Overview

The Default Role for Parent Accounts setting controls which portal role is automatically given to a Parent (Guardian) the moment their online account is created in Classter.

A portal role determines what a user sees and can do once logged in: the menus available to them, the modules they can access (for example Attendance, Marks, Timetable, Announcements, or Payments), and the actions they are allowed to take. By pre-selecting a role through this setting, the institution ensures that every new Parent account starts with a consistent, ready-to-use portal experience, without staff having to manually assign a role each time a parent is added to the system.

This setting is one of a family of similar settings, one for each type of user in Classter: Student, Teacher, Employee (Secretary), and Parent. All of them work in exactly the same way for their respective user type.

 

 

What This Setting Does

In simple terms, this setting is a single choice from a list: it lets an administrator pick, once, which Parent-type role should be handed out automatically to every new Parent (Guardian) account, instead of choosing a role by hand for each parent individually.

The list of choices only shows roles that already exist in the system and that have specifically been built and marked as Parent-type roles. Roles created for other kinds of users (Students, Teachers, Employees) are never shown in this list.

If the institution has not yet created any Parent-type role, this list will be empty and the setting cannot be used until one is created (see Prerequisites below).

 

 

Where It Is Used

This setting is configured in Main Settings > General Settings > Security Settings > Accounts & Roles.

Its effect, however, is felt at the moment a new Parent account is created anywhere in Classter. This typically happens in one of the following situations:

• A staff member manually creates a Parent (Guardian) online account, for example from the Student’s family/relatives information.
• A Parent/Guardian account is generated automatically as part of enrolling or admitting a Student and linking a parent or guardian to that Student’s record.
• A parent creates their own account by self-registering through the institution’s portal, where this option is enabled.

In every one of these cases, Classter reads this setting and links the selected role to the new Parent account right away, so the parent can log in and immediately see the menus and information intended for them.

 

Prerequisites

• At least one dashboard role must already exist and be specifically marked as a Parent-type role, fully built with the menus, modules and permissions that parents should see. The dropdown for this setting stays empty until such a role exists.
• The role chosen should be complete and ready to use. A Parent-type role with no menus or modules configured will result in parents seeing an empty or unusable portal after logging in.

 

 

Business Logic / Behavior

• One role per parent account. A Parent’s role governs their whole portal experience, no matter how many Students (children) are linked to their account. If the same parent is linked to two or more siblings, they still have a single account with a single role – the role does not change or multiply per child.
• Not retroactive. Changing this setting only affects Parent accounts created after the change is saved. Parents whose accounts already exist keep the role they currently have.
• Configured per academic period and per institution. This setting is set separately for each school/academic period, and separately for each institution in a multi-institution environment. When a brand-new period is started from scratch (without carrying configuration forward from a previous one), this field will be empty and must be set again before new parent accounts are created.
• No value selected means no automatic role. If this setting is left empty, new Parent accounts are created without any role attached, and the parent will see an empty or inaccessible portal until an administrator manually assigns a role to their account.
• Deleting the assigned role clears the setting. If the role currently selected as the default is later deleted from the Roles section, this setting is automatically cleared and must be reconfigured with another Parent-type role.
• Individual accounts can always be changed afterwards. Once a Parent account exists, an administrator with the right access can change that specific parent’s role at any time from the user accounts section, using the Change Role option. This does not affect the institution-wide default, and changing the default setting later does not retroactively update parents whose accounts already exist.

 

K-12 Mode vs. Higher Education Mode

This setting works in exactly the same way in both K-12 mode and Higher Education mode (that is, regardless of whether the Enable Configuration for Higher Education setting is switched on or off). The mechanism itself – automatically assigning a chosen role to every new Parent account – does not change between the two modes.

What typically differs between the two modes is how often a Parent role is actually used, and what that role is normally configured to show:

• In K-12 mode, Parent/Guardian accounts tend to be used very actively, since younger students usually rely on a parent to follow their attendance, grades and school communication. Parent roles in this mode are typically configured with modules such as Attendance, Marks, Timetable and Announcements.
• In Higher Education mode, students are typically adults who manage their own accounts, so Parent/Guardian accounts are generally used less often. When institutions in this mode still register a parent, guardian or financial sponsor, that role is often configured with a narrower focus – for example, visibility into invoices or payment status – rather than day-to-day academic detail.

This is a difference in how institutions typically configure their Parent roles’ content, not a difference in how this particular setting behaves.

 

 

Examples

 

Example 1 – Standard Setup for a School

Riverside Elementary School has a single Parent-type portal role called ‘Parent Access’, which gives parents visibility into their child’s Attendance, Marks, Timetable and Announcements. The administrator sets the Default Role for Parent Accounts to ‘Parent Access’.

From that point on, every new Parent or Guardian account – whether created by the school office or generated automatically when a new Student is enrolled – automatically receives the ‘Parent Access’ role, with no extra manual step required.

 

Example 2 – A Family With More Than One Child

Mrs. Angela Ferreira has two children, Leo and Mia, both attending Riverside Elementary School. When Leo was enrolled, Mrs. Ferreira’s Parent account was created and automatically received the ‘Parent Access’ role from this setting. When Mia was enrolled later, Classter recognized that Mrs. Ferreira already had a Parent account and simply linked her to Mia as well – her existing role was not changed, duplicated, or reset.

 

Example 3 – Using More Than One Parent Role

Fairview International School has two Parent-type roles: ‘Parent Standard’ (Attendance, Marks and Announcements only) and ‘Parent Finance’ (which adds visibility of invoices and online payments). The Default Role for Parent Accounts is set to ‘Parent Standard’, since it fits the majority of families.

When the school office needs a specific parent to also manage billing for their family, an administrator opens that parent’s account and uses the Change Role option to switch them to ‘Parent Finance’. This individual change does not alter the institution-wide default, so all newly created Parent accounts continue to receive ‘Parent Standard’ automatically.

 

 

When to Use

 

When to Enable (select a default role)

• The institution has already created and fully configured at least one Parent-type role, with the menus and modules parents should see.
• The institution wants every new Parent/Guardian account to have a working, ready-to-use portal experience immediately, without staff having to assign a role by hand for each one.
• A new academic period has just started and the institution wants new Parent accounts created in that period to keep receiving a role automatically (recommended to double-check the value after copying settings forward from a previous period).

 

When to Disable (leave the setting empty)

• No Parent-type role has been created or properly configured yet – selecting an incomplete role would give new parents a blank or broken portal.
• The institution prefers to review and assign a role to every new Parent account individually, for example because different parents must be judged case-by-case before receiving portal access.

Note: leaving this setting empty means new Parent accounts will have no role, and effectively no usable portal, until an administrator manually assigns one. This is best treated as a temporary or transitional state rather than a permanent choice.

 

 

Notes

Related Settings

• ‘Default Role for Student Accounts’ (Main Settings > General Settings > Security Settings > Accounts & Roles – Student_Dashboard_Default_Role) – the same mechanism, applied to Student accounts.
• ‘Default Role for Teacher Accounts’ (Main Settings > General Settings > Security Settings > Accounts & Roles – Teacher_Dashboard_Default_Role) – the same mechanism, applied to Teacher (Instructor) accounts.
• ‘Default Role for Secretary Accounts’ (Main Settings > General Settings > Security Settings > Accounts & Roles – Secretary_Dashboard_Default_Role) – the same mechanism, applied to Employee (Secretary) accounts.
• ‘User Account Name Format for Parents’ (Main Settings > General Settings > Security Settings > Accounts & Roles – SchoolPortal_Morfi_Onomatos_Xristi_Gonea) – defines how the username of a new Parent account is generated; configured separately from the role.
• ‘Select Elements to Hide at Parent’s Dashboard’ and ‘Hidden Dashboard Timeline Elements for Parents’ (Main Settings > General Settings > Dashboard Settings – HideDashboardPageElements_Parents / HideDashboardTimelineElements_Parent) – once a parent is using the role assigned by this setting, these settings further fine-tune what appears on their dashboard.
• ‘Enable Configuration for Higher Education’ (Main Settings > General Settings > Core Settings – Xrisi_parametropoihshs_kolegiou) – switches the institution between K-12 and Higher Education mode; see the K-12 vs. Higher Education note in Section 4.

 

Summary of Key Behaviors

• Applies only to Parent accounts created after the setting is saved – never retroactive.
• Must be reviewed for each new academic period and, in multi-institution setups, for each institution.
• Can always be overridden for an individual parent afterwards, without affecting the institution-wide default.