School sessions are used to segment data from different school years. The following is contained in a school session:

• Students and Parents
• Orders
• Campaigns
• First Step Flow
• Volunteer Positions
• Volunteers
• Directory Invitations
• Memberships
• Translations
• Attachments
• Languages
• Grades

The following is shared between all sessions:

• Administrative Users
• Funds

Accessing School Sessions

Each site can have multiple school sessions. Most will use one school session per school year. Each school session will have their own:

• First Step
• Store
• Directory
• Member Services

Admin View

Only one school session can be viewed at one time in the Admin. To change the school session being viewed, select the desired school session from the school session selector in the upper right corner of the FutureFund Admin.

Site Links

FutureFund provides links to the First Step, Store, and Directory sites with the school session appended to the URL. To view these links:

• In the Admin, navigate to Settings > School Sessions
• Click the View button next to the school session
• Scroll to the Site Links section

Starting a New School Year

For existing accounts, the best way to start a new school session is to duplicate the existing school session. This shows how to accomplish this task.

1. In the Admin, navigate to Settings > School Sessions.
2. Click on the Duplicate button next to the current school session.

This will create a copy of the school session with the following items:

• First Step Pages and Sections
• Campaigns
• Volunteer Positions
• Grades
• Custom Forms
• Teachers
• Translations
• Directory, Store, and First Step settings

Note: Campaigns are copied when at least one person added the campaign to a cart in either live or test mode or the campaigns was created within 30 days. Volunteer positions are copied when at least one person has signed up in either live or test mode.

The following information is not copied to the new school session:

• Students and Parents
• Orders
• Members
• Volunteers
• Directory Entries

The new school session will not be the default school session however parents will not have access to it until the sites are enabled.

Testing Credit Card Processing

When the school session is in test mode, use the following test credit cards to test your checkout process. Use a valid expiration date in the future, and any random CVC number, to create a successful payment.

Going Live

When your school session is ready, there are a few steps you need to take before parents can use the site:

• [x] Confirm you’ve tested the site in test mode and everything is working properly
  • Verify First Step pages and campaign descriptions
  • Verify campaign pricing
  • Review volunteer positions
• [x] Verify First Step is Enabled
• [x] Decide if the store should be enabled. Some schools leave the store disabled to prevent parents from skipping First Step. See Enabling Store for more information
• [x] If the school session is not the active school session:
  • In the Admin, navigate to Settings > School Sessions
  • Click the View button next to next year’s school session
  • Click the Make Active button
• [x] Visit your First Step link and verify the school year is correct

Once these steps are done, you are ready for First Step!

Closing the School Session

When the school year comes to a close, admins can effectively disable access to the school session by:

• In the Admin, navigate to Settings > School Sessions
• Click the View button next to the school session
• Click the Close All Sites button

When this is selected, access to First Step, store, and directory will be disabled.