Important
Transitioning your school's ManageBac account is a vital step to maintaining the quality of your data from year-to-year. Accounts should be transitioned by Administrators and completed annually. Please find critical steps below, and consider pre-transition and post-transition checks to keep your account in exemplar condition.
- ManageBac School Account Transition
- Help & Resources
- Transition Checklist
-
Complete Step-by-Step Guide
- Step 1. Review Programme Options
- Step 2a. Review Account Access
- Step 2b. Transition Year Groups
- Step 3. Configure Class Requirements
- Transitioning DP Classes
- Transitioning MYP Classes
- Transitioning PYP Classes
- Step 4. Add your School's Calendar
- Step 5. Update Class Enrolments & Homeroom Assignments
- Step 6. Opening ManageBac to your Community
- Completed transition
ManageBac School Account Transition
- If your account is integrated with other systems such as an SIS, OpenApply, iSAMS etc, with user accounts originating in those systems, it is recommended to transition them first (ie update student grade levels, archive alumni) prior to transitioning ManageBac.
- If your school is registering for Pamoja Online Courses, you will need to transition your year groups before you can submit your new course requests.
Transitioning Overview
Why do we need to transition our school's ManageBac account? You will need to transition your ManageBac account to configure academic terms & holidays each year, move students up a grade level, review subject or curriculum changes, add or remove faculty and maintain historical data.
How can we use this guide for our transition? We provide a range of best-practices and resources so your admin team can transition your school's account with the method that best matches your needs.
Who should be involved in the Transition?
Who can transition a ManageBac account? Any admin can complete all steps in the checklist.
Who is the best person/people to handle the transition? We would advise either your Tech Director, IB or Programme level coordinators, or a key administrator responsible for your ManageBac account.
Should the transition be completed by one person? Depending on the size of your school and the number of programmes and services you are using, it may make sense to have the entire process completed by 1 admin, or by 1 admin per academic programme. If for example, your DP, MYP and PYP programmes wish to transition at different dates, or perhaps your Junior & High school are on different campuses and have differing needs, steps can be completed separately by users at different times.
Do our users need to do anything in the transition, such as move their personal account? No, there is no participation required from your wider school community. After a transition is completed, students & parents will have access to their new classes & year groups, and Teachers will find Units, Tasks & Resources available in their resource bank. Please see New Academic Year Guide for Teachers.
When is the best timing & how long does it take?
How often should we transition? A school account should be transitioned once each academic year.
When is the best time to transition? Either at the completion of your current academic year, at the start of your new academic year, or sometime in-between. A period of least usage would be ideal, so as to not confuse any users who may notice changes to their classes, year groups or permissions.
How long does a transition take? Depending on the size of your school (number of users), integrations (do you need to consider Sync with other services?), services you are using (Attendance, Reports) and the number of programmes (DP, MYP, PYP, Non-IB etc), the time it takes to transition will vary. We generally recommend setting aside a few days prior to classes starting to process the transition steps and review user permissions & class assignments once complete.
QuickStart Checklist
Recommended
Have you Transitioned an account previously? Are you just looking for a refresher? This checklist will serve as a reminder to the key points and best-practices.
Transition Checklist
Step-by-Step Guide to Transition
Recommended
For those users transitioning a ManageBac account for the first time, or for anyone looking for further guidance on the process, it's recommended to follow steps 1-6 in full below.
Step 1. Review Programme Options
1A. Add Academic Terms
Set up your new Academic Years for each programme at the school. Navigate to Settings > Academic Terms > Select your Programme > click Add Academic Year.
Set your term start & end dates, ensuring that dates do not overlap. Terms dates are used to group deadlines and grades within each class. It's recommended that these dates are set to be continuous (i.e. they should be inclusive of your school holidays in order to avoid gaps between terms).
Be sure to set up your academic term dates for each academic programme used at the school.
- Select Programme at the top menu, ie "IB Diploma"
- Add Academic Year
Repeat per programme.
Important
Warning: the 2023-24 academic year will not update to "Current" until the start of the first academic term. When the new academic year becomes "Current", your tasks that fall within those dates will display in the unit planners, and your attendance settings for the 2023-2024 academic year will come into effect.
Step 2. Review Account Access
2A. Lock Access to ManageBac for Students & Parents
Skip Step 2A if you do not wish to prevent Student & Parent access while class rosters & homeroom advisors are being finalised.
You may wish to lock ManageBac for students and parents to be able to complete the remaining transition steps.
This is possible via Settings > Security & Permissions.
Here, tick the box "Prevent access to ManageBac for students and parents till" and set the unlock date. Be sure to click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.
If access has been prevented, students and parents will see a message indicating that their account has been temporarily locked in preparation for the next academic year. The unlock date will be indicated as to when they will be able to log back in (see above).
2B. Archive Graduating Year Group & Move Students up a Grade Level
When handling Student grade level updates, it is recommended to transition from your top-most grade level, working your way down to your lowest grade level, to avoid mixing and matching students.
Thus, you may wish to begin by archiving your graduating year group first. If you are still looking to permit say your DP2's to access their ManageBac account, you can skip archiving the year group at this stage.
I. Transition IB DP, CP & MYP Year Groups
II. Transition IB PYP Year Groups
Create the new Year Group in the academic programme above PYP (e.g. IB MYP) via Year Groups > Add Year Group:
Next, move the graduating PYP students into the newly created MYP year group via Settings > School Directory > Memberships. On this page, you can also move the remaining PYP students up a year level (see below).
To do this, select students by grade level from the 'Available Students' column on the left, and move students to the correct year group on the right. You can move students into multiple year groups at once, click Confirm Assignments to confirm.
Note:
It's important to move students, starting from the highest year level first. For example, if your PYP includes Grades 1-5, move students in the following order:
- First, PYP Grade 5 > MYP Grade 6
- Then PYP Grade 4 > PYP Grade 5
- Then PYP Grade 3 > PYP Grade 4
- Then PYP Grade 2 > PYP Grade 3
- Then PYP Grade 1 > PYP Grade 2
III. Transition all other Programme year groups
Students in all other academic programmes can be moved up a grade level via Settings > School Directory > Memberships.
This page shows two columns: 'Available Students' (on the left) is where you can select students by grade level or Homeroom advisor. 'Manage your Students' (on the right) is where you can add or remove students from Year Groups, Classes or Groups.
To move students up a year level here, first In the screenshot below, for example, here students are being moved up from IGCSE Year 10 into Diploma Year 1.
2C. Add Newly Enrolled Students
If your school has OpenApply-ManageBac Sync enabled, skip this step as new students will sync from OpenApply to ManageBac, while students marked as withdrawn will be archived on ManageBac.
Create student accounts for incoming new students. See our tutorials on how to add students via Bulk Import or Individually:
Step 3. Configure Class Requirements
3A. Review Subjects, Phases & Levels
To set the subjects your school will be offering for the new year, navigate to Settings > Select your programme (e.g. IB Primary Years) > Subjects.
Via Subjects, you can enable your subjects as well as add any additional/customised subjects that your school may offer. Add New Subject Group allows you to create a subject category where multiple subjects can be added under. For example Subject Group = Science, Subjects = Biology, Chemistry, Physics.
Add New Subject enables you to add any customised subjects you wish.
After selecting/adding subjects, make sure to click Save Changes at the bottom of the page. Note: You will only be able to create classes in those subjects which are enabled on your account.
IB PYP Subject Strands
For IB PYP, via Subject click Edit, specify the subject strands, whether they are configured by phases or years, and each phase or year level they should be enabled for.
IB MYP Subject Levels
IB DP Subject Options & Levels
Navigate to Settings > IB Diploma > Subjects > Options & Levels, to specify the options (e.g. ab initio) and levels (e.g. SL) for your subjects.
Note: If your school offers the IB Diploma in more than one working language, you can also specify the languages for individual subjects.
Curriculum First (US, UK, Non-IB)
Via Options & Levels, specify the options (e.g. Core) and levels (e.g. Extended) for your subjects.
3B. Review Standards & Scope & Sequence
You can adjust the standards (and Scope & Sequence in IB PYP) configured on your school at any time of the year, however, during your transition is often a good time to consider this, especially if you are considering a major rework for the new academic year.
You can directly import sets of standards from the Faria database (featuring more than 600 standards sets) or request a custom import via Settings > Select a Programme > Curriculum > Standards. For further details, see Adding Standards as an Administrator
3C. Transition or Archive existing Classes
The next step is to transition your classes for each programme & subject. ManageBac is designed so that all classes have a set duration as they are linked to academic terms and archived once completed. ManageBac supports the following 4 transition types:
- Archive & recreate classes from scratch
- Archive & duplicate into the next grade
- Archive & duplicate into the existing grade
- Transition class to the next year (for 2-year IBDP, IBCP, IGCSE & A-levels classes)
It is possible to use certain transition types for some classes but not for others. Please watch our video tutorial & review the steps below to better understand which type is best to transition the classes at your school.
Recommended Class Transition Approaches
The following videos highlight the most commonly used and recommended approaches to transition, archive and create classes for the relevant programmes
Transitioning DP Classes
Transitioning MYP Classes
This approach also applies to UK, US and National Curricula classes
Transitioning PYP Classes
Option 1: Archive & recreate classes from scratch
This option can be used to bulk archive classes and recreate classes from scratch.
Scenarios where you may wish to bulk archive all classes and start from fresh:
- If you want to have a clean slate every year.
- If you do not want messages, files or student rosters to be the same next year, and you already have a list of new classes you wish to add from another student information system.
- If you wish to change the subjects or number of classes offered.
Navigate to Classes > See all classes > Manage Classes:
- Select the academic programme
- Archive individual classes or select the Archive checkbox at the top to archive all.
- Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page to process.
Repeat steps 1-3 with the next academic programme.
After archiving classes, new classes will need to be created via Classes > Show all Classes > Import Classes. See our tutorial here on creating classes via Bulk Import:
Option 2: Archive and duplicate classes into next grade
This option archives existing classes to preserve historical data, and creates a new version of each class one grade level higher. This option is best used for Non-DP and Non-IGCSE classes that will continue with the same students next year.
Example: A two-year High School Biology class may choose to duplicate messages, files, and class settings from Year 1 to Year 2. Archiving and duplicating into the next grade will archive all Year 1 class data and create a new class of the same subject a grade level higher, with the option to carry over messages, files & students from the Year 1 to Year 2 class.
First archive the highest level classes of the programme via Classes > See all Classes > Manage Classes.
- Select your programme
- Filter for the highest year level
- Archive all
- Save Changes
Next, transition lower level classes by navigating to Classes > See all Classes > Classes Manager > Transition Classes:
- Select the programme
- Select Archive & duplicate into next grade
- Confirm the Start and End Academic Terms for the newly created classes. DP classes can span up to two years, while all other classes can only span up to one.
- Add a unique Class ID for each class (this is strongly recommended as it will allow you to later bulk assign students to classes)
- Tick the Messages checkboxes if you would like to re-use the messages from the current class in the newly created class.
- Tick the Files checkboxes if you would like to re-use the files from the current class in the newly created class.
- Tick the Students checkboxes to use the same student roster from the current classes.
- If the teacher assigned will be different in the new class, select a new teacher from the Teacher dropdown.
Repeat these steps for each subject within the programme.
Option 3: Archive and duplicate classes into existing grade
This option archives your existing classes to preserve historical data, and creates a new version of each class in the same grade level. This is the quickest way to copy this year's classes into next year and is best used for programmes where the classes offered in each year level are roughly the same every year.
Example: If last year's MYP Design Grade 9 classes are offered again in Grade 9 next year, archiving and duplicating the class will allow you to archive the old class & create a copy keeping the messages, files and class settings the same.
In this option, you do not have to create any new classes if you are happy with your current class structure, since all selected classes will be duplicated into their existing grade levels.
Navigate to Classes > See all Classes > Classes Manager > Transition Classes.
- Select the programme
- Select Archive and duplicate into existing grade
- Select the subject
- Select the classes you wish to transition
- Confirm the Start and End Academic Terms for the newly created classes.
- Add a unique Class ID for each class (this is strongly recommended as it will allow you to later bulk assign students to classes)
- Tick the Messages check-box if you wish to copy the messages into next year's class.
- Tick the Files checkboxes if you wish to copy the files into next year's class.
Repeat these steps for each subject via the Subject dropdown
Option 4: Transition classes to the next year (for 2-year classes)
This option is for two-year classes, where class rosters remain the same from year 1 to year 2, which is often the case for Diploma & IGCSE Year 1 classes transitioning into Year 2.
Example: If DP English Language & Literature is a two-year course, the class should not be archived after the first year. Use 'Transition Classes to the Next Year' to move classes up a year level, ensuring all student work & class data stay with the class as it moves.
Instructions:
- Archive previous Year-2 classes
- Export previous Year-1 classes to CSV template & Save
- Transition Year-1 classes to Year-2
- Create new Year 1 classes using the Excel export
I. Archive Previous Year-2 Classes
First, archive the IBDP, IBCP or IGCSE Year-2 classes from last year as these classes have finished - via Classes > See all Classes > Manage Classes.
- Select the programme (IB Diploma, IB Career-related, or IGCSEs)
- Select the highest year level (DP-2 or IGCSE-2)
- Tick the Archive button at the top to select all & Save Changes
How to resolve error messages:
Class ID has already been taken: Appears if another class (active or archived) has the same class ID. Remove or update the class ID so it is unique and try again.
Class Terms must be in the same or the following Year: Edit the class terms to start & end within the previous or next academic year.
II. Export previous Year-1 classes to CSV Template (Excel file type)
Navigate to Classes > Browse All Classes
- Filter for Diploma or IGCSE
- Filter for Year-1
- Click Export and select Export to CSV Template
- Save the Export file to your computer for now and move on to the next step.
III. Transition Year-1 classes to Year-2
Navigate to Classes > See all Classes > Classes Manager > Transition Classes to transition the lower level classes up a year level.
- Select the programme
- Select Transition classes to the next year (for 2-year courses)
- Select the subject
- Select the DP1 classes you wish to transition up to DP2
- Ensure the ending term is the final term of 2020
- Add/remove teachers as needed
- Click Save Changes
Repeat these steps for each subject.
IV. Create New Year-1 Classes
The last step to transitioning 2-year programmes is to create new Year-1 classes.
- Navigate to Classes > See all Classes > Classes Manager > Import Classes
- Select your programme (Diploma or IGCSEs)
- To re-import the year-1 classes from the previous year, open the CSV export from Step 2.
- Add or remove classes as needed to match the set-up for the incoming Year-1 classes. Be sure that all required fields are added: Year, Subject Group, Subject, Level. Class ID is not required but is strongly recommended.
- Once all class data has been added, save the file in CSV format and upload it via the Import Classes page.
If you prefer not to re-import the previous year's Year-1 classes, you can also create new classes from scratch by following our guide on importing classes:
3C. Creating New Lowest Grade-Level classes
As we have worked our way down from our top-most grade-level classes (which we archived), and each grade-level below that (which we either transitioned up a grade-level or recreated in the existing grade) you are likely left with a few scenarios:
- If you are a DP-only school, and followed 5B-4 above about creating new DP 1 classes, you should have all classes created already and can skip this step.
- If you chose to Archive & Duplicate into the existing grade level for your lowest grade-level already, you may already have all the classes you need and can skip this step.
- If you chose to Bulk Archive and start from scratch, or Archive & Duplicate into the next grade level for your lowest grade-level classes, you will still require creating lowest grade-level classes, such as for MYP 1 or PYP 1. Please see the following guides
Step 4. Add your Schools Calendar
Skip Step 4 if your school is not subscribed to the ManageBac Attendance add-on
4A. Configure Holidays
Navigate to Settings > Attendance & Calendar > Programme-Level to configure the attendance settings for each of your school's programmes.
- Select the Programme
- Select the Academic Year
-
Set attendance schedule to either Weekdays or custom Rotation cycle (e.g. 10 days)
- Optionally choose to count Holidays in your Rotation
- Select Categories that teachers can select from including Late, Health, Dress Code, etc.
- Customise Categories to change colours and labels.
-
Holidays are also configured by programme
- Click on the dates within the calendar to configure your school holidays
- To remove a holiday, click the date again
- Holidays and days off are marked in yellow and not counted in the attendance total
- Teachers will not be able to take attendance on these days
Adjust the First Day of the Rotation Cycle
Schools running a rotation cycle can click on the red number on the first day of each academic term.
Once clicked, you will be able to select the rotation cycle start number that the term will start on.
Tip: Remember to adjust your Term Dates via Settings > Terms first, and then configure your holiday calendar and rotation according to the days in the session.
4B. Setup Periods
Via Attendance & Calendar > Periods > the programme, customise the number and duration of Periods for the academic year.
- Select the Academic Year.
- Select if you want to Customise attendance periods by day or rotation cycle.
- Indicate if you want to Start the period count from 0.
- Enable Differentiate periods by Grade level if you want the period's configuration to be specific to each grade level. Once enabled, you can then select the Grade to configure the attendance for each grade level.
- Select the number of Periods for each day and set the times for those periods. Tick Custom Periods for blocks of time in the schedule where no classes are taught. Names for Custom Periods are free to set as text and can have a background image from a preset list of images.
- You can also Copy Period Configurations from days in the week or rotation cycles. The Green checkmarks will indicate the days where Period Configurations have been saved after Saving Changes.
- You can also Copy Period configurations from previous academic years per academic programme.
4C. Import Timetables
Class Attendance timetables can be set up manually (class-by-class) or via bulk import.
Note that class timetables do not need to be set up for programmes where you are only tracking Homeroom Attendance. For example, if you are taking class attendance in your secondary school, but homeroom attendance only in primary school, you can skip this step for primary school.
Manually
To set up class attendance timetables manually, navigate to each class Attendance tab. Select the Days, Periods & enter a class location. Click Save Changes and repeat for all classes.
Bulk import
Bulk import is the fastest method to set up class timetables and can be done via Classes > Classes Manager > Import Timetable.
- Download our CSV template
- Add required fields to the template: Class ID, Rotation Day Number & Period Number (Room location is optional).
- ManageBac does not support direct integration with any third-party timetabling systems. If your school uses another timetabling system with an export to XLS or CSV function, it's best to match the class IDs on ManageBac with your timetabling system. This will make it easier to export data from your timetabling system and add it to our CSV timetable template, using class ID as the common unique identifier across both systems.
- Rotation days & periods for each programme are set via your Settings > Attendance.
- If your programme runs on a 5-day (weekday) cycle, then Monday is rotation day 1, Tuesday is rotation day 2, and so on.
- Save the file in CSV format, upload and click Next.
If you need any assistance with any of the above imports or have any questions about the best transition options for your school, please email us at support@managebac.com and we will be happy to help.
4D. Add Year Group Deadlines
The IB Deadlines repository allows admins to add recommended Year Group-wide IB deadlines to student calendars. To do so, admins can navigate to Year Group > Calendar > Import Example Deadlines:
The repository contains default IB deadlines and these can be filtered by Category and Exam Years. You can select a deadline via the checkbox and select Add Resources to import the deadline. You can also click Add New Deadline in the right-hand menu to create a new, custom deadline, which will be stored within the IB Deadline repository. We will cover this in greater depth later in the tutorial.
Step 5. Update Class & Homeroom Members
5A. Adding Students to Classes
Once all classes across all programmes have been transitioned, the next step is to add students to new classes. Students can be added to classes manually or in bulk.
Add Students Manually
Navigate to each class individually and add students via the Members tab (see below)
Students are organised by the year level & programme of their year group (see below). It's possible to add students from multiple year levels & programmes to the class if needed.
Add Students in Bulk
Navigate to Classes > Browse All Classes > click Bulk Assign Students
Download our CSV template and fill it out with the required fields to assign students to classes:
- Student ID or Email
- Class ID
Save the file in CSV format and upload it. Then choose to either Bulk assign, adding students to existing rosters, or Bulk assign and remove, replacing any existing class rosters.
When transitioning to the next year, the most common option is to Bulk assign as you are adding students to newly created classes for the new year.
5B. Assign Homeroom Advisors to Students
Assign Homeroom Advisors to students via Year Groups > Bulk Assign Students.
This step is necessary if Homeroom advisors for students have changed from last year to this year, or if there are students who are not yet assigned to a Homeroom Advisor.
Download our CSV template and complete the required fields to assign students to Homeroom Advisors:
- Student ID or E-mail
- Homeroom Advisor E-mail
Save the file in CSV format and upload by clicking Bulk assign. This will bulk assign Homeroom Advisors to students, allowing them to easily keep track of their students via the Homeroom tab. See here for further guidance.
5C. Assign Teachers to Classes
Teachers can be added to classes manually or in bulk.
Allow Teachers to Join a Class
If classes are not locked, teachers can find classes under Classes > Browse All Classes, and filtering for the relevant Programme, Grade Levels or Subject Groups. Here they can click Join or Leave. If a class is locked for Teachers, the teacher will not be able to leave or join it.
Adding Teachers to a Class
Navigate to each class individually and add teachers via the Members tab. Here you can Add Teachers, remove teachers, and configure which show on Report cards.
Add Teachers to Multiple Classes
Add Teachers in Bulk
Navigate to Classes > Browse All Classes > click Bulk Assign Teachers
Download our CSV template and fill it out with the required fields to assign students to classes:
- Teacher E-mail
- Class ID
Save the file in CSV format and upload it. Then choose to either Bulk assign, adding teachers to classes. Please note, this acts as a Bulk assign and remove, replacing any existing teacher memberships.
5D. Generate Timetables
Timetables will be visible to students, parents and teachers on ManageBac automatically after students and teachers have been assigned to their classes. However, you may wish to further provide generated PDFs for them, such as in print in any opening day event.
Generate PDF Timetables for students via Classes > Classes Manager > Generate Timetables.
This will create a ZIP file stored on the right-hand side. You can download and share PDFs with Students via email or message.
The ZIP will be organised according to Grade Level and Student Name.
Alternatively, Students can directly find their own live or PDF timetable when logged in to ManageBac.
Step 6. Opening to your Community!
6A. Unlock ManageBac
Don't forget to remove the restriction for Students & Parents, if you added it in step 2A. (This will automatically unlock at 00:00 GMT on the date selected, in case you forget!)
6B. Send Welcome Emails
If users have not received their welcome e-mails, you have two options:
1. Re-send to all users who have not yet logged in.
2. Re-send to an individual user.
Note: E-mails entered into the system are case-sensitive. The average user e-mail address is all lower case.
Re-sending to all users who have not yet logged in
Via Settings > School Directory > Roster, select Send Welcome E-mails.
Choose the user type you would like to send the welcome emails to. If you select students, you can also specify a Year Group. After you confirm your selection, the welcome e-mails will be sent out.
You've completed your transition!
Congratulations on completing the critical transitioning steps!
If you wish to view our recommended steps to ensure your account is kept tidy, please see our extended pre-transition and post-transition checklists.
Account Review
If you wish to have your account manager review your school's account, please navigate to Settings > Services Manager, where you will find your account manager details on the right-hand side.
Transition Questions
For any questions, feel free to submit a ManageBac support request.
New User Training Options
Admins can book 1-1 trainings on handling your account or arrange for group teacher training sessions to become familiar with ManageBac. Training sessions are available to book within 24hr notice.