How to prepare your Tapestry account for the next academic year

[EmilyTapestrySupport]

At the end of each academic year, there are a few things that need to be done or at least considered, in order to prepare your Tapestry account for next year’s cohort.

To support the information provided in this post, we also have a few End of Year To-Do List infographics that might help you with this process. 

 

Managing your packages 

The first thing you might want to think about is how to manage your Tapestry package/s. This is especially important for larger settings or settings that use, or are planning to use, Tapestry across several cohorts or years. We do recommend having a separate package for each cohort/or year as we have heard feedback from settings that they find this more manageable.

We have written an article which goes over your options if you have multiple packages which you can find here. If you have all of your children in one package and would like to discuss separating them into different packages you can contact us at customer.service@eyfs.info.

 

 

Downloading data 

Once you have decided how to set up your account/s, you will then need to think about what to do with profiles of the children that are leaving your setting. Many settings export a PDF copy of the journal for their own records which can be stored offline on computers at your setting. Relatives can be given a printed copy if you would like to hand them a physical book, but if you would like to save paper and ink, you can burn a copy of the PDF onto a CD or memory stick or even set it so the relatives can download a copy for themselves from their Tapestry account. It is possible to do this in bulk as well to help you save time. This tutorial here explains how to export children’s learning journals and also how to export them for relatives to download.

Videos are not included in the exported learning journal, due to the PDF format it needs to be exported in so, but you can export a ZIP file which can include all photos and videos for a child. Like exporting the learning journals, it is also possible to do this in bulk. This tutorial here explains how you can now do this.

 

Transferring children

If a child is moving to another setting that also has Tapestry or they are moving up a year into another Tapestry package, you can still export a copy of the journal to PDF, but you also might want to transfer their learning journal, assessments and any associated relatives accounts across to the new package. This tutorial here explains how to do this.

If they are moving to a setting that doesn’t have Tapestry you could just export their learning journal and send this across to the new setting.

 

Deleting children, staff and relatives

Once you have exported any data and transferred any child accounts you need to, you will need to delete or deactivate the children that are leaving to then be able to add the new starters; this tutorial talks you through how to delete children, and this one here explains how to deactivate them. You do have 90 days to restore a deleted child on your account just in case of any mistakes (see here for how to do this).

Please note that it is important that you only keep your children's data as long as you have a lawful reason for doing so as per your Data Protection policy. Therefore you should periodically review and delete any inactive records that are no longer required. In some cases you will find that you have a legal obligation to retain certain data, e.g. accident records, but for those instances we have made it possible to export the information into PDF files, which you can produce before the child leaves your setting.

You may also need to delete relatives for children no longer at your setting or any staff that have left. I've linked below the tutorials you will need to follow to complete these actions:

Deleting staff members

Deleting relatives

 

Making sure your account has the correct contact details

As well as deleting the staff that have left, it's important to make sure all of the contact details for your remaining staff are correct. The email addresses staff members login with are where notifications and password reset links are sent, so you should check that those are up to date, especially for the managers. Have a think about whether any of those might have changed over the last year and edit any staff members (on the 'Manage Staff' page) who that is the case for.  

You should also check the details in your 'Contact Details' section. The emails there are the first addresses we will contact if we need to speak with you about your account and where relatives will be directed to. 

Finally you should think about where invoices are sent. Although any manager will be able to access your invoices via your Tapestry account, they are also sent to the Foundation Stage Forum account holder when they are first generated.

Here are the tutorials you'll need for the above:

Adding and updating your Tapestry contact details

How to change your FSF account email address

 

Adding new children 

You can then add the new children, either individually or in bulk via CSV. The below tutorials explain how to add a child manually, how to create a CSV and how to upload a CSV to Tapestry.

How to add a child manually

How to create a CSV file

How to upload a CSV file to Tapestry

 

If you have a crossover period between adding new children and removing ones that are leaving you can now add new children as 'enrolling'. This means they will not contribute to your number of active child spaces and you can't use the full functionality of Tapestry with them. You can complete the following actions with enrolling children:

• Add them to groups
• Link them to parents
• Assign them as key children to staff
• Complete their All About Me
• Print Name Labels for them

Our adding children tutorials also cover how you can add children as enrolling. This one will then explain how to make children that are enrolling active.

Please note, once you make an enrolling child active, it's not possible to change them back enrolling. Also, it's only possible to add the same number of enrolling children to your account as you have spaces for active children, so if you have our up to 60 child package, you could only add up to 60 enrolling children. 

 

Continuing with the same children 

If you are continuing with the same children, in the same package, you might need to change any key children you have assigned, or manual groups you have set up, if you swap key workers or groups at the end of the year. You can follow this tutorial here to set up or swap key children, and this one to add or adjust any manual groups on your account.

 

Term dates 

The final thing you will also need to consider is how to have your periods set up on Tapestry. After next year’s term dates are announced you can adjust your term dates on Tapestry so the two correspond. You can do this by following this tutorial here; please note that this will adjust the dates for previous years.

[gillpen]

Thanks so much Emily! It's great to have all the information in one . Tackling it this week! :blink:

[EmilyTapestrySupport]

You're very welcome gillpen! Hope you found it useful. Good luck with it all! ::1a

[Caroline_Kennett]

Hi, what size CD would you recommend to download the journals?

Many thanks

Caroline

[EmilyTapestrySupport]

Hi Caroline,

 

Welcome to the forum!

 

I'm afraid we cannot really recommend a specific size CD as this will depend on how many observations you have added and if there are lots of photos included.

 

What we suggest you do is download a copy of a child's journal now as a test and look at the size of the file. This should give you a rough idea about what size CD to go for.

 

I hope this helps!

[finleysmaid]

as a pre-school I have ,so far, put all the children in one cohort. Just wondering what others do...is it better for analysis to put next years leavers in a separate cohort to my newbies???

[EmilyTapestrySupport]

Hi finleysmaid,

 

I would say it is completely up to you and how you view the analysis for the children. If you did want to view analysis for the next years leavers to your new starters separately, I would recommend setting up a manual group for each.

 

This tutorial here walks you through how to do this.

[zigzag]

I am still waiting for a couple of parents to download their child's LJ, can I still delete the children without affecting this or do I have to wait until the parent has downloaded the journal? Eager to get set up for the new year but don't want to jeopardise the journals!

[OlayaTapestrySupport]

Hi zigzag!

Certainly - when generating an export, the system creates an independent file that will be available for three weeks regardless of the child's status. If you were to delete the children you mention, the relatives would still be able to download the PDF version of their journal from their account.

Furthermore, you can also export journals and media from inactive or awaiting deletion children (at least for now), so even if these relatives didn't come around to downloading their children's journals before they were deleted from the system, you'd still be able to generate another version from an inactive or awaiting deletion child profile  

I hope this was reassuring!

Best wishes,

Olaya

[zigzag]

Thank you Olaya🙂

[OlayaTapestrySupport]

You are very welcome zigzag!!

You know where to find us if you ever have any other queries