Frequently Asked Questions

Once you have registered and signed into foundations you will be ready to set up your nursery. We recommend that you add your children and their contacts first. Do this by navigating to the ‘Children’  tab in the main menu.

Adding children will enable you to do key things in foundations like adding events in a child’s day, tracking their development and using the register to sign them in or out.

Adding a child on foundations takes less than a minute.

We’ll show you how to do it…

Navigate to the ‘Children’ tab in the Main Menu. 

Select the ‘Add Child’ button.

Enter all the information you have about a child. 

All fields marked with an * must be completed before you can save a child.

Once you select ‘Confirm’ your child will be saved to the Child Directory and hey presto you have added your first child!

Navigate to ‘Children’ from the main menu and select a child.

From the child’s detail page select ‘Contacts’ in the sub navigation and select ‘Add Contact’.

To add an existing contact (for children with siblings whose contacts will already be in the system) select ‘Add Existing Contact’.

All existing contacts in the system will appear in a list. You can filter the contacts by typing a name in the search field.

Choose a contact from the list and select ‘Next’.

Select the relationship from the dropdown list and state if they are a primary carer or not.

Choose if you want to invite them to use the ParentZone App and select ‘Next’

Review the contact information and select ‘Confirm’ if all is correct.

Select ‘Close’ to return to the child’s contact’s page where your new contact should appear.

After a child has been added you can then add their key contacts such as parents and guardians.

Select ‘Create New Contact’.

Enter the details for that contact.

Select if the contact address is the same as the child’s.

Choose ‘yes’ to autofill the fields with the child’s address. 

Choose ‘no’ to manually fill in the address fields.

Select ‘Next’.

Select the relationship from the dropdown list and state if they are a primary carer or not.

Choose if you want to invite them to use the ParentZone App and select ‘Next’

Review the contact information and select ‘Confirm’ if all is correct.

Select ‘Close’ to return to the child’s contact’s page where your new contact should appear.

Tag assist is a feature of the photo upload process. It uses facial recognition software to help identify children in the photographs that you upload.

The more you use tag assist the better it will become at recognising the faces of the children in your setting saving you time and effort.

You can add single or a batch of photos whilst creating a post and tag the children in them. Once you tag a child it should remember their face for next time.

Select ‘Add Photo’ to launch the image uploader. 

Select ‘Upload Images’ to search for the photos you want to upload. At this stage you can also take live photos from your mobile or tablet. 

The images selected will load on the screen.

The system highlights any child it recognises with a square, tagging their face with their initials. Their name will be listed and marked with the number of times they appear in the current batch of photos.

Any face it does not recognize will be marked with a question mark. Select the unknown faces and use the dropdown menu to select the correct child. The question mark will be replaced by the child’s initials, and their name will be listed and marked with the number of times they appear in the current batch of photos.

Continue this process for all unknown faces in the photographs. Remember, the more you use tag assist the better it will become.

If tag assist incorrectly identifies a child simply highlight the face. Their name will appear below the image. Select the ‘X’ and replace it with the correct child from the dropdown menu.

Once you are happy that all the children have been identified correctly select ‘Save’ and the images will be added to your event.

All children tagged in images will be added to the post.

Navigate to Child Development in the main menu.

Select ‘Add Progress’ to start an observation.

Select the development type ‘Observation’. 

Say when it happened (the date and time will default to today’s date) and if the activity was led by a child or adult.

Write a note about the event. 

You can also note what the child said and upload any supporting images.

Select ‘Next’ and identify the children that were involved.

Select ‘Next’ to move to grading.

If creating an observation for a single child simply select the area aspect and age form the EYFS and grade if the child is Emerging, Expected or Exceeding for each statement.

If creating an observation for multiple children you also have the ability to tailor the observation by adding a note and child’s voice for each individual child.

When your observation is complete select ‘Next’ to review the information and click ‘Confirm’ to save it to the development timeline and ParentZone.

To help you track the progress of a child, all previous observations you have made will be logged with the amount of times they have been graded for a statement numbered on the applicable grading buttons.

Navigate to Child Development in the main menu.

Select ‘Add Progress’ to start an observation.

Select the development type labelled ‘Assessment’. 

Say when it happened, the date and time will default to today’s date.

Say if the assessment type is an ‘assessment’, ‘baseline’, ‘2 year check’, or ‘transition’.

Give the assessment a title and write a note about the event. 

You can also note what the parent said and upload any supporting images.

Select ‘Next’ and identify the child that was involved.

Select ‘Next’ to move to grading.

When creating an assessment for a child simply select the area or aspect from the EYFS that you wish to grade, then select the appropriate age and grade from dropdown lists. 

When your assessment is complete select ‘Next’ to review the information and click ‘Confirm’ to save it to the development timeline and ParentZone.

To mark that a child has been picked up, select the green ‘In’ button which will turn red and mark the child as ‘Out’ with the current time listed.

In addition, the person picking up the child can add their signature by selecting the ‘Sign’ button and drawing their signature within the box provided. They should select their name from the dropdown list or type it separately. Selecting ‘Confirm’ adds this information to the check out.

To help you be more productive you can create events and continue working even when you are offline.

If you go offline whilst creating a post you will be alerted that you have no internet connection. You will be given the option to ‘Keep Working’ or ‘Discard Post’.

Select ‘Keep Working’ to continue adding your event details in the normal way.

When you select ‘Confirm’ you will receive a message that says your post has been created and it will be available to sync to the timeline once you are connected.

Selecting ‘Discard Post’ will delete the post and take you back to the events timeline.

The ‘Sync’ icon at the top of the page will highlight with a red dot to indicate when you have posts to sync to your timeline.

You can continue to create as many posts as you wish.

When back online, sync your saved posts by selecting the ‘Sync’ button at the top of the page and clicking ‘See All’.

All posts ready to be synced will be listed on the Sync page. You can then choose to ‘Edit’, ‘Delete’ or ‘Sync’ your posts using the buttons on the right of each post.

The staff management area is where you add and manage your staff’s permissions so they have all the correct access to do their jobs smoothly. 

Navigate to ‘Staff’ in the main menu.

In the staff management area select ‘Add New Staff’.

Enter the person’s name, email address and date of birth.

Select which permission group they belong to, for example admin. A description of each user permissions is viewable from the dropdown.

Select ‘Send Invite’ to send the new staff member an invitation and link to join foundations. 

Once the user has accepted the invitation their details will be added to the staff directory and they will have access privileges. 

You can change your password as well as your profile photo, name and opt in preferences at any time.

Select your name or the profile icon in the top right of the screen, and choose ‘Go to my Profile’.

Select ‘Change Password’ underneath your name. 

Enter your current password, new password twice and select ‘Confirm’ to save.

To edit your photo, name and contact preferences select ‘Edit Details’, make your changes and then press ‘Confirm’ to save.

Before adding any parent to ParentZone you will need a valid email address for them. There are 2 ways to invite a contact to ParentZone, when adding a contact and by editing an existing contact from the contacts directory table.

When adding a contact:

From a child’s detail page select ‘Contacts’ in the sub navigation.

Select ‘Add Contact’.

When adding a contact’s details enter an email address on the first screen.

Select ‘Next’ and add the contact’s address if you have it.

Select ‘Next’ then select the relationship from the dropdown menu.

Select ‘yes’ when asked to ‘Register for ParentZone?’ 

Review the contact information to check all is correct and select ‘Confirm’ to save the contact and return to the child’s contact’s page.

The contact will be invited to ParentZone via email.

When editing an existing contact:

From a child’s detail page select ‘Contacts’ in the sub navigation. 

On a child’s contact’s table if not already registered for ParentZone select ‘Not registered’.

In the popover select the ‘Register’ button to confirm registration.

The contact will be invited to ParentZone via email.

In the case of GDPR for your nursery, setting or company, please contact us with ‘GDPR’ in the subject of the email. We will anonymise all data associated with your account: foundations@connectchildcare.com

If you wish to delete your account as you feel foundations is no longer for you, then please also request this via the email address. Your account will be deleted and data anonymised depending on data retention for legal reasons.