School operations

School operations is included in Plugboard 0.13, rolling out through the beta channel. It requires explicit activation and entitlement, the release’s database migrations, and updated API, web app and site agents. Check your deployment version and plan inclusion before enabling it. See the release notes.

Plan and coordinate work

Open School operations to create a project or start from a school workflow template. Set its campus, coordinator, target dates, currency and budget. Project pages show milestones, readiness, overdue work, workload and costs, with list, board and timeline views. Work can depend on other work; incomplete dependencies block completion.

Work items cover tasks, events, maintenance, purchases, changes, incidents and replacement plans. Link existing tickets, devices, documents, contracts or network equipment. Each linked record retains its own access checks.

Register rooms, equipment or kits under Resources, with capacity and maintenance/replacement dates. Book a resource for a work item and record its checkout and return. Capacity is checked when concurrent bookings are saved. Generate due maintenance work from a resource, complete its inspection checklist and advance the next due date.

Purchases record supplier, quantities, tax, estimated and actual costs, receipts and purchase order details. Export purchasing creates a CSV for the school’s finance import process. Direct posting into a named finance system still requires a configured provider and agreed mappings.

Ticket subtasks and approvals

A ticket’s work panel supports checklists, assigned subtasks, due dates, dependencies and reusable templates. Mark work as required to prevent resolution while it is incomplete. Parent tickets can also require their child tickets to finish. A child outside your department remains private but still blocks closure.

Request ordered or parallel approvals on a ticket, project or work item. Approvers use My approvals to review the saved request and record a decision. Changes to the business request invalidate its approval, so the original approval cannot silently authorize different work. Rejected or pending required approvals block completion.

School-year and field workflows

School lifecycle reviews joiner/leaver candidates from existing imported people. Select and preview candidates to create linked projects and tasks. Active/inactive flags and import timestamps are prompts for review, not verified employment or enrolment events. Applying the same reviewed candidate is deduplicated and never disables a directory account.

Open Field capture online, prepare a stocktake session, then capture device serials while disconnected. Drafts survive an offline reload on that browser. Reconnect and explicitly sync; the app checks the current account, campus and session before accepting each capture. Logout clears the local queue. Prepare the session before travelling out of coverage; this is stocktake capture, not an offline copy of the entire service desk.

Calendar and team updates

An administrator can extend the existing Microsoft Entra or Google directory connection with an allowed calendar list and a separate calendar publishing switch. Microsoft needs calendar application permissions; Google needs calendar scopes in domain-wide delegation and access for the delegated user.

From a work item, preview its details, check busy times, then publish to an allowed calendar. Revisions update the recorded event. After cancelling work, choose Cancel published event for each calendar previously used. Availability checks do not reserve an external calendar, and calendar publication is explicit.

Configure an encrypted Google Chat incoming webhook or Teams Workflows webhook on the same directory connection to send updates. Google updates join a thread; Teams acceptance means the workflow accepted the request and can still be processing its channel post. Check the provider before reconciling an uncertain delivery; the app does not automatically retry it.

Finance connections

Xero and MYOB connectors read suppliers, accounts and tax codes. From an approved purchase, map each line and select Review export before creating a purchase order. After receipt, the same panel can create a supplier bill with an optional supplier invoice number. Xero creates drafts for authorization there; MYOB creates Open service documents, and bills can affect accounts immediately. MYOB initially supports the configured company currency and calculates tax from the selected code. Confirm that currency in MYOB during setup. Supported simple tax codes are checked against the approved line tax before posting; complex or mismatched codes are refused.

Exports use the existing purchasing approvals and integration permissions. Status checks show the finance document without overwriting actual costs or approvals. An interrupted export requires reconciliation after checking the provider; the app prevents a second confirmed export even if another finance provider is selected.

An administrator supplies the provider’s API application client ID/secret and exact organisation/company-file ID in Connectors, then selects Authorize finance. Register the HTTPS callback /api/finance-auth/xero/callback or /api/finance-auth/myob/callback under the school’s Plugboard hostname. MYOB also needs its company currency and any required company-file credentials. Enable purchase writes separately and reconnect if the requested access changes.

These adapters require a sandbox or school-account pilot before rollout. Payments, payroll, bank feeds, vendor webhooks and background finance sync are not included. The purchasing CSV export remains available for other finance systems.

AV and remote support

AV rooms shares the existing integrations, campus mapping, network inventory and service monitoring. Start with Q-SYS AV monitoring. Configure the Core’s QRC address and credentials, bind it to the existing site agent, and map its discovered network site to the campus. Optional standard Named Controls add component status. QRC is read-only and should remain on the management network.

PJLink-compatible projectors/displays, Crestron XiO Cloud and Zoom Rooms have additional monitoring adapters. Health distinguishes faults, offline devices, unknown evidence and stale observations. Matching room names combine only within the same mapped campus. XiO’s inventory endpoint supplies connectivity, not detailed component health.

Extron needs its licensed deployment’s API guide before an adapter can be completed. Teams Rooms Pro incident webhooks offer a documented route for fault and recovery notifications; the receiver is not implemented yet. Vendor accounts and real hardware need a pilot before rollout.

TeamViewer status integrates with existing remote support targets through administrator-defined serial-to-device mappings. Launching support retains the existing audited links and authentication in TeamViewer.

Enable access

Enable module.operations; activated licences need its explicit entitlement. Coordinators need operations.view and operations.manage. Calendar and chat actions also need integration.manage; connector setup needs connector.manage. AV uses the Network module and network.view; field capture uses the Assets module and device.manage. See Permissions for approval grants.