Interviews are optional. A school that never switches them on will not see them, and applications move from review straight to an offer as before.
Everything below lives at Dashboard → Admissions → Interviews.
Switching interviews on
Interviews are set per class, on the intake — so you can interview S1 applicants and not P1 ones.
- Open Dashboard → Admissions → Intakes and edit the intake.
- In the class list, tick Interview beside each class that interviews.
- Save.
The tick is for the whole class. There is no separate setting for boarders and day scholars, so a cohort is never half-interviewed by accident.
Until a class has Interview ticked, inviting one of its applicants is refused. That is deliberate — it stops an interview being scheduled for a class whose families were never told to expect one.
Offering times
Interviews need times before anyone can book one.
- Click Add times.
- Choose the date range, the days of the week, and the daily window (for example 09:00 to 12:00).
- Set how long each interview lasts and how many applicants each one seats.
- Say where it is held, or paste a meeting link for online interviews.
- Optionally restrict the times to certain classes. Leave every class unticked and any class may book them.
- Click Preview to see how many times the pattern produces, then Add times.
Times that already exist are left alone, so you can safely re-run the same pattern to extend it into the following week — the preview tells you how many it will skip.
Scheduling one applicant, on the spot
A family at the counter does not need any of the setup above. From Dashboard → Admissions, open their application and click Schedule interview: choose a date and time, and they are booked.
- Open the applicant from the pipeline.
- Click Schedule interview.
- Pick a date, a time and where it is held — or switch to Use a time already offered to take one from the calendar.
- Click Schedule.
That single action moves the application to Interview, creates the time if none existed, books the family in, and texts them the details. There is no separate invite step to remember.
If a time already exists at that hour and place, it is used rather than duplicated — and if it is already full, you are told so rather than the panel quietly ending up with two families at once.
This works even for a class that does not normally interview. The Interview tick decides whether interviewing is part of a class's usual route through the pipeline; it was never meant to stop you giving one applicant a time.
The same Book a time button appears on the Awaiting a time list on the interviews page, alongside Pick on the calendar for when you would rather choose from the week in front of you.
Inviting families
The Awaiting a time list beside the calendar shows every applicant who has been invited to interview but has not booked one. Each row offers what that family can actually do:
- Send booking link — texts the family a link. They sign in with a code sent to their phone and pick a time themselves. This works for online and walk-in applicants: a walk-in is given an account on the number you wrote down.
- Book a time — you pick the time for them, then click it on the calendar. Use this at the desk, or for a family who phones in.
A family with no phone number on file can only be booked this second way.
A number typed in from a paper form is flagged as unconfirmed until the family signs in with the code sent to it. Reminders still go to unconfirmed numbers, so check one before relying on it.
Reading the calendar
Each block is one interview time, showing the time, how many of its seats are taken, and who is coming.
| Look | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Dashed outline | Nobody has booked it yet |
| Part shaded | Some seats taken |
| Solid | Full — nobody else can book it |
| Faded | Already passed |
| Amber outline | Somebody did not turn up |
| "Closed" | Still visible, but not accepting bookings |
A time's capacity is a hard limit. Once it is full, nobody else can take it — including you. This is different from intake vacancies, which only warn, because schools deliberately offer more places than they have.
Marking attendance
Click any time on the calendar to open it, then mark each applicant Attended or No show. You can also cancel a booking, which frees the seat for someone else.
Cancelling does not tell the family. Call them if they were expecting to come.
Changing or removing a time
Open the time from the calendar to edit it.
- Closing a time stops new bookings while leaving the people already booked in place. This is what to use once a morning is full enough.
- Deleting is refused while anyone is booked. Cancel their bookings first, or close the time instead — deleting one out from under a family who has been told to come is exactly what this prevents.
- Capacity cannot be reduced below the number already booked, because there is no fair way to choose who loses their appointment.
Reminders
The evening before an interview, two messages go out automatically:
- The family gets a text with the date, time and place.
- The panel gets one email listing all of their interviews for that day — one message, not one per applicant. If no panel was named on the time, it goes to the school's admissions staff instead.
What the family sees
A family the school has invited sees a Choose your interview time card when they sign in to check their application. They pick from the times you have offered — only ones with a free seat, and only ones open to their child's class.
Once booked they see the date, time and place, and can change it themselves up until the day before. After that the card tells them to call the school, because by then you have planned the day.