What staff can ask
If your number belongs to a member of staff, you get the staff commands your role allows, on top of the parent ones for any children of your own.
Start with staff tools — or staff menu — to see what your role can reach.
How the permissions work
Section titled “How the permissions work”Your WhatsApp number has to resolve to exactly one system user at the school. If it matches more than one, the assistant refuses rather than guessing.
Your role is then checked on every message and every tap. That matters more than it sounds: it means a button forwarded to somebody else does nothing in their hands, and a message replayed later still gets checked against your role today.
The roles mirror the main application. If you cannot reach something on WhatsApp, you cannot reach it in the management system either — it is a role permission, and the administrator changes it.
Teachers
Section titled “Teachers”| Ask for | Type |
|---|---|
| Your tools | staff tools · staff menu |
| Mark the register | mark register · mark absent · absentees |
| Homework and diary | homework · diary |
| Your payslip | payslip · my payslip · salary slip |
| The school calendar | calendar · term dates |
Marking absentees from WhatsApp is meant for the days you cannot get to a screen. It records the same register as Attendance, so do not also mark it in the app afterwards.
Bursar and the office
Section titled “Bursar and the office”| Ask for | Type |
|---|---|
| Balances by class | fee balances · class balances · balances per class |
| Today’s collections | collections · collections today · daily collections |
| Petty cash position | petty cash · cash box |
| Record a payment | record payment · receive payment |
| Print a receipt | print receipt |
Reading figures needs finance view access. Recording a payment needs finance admin — the same restriction as receipting in the main app, for the same reason.
A payment recorded on WhatsApp is a real receipt in the ledger, with your name on it. It appears in the audit trail like any other.
| Ask for | Type |
|---|---|
| Pending approvals | approvals · pending approvals · approval inbox |
The approvals inbox is the one worth having on your phone — it is usually the thing holding somebody else up.
Directors
Section titled “Directors”Directors get the finance and attendance figures above, plus insights: the assistant volunteers things you did not ask for.
Typical questions:
how much did we collect this week?fee balancescollections todayattendance todayGrade 5 balancessend the fee register
And typical unprompted alerts:
- A large payment received.
- Collections up or down sharply on the week before.
- Attendance below normal.
- A Saturday digest of the week.
Ask in ordinary sentences. This is the part of the assistant that handles natural language best, and you are unlikely to guess the keyword for what you actually want to know.
Reports as PDFs
Section titled “Reports as PDFs”Several commands can return a proper PDF — a fee register, a statement, a report — rather than a message. Ask for the report and take the PDF option when it is offered.
This is the quickest route to a document you need to forward or print when you are away from the office.
Things to be careful about
Section titled “Things to be careful about”Your phone is now a terminal into the school’s finances. If you are a finance admin, a lost unlocked phone is a lost unlocked finance session. Lock your handset, and tell the administrator immediately if you lose it so your account can be suspended.
Do not forward replies containing other people’s data. A class balance list is internal. A screenshot of it in a staff group is a data breach, and it will have your name on the message that produced it.
Do not use it for things that need care. A parent in arrears needs a conversation, not a figure fired off from a bus. The assistant is very good at telling you the number and no help at all with what to do about it.