Setup walkthrough: school config & IEP director

Step-by-step: fill in the school profile, enrollment dates, and IEP director that power every message Elira sends.

Everything Elira says — in chat, email, text, and calls — pulls from your school config. Ten minutes here makes every message sound like your school. The config lives in two places: the year-round school profile on School info, and the enrollment-season details on the Settings tab of Enrollment. (School info used to sit on Settings; Settings is now your account — subscription, dashboard access, and connections.)

Step 1 — School profile (School info)

Go to Dashboard → School info, section School profile — used all year:

1. School Name — exactly as families know it; it opens every message and call.
2. Borough and Grade Levels — Elira uses these to answer "do you have Pre-K?"-type questions.
3. Main Office Phone — appears in every family message and is the press-9 transfer target on calls. Required before any automated call goes out, enrollment or attendance: federal rules make every recorded call state a number the family can call back, so Elira refuses to dial without one and sends the text and email instead. (You'll verify it in the phone sync step.)
4. Office Hours / Summer Hours — when the front desk is staffed. Quoted when Elira tells a family when to call.
5. School Hours (students) — arrival and dismissal for a regular day. Pick the days it applies to, and add a row for any day that runs short (most schools add a Wednesday half day). This is what lets Elira answer "what time does school let out?" — see School hours & early dismissal.
6. School Directory — optional, but it makes chat answers noticeably better. The same list is on the AI Knowledge tab; edit it in either place.
7. Family email — how seat offers and absence notices look when a family opens them. Plain text is the default: no design, the way a note from a teacher looks, and the version most likely to land in the inbox rather than the promotions tab. Two other choices: your school's own design (paste your letterhead HTML and put {{message}} where the message text belongs) or the AskElira design. Texts and calls are unaffected, and the unsubscribe line the law requires is always added by us underneath whichever you pick.

Click Save school info when done.

Step 2 — Enrollment details (Enrollment → Settings)

Go to Enrollment → Settings — the Enrollment page opens on Overview, so pick the Settings tab — and fill in the Enrollment details card:

1. Enrollment Year (e.g. 2026–2027), Lottery Date, Application Deadline, Registration Deadline — the dates drive reminder timing. Each date can be picked from the calendar or written in words: a deadline already saved as "August 15, 2026" or "mid-March" opens as a text box and is kept exactly as you wrote it, so editing this card can never blank a date you set.
2. Documents Required for Enrollment — becomes the checklist in the registration-packet message.
3. Registration Link — where accepted families are sent to register (your SchoolMint parent portal page).
4. After Registration Completes — optional welcome info (first day, orientation, supplies) sent once when a family finishes.

Click Save enrollment details.

Step 3 — IEP director

Still in the Enrollment details card, open Who gets notified and fill in IEP Director — Email (required) and IEP Director — Name, then click Save enrollment details. The email is required: every applicant with an IEP triggers an automatic Day-1 flag email to them, so services planning starts immediately.

Step 4 — Seats & season (optional but recommended)

At the top of Enrollment → Settings, under Seats & season, set how many seats Elira should fill (total and per grade) and your prime enrollment season, then click Save enrollment settings — see Seats, season & campus controls.

Step 5 — Save

Each card has its own save button. On Build Elira's Brain, Your school year and registration deadline turns done once School Name, Enrollment Year and Registration Deadline are saved, and Name your IEP director once IEP Director — Email is saved. (The Name your IEP director → button on that step opens School info, which has no IEP field — the field is on Enrollment → Settings.)