School Sessions¶

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

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

The following is shared between all sessions:

• Administrative Users
• Funds
• Stripe Connections

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:

• Registration
• 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¶

The school_session_id parameter is required when accessing school sessions other than the default school session for the Registration, Store, and Directory sites as his parameter uniquely identifies the school session.

FutureFund provides links to the Registration, 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

Default School Session¶

One school session is designated as the default session (only one can be specified at a time). This school session does not require special the school_session_id parameter to access. The default school session is the school session parents will use when you are live. When a school session is made the default school session, the following occurs:

• Test mode is turned off
• The previous default school session is no longer the default school session
• The current school session is set to the default school session

To set the default session:

• In the Admin, navigate to Settings > School Sessions
• Click the View button next to the school session
• Click the Make Default button

Starting a New School Year¶

For existing accounts, the best way to start a new school session is to copy and existing school session. This article 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:

• Registration Pages and Sections
• Campaigns
• Volunteer Positions
• Funds
• Grades
• Custom Forms
• Directory, Store, and Registration settings
• Translations
• Admin users and access control

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 and parents will not have access to it.

Enabling Test Mode¶

Test mode will allow orders to be placed with special credit card numbers to test the registration and checkout flow. To enable test mode:

• In the Admin, navigate to Settings > School Sessions
• Click the View button next to the school session
• Click the Edit button
• Check Enable Test Mode and press the Update School Session button

Test Credit Cards¶

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.

Closing the School Session¶

When the school year comes to a close, admins can 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 Edit button
• Check Make this school session publicly available and press the Update School Session button

When this is checked the school session will no longer be available and users will receive an error message when trying to access the site. The school session will be available in the admin for reporting purposes.