Tour - Parent Interface

Registration

Parents are prompted to enter their email address - this is their unique identification. Additionally they can enter their name and a contact number.

This is minimal information and provides only a limited amount of security. Is this a problem? We considered this carefully before determining that there are potentially two issues.

The system is only available to parents for a limited amount of time to make bookings, the rest of the year it is unaccessible, therefore our hacker would need to know when the school is running a round of interviews.

Anonymously the hacker could create random information and make random teacher bookings, however I suspect that teachers would very quickly identify this and be able to dismiss the information.

The other risk is where a hacker might identify a parent's email address, and from this they would potentially gain access to the parents name and phone number - in most cases this is generally published information. The hacker might also gain access to the names and year levels of the students - however even this detail is not sensitive and often available on facebook. The hacker may be in a position to cancel an existing interview - and while this is inconvenient it is not particularly serious as the parent can be catered for at an alternate time.

One final situation is where the students themselves decide to modify the information, creating and deleting interview bookings, however even in this situation the parents and teachers will eventually get together and the student will be caught out.

With all of this in mind, schools all over Australia are successfully using the system and very few ever experience any trouble with mis-information.

Adding Students

When the parent registers a child, they also specify the year level. It is this year level that automatically identifies the interview dates that have been scheduled at the school, along with the teachers that are available for interview selection.

Selecting interviews

GREEN slots are available, RED slots are your bookings, and GREY slots are unavailable. Each teacher is displayed in a column, so the parent only needs to click once in each column.

The parent wants to book interview times that are: (A) suitable for them, and (B) adjacent to any other bookings they are making. This form enables them to see when each teacher is available, and also where there are adjacent available slots.

Click on a GREEN slot and it will turn RED, the students name is placed in this slot. The slots to the left and right of this booking will turn GREY - they are no longer available for this parent. Clicking a RED slot will remove the booking, allowing the parent to choose a new slot. This makes it very easy for the parent to change their mind while still maintaining the integrity of the booking system.

If a teacher has no available slots, or the parent is unable to locate a suitable interview time, we provide a 'Contact' button at the end of the column allowing the parent to request an alternative meeting time, outside of these organised times.