Help & FAQ · AlatiphA SchoolHub

Help & FAQ

Getting started & accounts

What is AlatiphA SchoolHub?

SchoolHub is a school-management PWA for school setup, staff, classes, subjects, students, attendance, grades, remarks, reports, Fees & Receipts, financial reporting, backups and academic-year rollover.

What are my sign-in options?

The login page keeps email/password Sign in and Sign up first. Continue with Google appears below those options. Use the same account each time so SchoolHub returns you to the correct identity.

Does Continue with Google automatically join a school?

No. Google sign-in only authenticates the person. A Teacher must still choose to join an existing school, enter the school's join code, wait for Head Teacher approval, and receive class/subject assignments before entering the school workspace.

Why can a Google user appear in Firebase Authentication but not in Manage Teachers?

Firebase Authentication confirms that the Google account signed in successfully. The account appears in Manage Teachers only after the user completes SchoolHub's join-school process with the correct join code so a pending school membership is created.

How do I create or join a school?

Sign in first. A Head Teacher can register a new school and receives a join code. A Teacher joins an existing school with that code, then waits for the Head Teacher to approve the request and assign classes/subjects.

What can a Teacher access?

A Teacher is limited to approved assignments. Head Teacher-only areas such as school setup, staff management, classes, subjects, teacher management, financial administration and billing controls remain restricted.

Can I use SchoolHub without an account?

Yes, through the 7-day guest trial. Guest data stays on the current device and is not a shared cloud school. Export a backup before clearing browser/app data.

Fees & Receipts (FIS)

What is the current Fees & Receipts system?

FIS is SchoolHub's multi-category fee-item system. It keeps reusable fee categories, term/year fee items, pupil charges, payments, allocations, balances, receipts, adjustments, arrears and financial reports while preserving migrated legacy v40 fee records.

What are fee categories?

Fee categories are reusable labels for groups of charges, such as PTA, Feeding, Examination, Sports or Development. A category can be reused across different fee items and academic periods.

Who can a fee item be applied to?

A fee item can be applied to one class, multiple selected classes, all classes, or one individual pupil. This lets a school keep several separate fee items in the same term.

Who can make financial changes?

Protected FIS financial mutations are restricted to the active Head Teacher. The system keeps financial writes behind the server-backed safeguards used by the current ledger.

Pupil charges, payments & receipts

What do Due, Paid and Balance mean?

Each pupil charge keeps separate values for Due, Paid and Balance, so SchoolHub does not have to treat a pupil's fees as one undifferentiated amount.

How are payments allocated?

Automatic allocation clears the oldest outstanding debt first. Manual allocation is also available when a payment must be directed to selected charges.

What information appears on a receipt?

Receipts show the payment and its allocation lines so you can trace which fee items were settled by that payment. Void status remains visible when a payment has been reversed.

How do discounts and adjustments work?

Individual discounts and other adjustments can change what is due without destroying the original charge. Safe-edit rules prevent a charge from being reduced below money already paid.

What is a payment void or reversal?

A reversal is the controlled way to undo a payment. It restores the affected balance through the ledger instead of simply deleting evidence that money was previously recorded.

Financial reports, statements & arrears

What does the Financial Dashboard show?

The dashboard can show Total Expected, Total Collected, Outstanding, Collection Rate, Arrears, Pupils Owing, Discounts and Added Adjustments from confirmed FIS records.

How can financial reports be filtered?

Reports can be filtered by academic year, term, class, fee category, balance status and production/test records. Reporting can also group information by category, class, academic period and payment method.

Can I export or print financial reports?

Yes. Detailed financial data can be exported to CSV, and report views can be printed or saved as PDF using the browser's print system.

What is a Pupil Fee Statement?

A pupil statement brings together fee items, categories, academic periods, base charges, adjustments, due, paid, balance, receipts, payment methods, references and void status where applicable.

What is a Parent Fee Statement?

The parent-facing statement uses the pupil's saved Guardian Name and Parent Phone details and separates previous arrears from current outstanding. Future charges are excluded by default unless they are deliberately included.

What does Arrears Management do?

Arrears Management separates previous-period arrears from current-term outstanding balances and supports class, fee-category, guardian/phone and production/test filtering. Settled, cancelled, future and test records are excluded from the normal production arrears view by default.

Reminder Generator

Who can I prepare a fee reminder for?

You can prepare a reminder for one pupil or for selected owing pupils from Arrears Management. When using Selected arrears pupils, first tick the pupils in the arrears table.

What can a reminder cover?

A reminder can cover previous arrears only, or previous arrears plus the current-term outstanding balance. You can also add an optional deadline and note.

What does Copy message do?

It copies the prepared reminder to the device clipboard. After a successful copy, SchoolHub shows visible feedback so you know the reminder was copied.

What does Open WhatsApp do?

It opens the prepared reminder in the WhatsApp app or the browser destination available on the device. SchoolHub does not claim that the message was sent; you still decide whether to send it.

What does Print / Save reminder PDF do?

It opens the printable reminder so you can print it or use the browser/device print system to save it as PDF.

Why does the Reminder Generator say there is no eligible balance?

Parent reminders use eligible production balances, not test fee records. Also check that the reminder covers the correct period and that the intended pupil or selected arrears pupils actually have an outstanding eligible balance.

FIS pending saves & confirmed balances

What does a pending FIS save mean?

It means a financial action is waiting for the server to accept it. Pending financial entries are deliberately excluded from confirmed balances until the server confirms them.

Why can SchoolHub say Up to date while FIS still shows pending saves?

The general SchoolHub synchronization state and the protected FIS financial queue are related but separate. The main workspace can be up to date while an FIS financial write is still waiting for confirmation.

What happens if an FIS queue entry is rejected?

A rejected financial entry can block later financial saves until it is reviewed. This prevents SchoolHub from silently skipping a failed financial operation and continuing as though nothing happened.

What does Dismiss rejected entry do?

It removes the rejected queue item itself. It does not delete an already confirmed fee, payment, receipt or pupil charge. After resolving the queue, use Refresh balances when needed to reload confirmed ledger information.

Offline mode, Background Sync & PWA updates

Can SchoolHub work offline?

Yes, for a previously verified signed-in account on the same device. SchoolHub can reopen the locally saved workspace when Firebase is temporarily unreachable. A first login or a new device still needs internet.

What does Sync Pending mean?

It means one or more supported local edits are waiting in SchoolHub's persistent sync outbox. When internet returns, SchoolHub revalidates the account, sends pending edits and then refreshes cloud data.

Does SchoolHub use Background Sync?

Yes, where the browser supports the native Background Sync API. It works with SchoolHub's existing pending queues rather than replacing them. If native Background Sync is unavailable, reconnect/reopen recovery still remains available.

What happens if the PWA is completely closed?

If no active SchoolHub client is available to complete a queued operation, reopening the app or returning online allows the normal recovery and synchronization process to continue. SchoolHub does not invent a separate unauthenticated financial-write path in the service worker.

How are service-worker updates handled?

The current PWA manages service-worker registration, update checks and lifecycle events more robustly and reports registration problems through diagnostics instead of silently ignoring them.

What should I do if Sync Pending does not clear?

Open Profile → Sync Center and use Sync Now while connected. If an error appears, note the exact record or field named in the message before retrying.

Mobile tables & horizontal scrolling

How do I view wide tables on a phone?

Swipe left or right inside the table to scroll horizontally. The page itself continues to scroll vertically as normal.

Why does the pupil/name column stay visible?

Wide Fees & Receipts tables pin their main row-label column so the pupil or record name remains visible while you scroll across the financial columns.

What is frozen in the Arrears table?

The selection checkbox and pupil/name area remain pinned while the rest of the arrears columns scroll horizontally.

Are table headings aligned with the values?

Yes. FIS table headings and their data are centered consistently so the columns are easier to follow on desktop and mobile.

Save, Update & deleting

What is the difference between Save and Update?

Save is used for a new entry. Update is used when editing an existing record such as Staff, Student, Class, Subject, Teacher assignment or Calendar event.

Why are some deletes blocked when offline?

Important destructive operations are designed to fail closed. Where SchoolHub needs cloud confirmation before deleting or restructuring records, reconnect first so local and cloud data cannot silently diverge.

How does Calendar editing work?

Edit loads the original calendar event. Updating the type/note changes that event. Changing its date moves it to the new date and removes the original entry rather than leaving a duplicate.

Staff, students & school records

How do I add staff, students, classes and subjects?

Use their pages from the dashboard. Add new records with Save. Use Edit, then Update, for existing records. Students and staff also support recovery checks from saved copies where available.

Where are staff signatures and student photos stored?

SchoolHub keeps image data out of normal Firestore record fields. Cloud image files are handled through Firebase Storage while Firestore keeps lightweight references/metadata. This avoids oversized Firestore document fields.

Can I import or export data with Excel?

Supported staff/grade workflows provide spreadsheet transfer options. Review imports carefully because an import can update multiple records at once. Keep a backup before major imports.

Attendance & Calendar

How do I record pupil attendance?

Open Attendance, choose the class and date, mark pupils and save. Date arrows let you move between days. Unmark All clears the current marks before saving.

What can the Head Teacher record?

Head Teachers can record pupil attendance, teacher attendance, and Calendar exceptions such as holidays and midterms.

Do Print and Download Report use the same attendance design?

Yes. The attendance summary/report download uses the same modern report layout used for printing.

Grades, remarks & reports

How do I enter grades?

Open Grades, choose a class, enter the required scores and save the grade sheet. Wide grade tables can scroll horizontally when many subjects are present and score inputs support full three-digit values.

How do reports work?

Add grades and remarks, then open Reports. Select the class/student and generate the available report. Report themes can be previewed where enabled.

Why is Billing & Credits sometimes unavailable?

Billing controls are Head Teacher-only. The current build can suspend live billing while updates are in progress, in which case SchoolHub shows that no payment or credit is required for report generation during the suspension.

Backup, recovery & rollover

How do I create a backup?

Go to Setup → Backup & Restore → Export Backup (.json). Store the downloaded JSON file somewhere safe.

Can SchoolHub recover missing students or staff?

Recovery tools can compare the current list with available browser snapshots/saved copies and cloud records. Recovery only works when the missing record exists in one of those sources.

How do I start a new term?

Use Term History to start the next term/year while preserving the school structure and historical records.

What is Academic Year Rollover?

At year end, the Head Teacher reviews each student as Promote, Repeat, Graduate/Complete, or Transfer/Leave. The rollover creates a year-end backup/archive and starts the new academic year at Term 1.

What is Restore Year-End Backup?

It is an emergency reversal tool for a SchoolHub academic-year rollover JSON. SchoolHub validates the backup and restores the backed-up roster/settings without unnecessarily deleting later grades, attendance, remarks, staff, classes, subjects or calendar data.

Install, security & troubleshooting

Can I install SchoolHub like an app?

Yes. Use Profile → Install SchoolHub when installation is supported by your browser/device. The PWA caches the application shell for reliable reopening.

What is the PIN Lock?

The optional PIN Lock is a local privacy screen for a shared device. It does not replace your Firebase account password or the Head Teacher/Teacher permission system.

Where can I check the app status?

Use Profile → System Health for service, storage, service-worker and data checks, and Profile → Sync Center for cloud synchronization.

The app looks outdated. What should I do?

Close and reopen SchoolHub while online so the service worker can check for the latest application files. You can also review Profile → About SchoolHub and System Health.

Recommended workflow & key reminders

What is the recommended SchoolHub workflow?

Create the Head Teacher school account, complete Setup, add Staff, Classes, Subjects and Students, share the join code, approve Teachers and assign their classes/subjects, configure the Calendar, record Attendance, enter Grades and Remarks, generate Reports, create and manage FIS charges/payments where used, review financial reports/arrears/statements/reminders, monitor synchronization, export backups, start new terms when appropriate and use Academic Year Rollover at year end.

What should I remember most when using SchoolHub?

Keep records current, complete the school-joining and approval process carefully, use role permissions responsibly, monitor synchronization, treat only server-confirmed FIS balances as confirmed, review financial queue errors before dismissing them, and maintain regular exported backups.