can be formatted in the same way as a word document including hyperlinks or images

Data Grid

Description - A label which sits underneath the grid title on the app used for explaining the data.
Datasource - The SQL datasource where the data should be pulled from. These can be set up under System > Datasources
SQL - The SQL to pull the data from

Special Tags must be used here to restrict the data to the logged in user

@@StudentRef
@@UserName
@@StaffCode
@@AcademicYearCode
For example Select * from Timetable WHERE StudentRef IN @@StudentRef AND AcademicYearCode = @@AcademicYearCode would only show timetables for the student ref on the logged user within the academic year being viewed in the app
If the query does not contain either @@StudentRef, @@UserName or @@StaffCode then the grid will not load.
It is also recommended that for users who are associated with a student record e.g. student, parent,etc that the query restricts by @@StudentRef rather than @@UserName. @@UserName should be used for users who aren’t associated with a current student record e.g. Applicants, alumni, etc

Show On Page Load - Whether the grid loads when the page loads in the App or the user needs to click a button to load the data. Below shows how the data grid would look if this option is unticked.

Grid Rows Per Page - How many data records to show in the App. Only the first x number of records would show.
Grid Has Filter - If this option is ticked the user will be able to filter the data in the grid.

Columns - When saving the section the system will automatically generate the columns from the SQL. HINT aliasing column names with capital letters to automatically set names of columns for example CourseCode would become Course Code

ColumnID - The name of the column in the datasource
Name - The display label in the App
Description - Not yet used in the App
Order - The order of how the data is displayed in the grid.
Width - Only used in the website - The relative width of the column from 1 to 12.
Back Colour - The background colour used in the App.
Text Colour - The colour of the text.
Bold - Whether the text is displayed in bold.
Format String - For dates and time can be used to format e.g. dd/MM/yyyy
Elevated Filter - Makes the specific filter for the column appear above the search box. Clicking the filter will show a dropdown showing the user each possible value in the column. Clicking the Search button will filter for this value. To remove the filter click the dropdown again and select ‘Clear Filter’ and click the Search button again. For Data Grids which are returning a DateTime SQL Column this will appear in the filter as a calendar. The month can be scrolled by clicking back and forward. Any dates with data against them will appear with a grey background. A date can be selected by clicking it and then clicking search. The selected date will appear with a yellow background. This is very useful for showing any date based data e.g. timetables, exams,etc.

Formatting - The formatting tab allows each column’s Back Colour and Text Colour to be determined by another column. For example you may return an html colour in the sql and use this to automatically change column colours.
Users with Multiple Students - If the SQL behind the grid contains @@StudentRef and the user has more than one student associated with them in the academic year then when they first view the grid they will get the message to click the academic year button to choose a specific student.

They can then choose from a list of their students.

Going back to the grid will show just the selected student. This setting will be remembered for other grids.

If the Data Grid returns any Time SQL columns then the time will be displayed on the left of the grid.

If two Time columns are returned then these will appear with the earlier and latest times.This is very useful for showing any time based data e.g. timetables, exams,etc.

Chart

Details Tab

Type

Bar Chart - Horizontal Bar Chart

Column Chart - Vertical Bar Chart

Gauge - 0 to 100 gauge.

Headline - An overview in a styled grid.

Line Chart
Pie Chart

Scatter Chart

Description - A label which sits underneath the chart title on the app used for explaining the data.
Datasource - The SQL datasource where the data should be pulled from. These can be set up under System > Datasources
SQL - The SQL to pull the data from

Special Tags must be used here to restrict the data to the logged in user

@@StudentRef
@@UserName
@@StaffCode
@@AcademicYearCode
For example Select Course, AVG(Attendance) AS AttendanceSummary from Attendance WHERE StudentRef IN @@StudentRef AND AcademicYearCode = @@AcademicYearCode would only show attendance for the student ref on the logged user within the academic year being viewed in the app
If the query does not contain either @@StudentRef, @@UserName or @@StaffCode then the grid will not load.
It is also recommended that for users who are associated with a student record e.g. student, parent,etc that the query restricts by @@StudentRef rather than @@UserName. @@UserName should be used for users who aren’t associated with a current student record e.g. Applicants, alumni, etc.
The SQL should return 1 grouping column e.g. course for chart types of bar, column, pie, line and scatter. If more than one grouping column is returned e.g. if one of the columns is used as a colour then the column which should not display should be given a width of zero on the columns tab.
The SQL can return more than one statistical column e.g. attendance and punctuality for chart type of bar, column, line, scatter and gauge. These will be shown as multiple series.
The SQL for a gauge chart should have no grouping columns, just statistical columns.
For Headlines every column returned will show in the headline grid.

Show On Page Load - Whether the chartloads when the page loads in the App or the user needs to click a button to load the data.

Chart Options Tab

Not all options are relevant to all the different chart types

Horizontal Axis Title
Vertical Axis Title
Height of Section (in pixels)
Height of Graph Area (in percent) - The percentage of the height of the graph taken up by the graph compared to the axes.
Width of Graph Area (in percent) - The percentage of the height of the graph taken up by the graph compared to the axes.
Has Label - Whether labels showing numbers are shown on the chart.
Has Legend - Whether a legend of each series is shown
Is Stacked - For Bar and Column charts whether each series is shown stacked on top of one another.
Horizontal Axis - Min and Max. If left blank the chart will work out the best ranges.
Vertical Axis - Min and Max. If left blank the chart will work out the best ranges.
Red/Yellow/Green Value Min/Max - For gauges only the range in which the gauge appears green, orange and red.

Columns

Not all options are relevant for charts

ColumnID - The name of the column in the datasource
Name - The series label against the chart.
Order - The order in which the series appears in the chart.
Width - If the width is set to zero then will not use this column.
Back Colour - The background colour of the series

Formatting

The formatting tab allows the Colour of the chart segments to be dynamically determined by another column. For example you may return an html colour in the sql and use this to automatically change column colours. For Headline Types the Text Colour also works.

Editable Section

Editable Sections are Data Capture forms to store data against a student. Editable Section Templates can be added under Maintenance > Templates > Editable Sections Tab.

Each Template allows up to 60 input fields. For each input you can decide the label text, input type, whether it is required or not, permissions of who can view or edit. Input types include text, rich text, configurable dropdown list, check box, date, time or number.

There are two types of editable sections. The first one is where there can only be one entry for each student. The second one is where there can be multiple entries for each student.

Once the Editable Section is created this can be added onto the page by choosing the type Editable Section then under Template choose the Editable Section itself.

This will then appear in the App. Depending on permissions the user will be able to view the data, edit the data, add a new record or delete an existing record.

For sections which allow multiple records the section will be filterable by selecting a filter and clicking the Search button:

Any input which is of type ‘Dropdown List Single Select’ or Dropdown List Multi Select will appear in the list to filter for a specific value.
Any input which is of type ‘Date Field’ will appear as a calendar to filter for a specific date.

Resources can also be added to the record if the template has the ‘Allow Resource’ option checked. This allows existing resources to be downloaded or deleted. Or New resources to be added from the mobile device by giving the resource a description and searching for the file. Note that the default maximum upload size is 15Mb. This can be changed within the web.config file maxRequestLength <httpRuntime targetFramework="4.6.1" maxRequestLength="15360" />

For building ‘Editable Section’ Templates please see the General Documentation.

Actions

Actions allows for input forms to be created which come back into the system as actions for a member of staff to complete. Examples could include enquiry, absence forms, work experience forms.

Action Type - Choose the type of Action. Actions can be created and edited under Maintenance > Templates > Action Types.
Maximum No. of Actions - Limits the number of actions that can be submitted. For example 1 Per 1 Day would mean only 1 action could be created per day. Leaving the Days blank would mean only x actions can be created in total in the academic year. If both number and days are left blank then an unlimited amount can be created.

Building Action Type - Please see the General Documentation for more details about creating action types.

The Action Type contains 3 customisable tabs A - C where the college can define input types.

Each input can either be a text box, check box, date field, time field, list of predefined options.
Each input can be made required.

When actions are submitted from the App they come through as Actions…

These can be reviewed by members of staff and actioned as appropriate. Please see the General Documentation for more details about Actions. Action Types can also be configured to have a default ‘For’ and ‘Owner’ so that if a member of staff is incharge of ‘Enquiries’ these can be automatically set against them. Also the Action type can be set to automatically send a message to the staff member so they know a new enquiry has come through.

Other Page Section Features

The Side Panel

Back to Page Creator - Takes the user back to the Menu page.
Edit Mode - When turned on each section can be edited.

Allows the section to be permanently removed, moved up or down, editing or viewed (if not currently visible).
Full Screen Mode - Opens the page without the side panel and menu
Export Custom Page - Exports the sections within the page as a file which can be used to import into another page.
Import Custom Page - Imports sections into the page from a file.
Add New Section - Adds a new section into the page.
Add Existing Section - Adds a section from a different page into this page.

Custom Pages - Quickly move between different pages to edit them.
Filters - For pages with data grids. If you have restricted the SQL using the tags mentioned in this document e.g. @@StudentRef allows you to test what data the user would see.

Branding

The College can change how the App appears within System > Themes. This includes:

The Name of the App
The Logo of the App - This can either be a url link to an image. Or the relative location of the image on the web server.
The text shown on the login page above the username and password.
The Colour theme within the App

The following are affected by themes:

Main Menu Background Colour

The background colour of the top bar.

Main Menu Text Colour

The text colour of the top bar.

Notification Live Primary Colour

The header of each notification.

Notification Live Secondary Colour

The colour of the lower buttons.
The Search button in Notifications.
Buttons on the About screen.

Notification Live Tertiary Colour

Generally affects submit buttons
The ‘New Notification Click to Open’ Button.
The Notification Reply Button.
The Update button on the Academic Year page.
Submit button against actions in the Page Builder.
Show grids button in the Page Builder.
Filter grids button in the Page Builder.
The Login button.

Banners

Banners can be added to the top of the App.

New banners can be added within the website under Maintenance > Banners. Ideally banner images should have an aspect ratio of 8:1.

The App will show any enabled banners. If more than one banner is enabled the App will rotate through the banners on each page load. In order to conserve server resources banners are only updated by the App every 10 minutes.

Optionally each banner can be associated with a url. When clicking the banner the link will open on the device's default browser. URLs should start with the prefix https.

Manage Users

Allows users to be added, details changed and associated to permission groups.

It is recommended that users are imported from a datasource and synced every night. For example all the students within the college.

The Manage Users page can be used to bulk set passwords. It is recommended for Students and Staff that LDAP is used (See System Settings) so these users can login with their college username and password. However for users without a college account for example parents or applicants this facility can be used to generate random passwords for these accounts.

The page can also be used to bulk send out an email or sms to all users (or a subset) giving them details about how to download and login to the app. This gives the user their username and password details to login to the app with. Once logged in the user should not have to log in again on that device.

Please see the Manage Users section in the General Documentation for more information.

Permissions

Allows Permission Groups to be created or altered.

Permission Groups are useful within the App so that different types of users see different pages in the App. See the Page Builder section for more details. The system ships with default permission groups - Staff, Students, Parents, Applicants etc. However your college may wish to have other groups of users. For example perhaps splitting out students into FE and HE students and so giving them different sets of pages in the App.

Permission Groups also define what staff can do in the website. For example you may not wish Standard Staff to create notifications and only allow administrators to do this.

Please see the Permissions section in the General Documentation for more information.

Datasources

Sets up connections to SQL Server Databases used for Imports, Message Creator and Dashboards.

Imports

Import data into the system.

Course/Group

Allows notifications to be sent for all users on a course or group.

Enrolment

Imports each student enrolment. This is used by the system to work out which groups the students lives in so that teachers can send notifications to students in their group.

Organisation Structure

Imports Organisation Structure and their Managers. Up to 4 levels can be imported e.g. Campus > School > Department > Team. Each Notification can be associated with an area. This is useful for reporting and for the managers to keep track of their area. It is also used to be able to send notifications to all students/staff in the area.

Organisation Structure Course

Imports the courses assigned to each Organisation Structure. Allows managers to be able to send notifications to students in their area.

Organisation Structure Staff

Imports the Staff members assigned to each Organisation Structure. Allows Notification Live to work out which area the notification might live in and to be able to send a notification to all staff within their area.

Staff

Required by the system. The staff import creates staff user accounts including passwords. Staff Users can be associated with a teaching staff member. There is a distinction between users and staff in the system. Users do not need to be staff and staff do not need to be users. A user can log into the system and in most cases will be a teaching staff. However there may be users who are not teaching staff for example the IT Administrator or Head of Quality. On the flip side a college may have a member of teaching staff who is not a user of the system. This will mean that the member of staff can be used within the system but they will not be able to login.

Students

Required by the system. Sets up students and their accounts including passwords and permission groups.

Timetables

Allows the system to work out which groups the teacher teaches, the enrolments within the group so that teachers can send notifications to students within their groups.

Other Users

Allows other types of users to be imported into the system e.g. parents, applicants, alumni, etc, etc

Recommended Order Import

The order in which the imports are imported is important as imports rely on other data being present and should be as follows.

Staff
Course
Organisation Structure
Organisation Structure Staff
Organisation Structure Course
Students
Enrolments
Timetables
Other Users

Emails

View pending emails and emails sent. Allows the system to be setup to send emails.

Emails are useful for sending links for the user to download and login to the App. Emails can also be used when sending bulk notifications to help ensure the user views the notification or for users who do not have the App.

Please see the General Documentation for more details.

SMS

View pending SMS and SMSs sent. Allows the system to be setup to send SMSs.

SMSs are useful for sending links for the user to download and login to the App. SMSs can also be used when sending bulk notifications to help ensure the user views the notification or for users who do not have the App.

Please see the General Documentation for more details.

Process Agent

View the status of the Process Agent. The Process Agent performs various background jobs including imports and sending messages.

System Setting

View and edit system settings which change the overall functionality of the system.

System settings used in Notification Live include:

Use LDAP - Whether to use LDAP to authenticate user passwords. True will use LDAP. False will use the Password against the user in the system.
LDAP Server Path - The LDAP URL in the form LDAP://CN=Users,DC=xxxx,DC=yyyy,DC=zzzz
App Store URL - The URL to download the Notification Live Mobile Application from the App Store. This is used when sending the app link out under Manage Users.
Google Play URL - The URL to download the Notification Live Mobile Application from the App Store. This is used when sending the app link out under Manage Users.
Google Firebase Key - Used in order to send Push Notifications. This will normally be added during the installation phase by System Live.
Web Service Root URL - The url of the web service which is used by the web site when changing settings e.g. branding to tell the App to update.
Use MFA Email - Use Multi-Factor Authentication. If set to true the user will also be required to add a Verification Code sent by email.
Use MFA SMS- Use Multi-Factor Authentication. If set to true the user will also be required to add a Verification Code sent by SMS.

Resource Explorer

View resources attached to all notifications.

Admin Tools

View detailed error log and system status.

Organisation Structure

Managers can see their particular areas and can send notifications to staff or students in their particular area. Please see the General documentation for more information about how to use the Organisation Structure page.

Academic Years

This screen allows academic years to be turned on or off and information copied between academic years such as the Page Creator.

In the Mobile App users can change the Academic Year on the main menu.

Please see the General documentation for more information about how to use the Academic Years page.

Notification Reply Options

Configures the list of Options under the Notification Reply Option Choice.

Each Reply Option contains multiple choices associated with it which the user can choose within the App.

Search

The Search Menu allows users to search for information by Course, Group, Staff or Student. This can be used to send notifications to an individual student or member of staff, or all students within a group or course.

Depending who you are in the system you may see information targeted to you for example a list of your students, course or groups for quick access. You may also be able to see ‘All Student’ or ‘All Groups’

Please see the General documentation for more details.

Template Reporting

Template Reporting is available under the Reporting menu. This allows a college to easily report on any Editable Section template that has been created. Under Template Type select Editable Section. Then choose the Template.

This shows several sections:

Record Details - Detailed information about each record including the custom template inputs being used for that template.
Student Summary - For each student that should have the editable section on their ILP page (based on the student type) shows how many records this student has. This can be used for identifying students which have no data for example.
Each template input which is either a Checkbox or a Dropdown List will show as a chart to show the breakdown of entries. For checkboxes this will show a pie chart. For Dropdowns this will show a bar chart.

Dashboard Reporting

Notification Live ships with sophisticated reporting which allows the college to slice and dice the Notification data within the system. Please see the General documentation guide for more information.

The reporting can be accessed from the menu. The will open up the Reporting Homepage. The user should see the Notification Live section with up to two dashboards:

Default - The inbuilt dashboard showing all notifications in the system
Custom - A custom dashboard which by default will be blank. Colleges can request for System Live to create their own bespoke dashboard based on a specification. College Live can provide the college with a .imp file containing a custom dashboard which can be imported.

Default Dashboard

The default dashboard contains the following sections which are all filterable in the side panel:

Notifications

Overview of all notifications

Notifications - The number of notifications created.
Sent % - The percentage of notifications which have been sent to devices.
Received % - The percentage of notifications which have been received by the devices.
Opened % - The percentage of notifications which have been opened.
Replied % - The percentage of notifications which have been replied to which can be replied to.

Users

Are people using the App

Users - The total number of users
Downloaded App - The number of users who have downloaded the app
Interacted Recently - How many users have interacted with the App in the last 7 days
With Notifications Created - How many users have had at least one notification created for them.
With Notifications Sent - How many users have had at least one notification sent to the App.
With Notifications Opened - How many users have had at least one notification opened within the App.

User Action Last 7 Days

The percentage of users who have Interacted with the App in the last 7 days

Student, Parents, Staff Received, Staff Sent, Org Structure 1-4,

Comparison

Number of Notifications
Percentage Sent
Percentage Received
Percentage Opened
Percentage Replied

Notification List

A summary of each notification

Notification Campaigns

A summary of each notification campaign. I.e. group of notifications sent at once.

Notification Reply Option Choice Summary

Numbers of each multiple choice reply option sent back in a reply. For example if a college sent out a survey in a notification with 1-10 options this would show the distribution of replies if filtered for a particular notification campaign.

Filters

The following filters can be applied to each section:

Academic Year - The academic year the notification was created in. Defaults to the academic year being viewed.
Notification Created After - Show only notifications created on or after a certain date.
Notification Created Before - Show only notifications created before a certain date.
Notification Creator - Filter for notifications sent by a certain user(s).
Notification For - Filter for notifications sent to a certain user(s).
Notification For (Parent) - Filter for notifications sent to a certain parent user(s).
Notification For (Staff) - Filter for notifications sent to a certain staff user(s).
Notification For (Student) - Filter for notifications sent to a certain Student user(s).
Notification For Type - Shows notifications just for staff, students, parents or other
Notification From Message Creator - Show notifications sent in bulk from the message creator or adhoc through the website.
Notification Group ID - Search for a specific campaign id
Notification Received - Show only notifications received by the app.
Notification Sent - Show only notifications sent to the app.
Notification Text - Search for text within the notification main text.
Notification Title - Search for text within the notification title.
Org Structure 1-4 - Search for just notifications within a certain organisation structure.

Integrating Notification Live within your Applications

This section is for developers who wish to integrate their current applications with Notification Live in order to send out Notifications.

There are many use cases for this where a college may wish to automate a Notification when an event happens in one of their systems. For example a student is marked as absent for a lesson. This is updated in the college’s student record system. As soon as this happens the college wants to send out a Notification to the student telling them that they did not turn up and asking for a reason.

This can easily be done by running the stored procedure called spNotification_AddMessage on the Notification Live database (normally called CollegeLive).

It can be run as follows passing in parameters some of which are optional

EXEC spNotification_CreateNotification

@CreatedByUserName = 'administrator',

@SendAs = 'College',

@ForUserName = 'Karen.Nelson',

@Title = 'Absence',

@NotificationText = 'You did not turn up to your lesson today at 9am. What was the reason for this?',

@CanSendReplyText = 0,

@ReplyOptionChoice = 'Absence Reason',

@NotificationGroupIdentifier = '12da53d1-5a36-46d9-b12e-17f50fbb59ee',

@UpdateKey1 = 'A',

@UpdateKey2 = 'B',

@UpdateKey3 = 'C',

@OrgStructure1Code = 'Hill',

@OrgStructure2Code = 'Science',

@OrgStructure3Code = 'Maths',

@OrgStructure4Code = 'TeamA',

@LinkToPageMenuName = 'Attendance'

Parameter	Required	Description
CreatedByUserName	Yes	The UserName of the member of staff who created the notification. This UserName must exist in the system.
SendAs	No	College means that the notification comes through with the App Logo and the name of the App as the creator. User means that the notification comes through with the photo and name of the member of staff who creates the notification. If left blank then defaults to College.
ForUserName	Yes	The UserName of the user which will receive the notification. This UserName must exist in the system.
Title	Yes	The title of the notification.
NotificationText	Yes	The main body of the notification.
CanSendReplyText	No	Whether the user can send a text based reply. If left blank default to false.
ReplyOptionChoice	No	The list of reply options available for the user to select. These can be configured under Maintenance > Notification Reply Options. Examples could include 1-10, Agree/Disagree, Yes/No. If left blank then no reply options will be available.
NotificationGroupIdentifier	No	A way to group notifications together. If you wish to group all absence notifications together then use a specific GUID for example.
UpdateKey1/2/3	No	This is the field in the SQL Datasource which identifies the record. It is useful if you wish to update another system when a notification is replied to. For example this could be the unique enrolment id field within your student record system.
OrgStructure1Code/OrgStructure2Code/OrgStructure3Code/OrgStructure4Code	No	The Organisation Structure to assign to the notification. The Organisation Structure must exist in the academic year.
LinkToPageMenuName	No	The Link to Page option allows the notification to be linked to any page within the menu. A button will appear within the notification which when clicked will go directly to the page. The Page Name must exist within the academic year.
ScheduleDate	No	The Date/Time that the notification should be sent at. If left blank will be sent immediately