Overview
This article describes the setting “Set Default Location (on new Student creation form)”, found in the Student Form settings area under Default Values. This setting controls which Location (also referred to as Campus, Branch, or Site) is automatically pre-filled when a staff member creates a new Student record.
It is a convenience setting: institutions that operate more than one physical Location can use it to save staff from having to manually pick the correct Location every time a new Student is registered, while still allowing that value to be changed if needed.
What This Setting Does
When a staff member opens the New Student form to register a new Student, one of the fields on that form is Location – the branch, campus, or site the Student is being registered at. If nothing is configured for this, the system falls back to whichever Location appears first in the institution’s list, which may not be the right one for that context.
This setting lets an administrator define in advance which Location should already be selected in the Location field when the New Student form opens. Staff can still change the Location manually before saving the new Student – this setting only affects the starting value that is shown, it does not lock or restrict which Location can ultimately be chosen.
This setting can also be configured differently for each Role in the system (for example, Registrar, Front Desk, Admissions Officer). This means the same New Student form can show a different pre-selected Location depending on which Role the logged-in staff member belongs to – useful when different departments or staff types typically register students under different campuses.
Where It Is Used
Setting path: Settings > General Customizations > Student Parameters > Student Form > Default Values tab > “Set Default Location (on new Student creation form).”
Applies to: the New Student creation form, every time a new Student record is added to the system.
Timing: the pre-selected value is applied only at the moment the New Student form is opened for a brand-new registration. It does not affect Students who already exist, and it has no effect when later editing an existing Student’s Location.
Prerequisites
- At least one Location must already be created and active in the system before it can be chosen in this setting. If the institution has only one Location in total, this setting has no practical effect, since that single Location is already used as the default.
- If you want to configure a different default Location per Role, the relevant Roles must already exist and be set up in the system.
Business Logic / Behavior
When the New Student form is opened, Classter decides which Location to pre-select using the following order:
- 1. Role-based Location restriction (highest priority): if the logged-in staff member’s Role is already restricted to one or more specific Locations, the first of those allowed Locations is pre-selected automatically, and this setting is not used at all in that case.
- 2. This setting’s configured Location: if the Role has no such restriction, Classter checks whether this setting has a Location configured (for that Role) and, if that Location is still valid, pre-selects it.
- 3. Fallback to the first Location: if neither of the above applies – no Role restriction and no valid Location configured in this setting – Classter falls back to pre-selecting whichever Location appears first in the institution’s Location list.
Business rules that follow from this behavior:
- This is only a default/starting value. It never blocks or restricts which Location a staff member can ultimately select before saving; restricting the choices themselves is a separate, Role-permission based concept.
- The default can be tailored per Role, so different departments or staff types can each have their own “home” Location pre-filled automatically.
- If the Location configured in this setting is later removed or becomes invalid, Classter safely falls back to the first available Location instead of leaving the field empty or causing an error.
Example
Meadowbrook Academy operates three Locations: Meadowbrook Main Campus, Lakeside Campus, and Hillside Campus.
The Registrar’s Role typically registers students who will attend Lakeside Campus. The school administrator opens this setting and configures it, for the Registrar Role at Lakeside Campus.
From that point on, when registrar Maria Ioannou opens the New Student form, the Location field is already pre-filled with Lakeside Campus, instead of defaulting to Meadowbrook Main Campus (which happens to be first in the list). If she is registering a student who will actually attend Hillside Campus, she simply changes the dropdown before saving.
Now, suppose the Front Desk Role has been restricted, through Role permissions, to Hillside Campus only. Even though this setting is configured to Lakeside Campus, when a Front Desk staff member opens the New Student form, Hillside Campus is pre-selected instead – because the Role-based restriction (rule 1 above) takes priority over this setting.
Related Setting Example: Set Default Guardian
Main Settings/ General Settings/ Student Form/ Default Values / Set Default Location(On new student creation form)
Here, you select the default value that the location field will have when a new student is created by the secretariat.
Example
Setting -> Active -> Primary school (Figure 1, Figure 2)
Figure 1
In the Location Field, Primary School is preselected (Figure 2)
Figure 2
Setting -> Inactive (Figure 3)
The Location Field is blank
Figure 3
When to Use
When to Configure a Default Location
- The institution operates more than one Location (campus, branch, or site).
- A specific Role (or all staff) mostly registers Students for one particular Location, and you want to save them a repetitive manual step.
- You want to reduce the risk of staff accidentally leaving the wrong Location selected out of habit.
When Configuration May Not Be Necessary
- The institution has only a single Location – there is nothing to default to besides that one Location.
- A Role registers Students across all Locations fairly evenly, and you would rather staff consciously pick the correct Location every time, rather than risk them leaving an unrelated pre-filled default in place.
- The Role in question is already restricted to specific Locations through Role permissions – configuring this setting for that Role would have no visible effect, since the Role restriction always takes priority.
Notes
K-12 and Higher Education Mode
This setting behaves identically whether “Enable Configuration for Higher Education” is switched on or off. There is no difference in how the default Location is pre-selected between K-12 mode and Higher Education mode; the same three-step order described in Business Logic above applies in both modes.
Related Settings
The following settings are related to, or sit alongside, this one:
- “Enable Configuration for Higher Education” (“Settings > Customization for Higher Education > Basic Settings” – Xrisi_parametropoihshs_kolegiou)
- “Always add applicants in this Location” (“Settings > Application Management > Application Submission Settings” – Admission_DefaultLocation) – the equivalent of this setting, but for the online Admission application form instead of the New Student form.
- “Automatically Calculate Location based on Grade” (“Settings > Application Management > Application Submission Settings” – Admission_Auto_Calculate_Location_Based_On_Grade)
- “Admission Enabled School Locations” (“Settings > General Admission Settings” – Admission_Enabled_School_Locations)
