Caregiver Notifications and Account Security – Customer Hub

edge can keep caregivers informed about their child's attendance automatically, through scheduled attendance summary emails, lateness notifications and "5, 10, 15 day" absence threshold emails, as well as in-app absence notifications. Caregiver accounts can also be protected with two-factor authentication. The absence notification settings and two-factor authentication each must be enabled for your school — contact support.

Who receives caregiver attendance emails

All of the attendance emails below follow the same recipient rules:

The school chooses whether emails go to caregivers flagged as Notice Recipient, Legal Guardian, either, or both (both is the default).
Caregivers with Denied Access never receive them.
The caregiver must have a valid email address recorded at the school.
An exclusion group can be set so students in that group are never included.

Emails are sent from noreply@edgelearning.co.nz, or from the school's own verified email address where one is configured and the school has not opted to use the no-reply address.

Attendance summary emails

Schools can send caregivers a daily or weekly attendance summary for their child.

The email subject is "[School name] - Weekly Attendance Summary for [student name]" (or Daily), and the body starts with a school-configurable message — by default, "Dear [caregiver first name], The weekly attendance summary for [student first name] is below." — followed by the student's attendance summary.
The introductory message supports placeholders for the caregiver's and student's first names, and (for weekly summaries) year-to-date and term attendance statistics: present days, total days and percentage.
Which students are included is controlled by a nominated student group, an optional exclusion group, and a minimum and maximum year level. If the nominated group is from a previous year, edge automatically rolls over to the current year's equivalent group.
The school can also send a combined digest of the summaries to the staff members associated with the nominated group.

Screenshot: example weekly attendance summary email to a caregiver

Lateness emails

A daily lateness email tells caregivers when their child arrived late.

The default subject is "Notification of Lateness", and the default message reads: "Dear [caregiver first name], [student first name] was late to school today. He or she has arrived late [count] times out of [total] school days so far this year ([percentage]%)." Both the subject and message are configurable per school.
A Lateness Notification Email Summary can also be sent to nominated staff members, listing every caregiver emailed that day with the student and the message sent.

5, 10, 15 day absence emails

Schools can email caregivers automatically when a student's absences in the term reach set thresholds (for example 5, 10 or 15 days).

Set up under Admin > Import/Export > Miscellaneous Import/Exports > Configure 5, 10, 15 day absence emails to caregivers. Each threshold has its own email subject and message; if no subject and message are configured, nothing is sent.
The thresholds are driven by automatic student groups — when a student is added to the threshold group during the term, the caregiver email is triggered. Each student is emailed once per threshold per term.
The message supports placeholders for the caregiver's and student's first names and for [AbsenceDates] — a list of the days (and half days) the student was absent this term.
As with lateness emails, a summary of what was sent can go to nominated staff members.

Screenshot: absence threshold email configuration screen

In-app absence notifications

Separately from the emails, schools can enable caregiver absence notifications in the portal/app. The school settings page includes options to require additional information for all absences, disable the "family reasons" and "other reason" absence types, and allow absence notifications by text message with a configurable message and phone number. This settings area must be enabled for your school — contact support.

Two-factor authentication for caregivers

Caregiver (and student) accounts can use two-factor authentication (2FA). This must be enabled for your school — contact support; once enabled, a Set up 2FA link appears on the caregiver's portal home page.

Setting it up

Click Set up 2FA on the portal home page.
Tick Enable Two Factor Authentication.
Choose a method:

Email (send a code each time you log in) — the default. A 6-digit code is emailed at each login; each code can be used once and expires after 10 minutes.
Authenticator app (Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, etc.) — scan the QR code with the app, then enter the current 6-digit code to verify before the settings save. An invalid code shows "Invalid two factor authentication code. Settings have not been saved."

Save. At the next login, after entering the password, the caregiver is asked for their code before login completes.

Screenshot: Set up 2FA page showing the email and authenticator app options

School enforcement and trusted devices

Schools can require 2FA for caregivers (and, separately, for students) in the school settings, including a maximum number of days a device can be trusted. Where the school enforces it, the enable option is locked on with the message "Two Factor Authentication must be enabled for this account per school policy", and caregivers who have not chosen a method default to email codes. After a successful code entry, the caregiver's connection can be remembered for the school's trusted period so a code is not demanded at every login.

If a caregiver is locked out

There are no printed backup codes. If a caregiver loses access to their email or authenticator app, school staff can switch 2FA off for the account: on the Reset Password page, select the user and click Reset 2FA. The caregiver can then log in with their password and set 2FA up again.