Publish weekly spotlights and send portal links

A family spotlight is a small, kind thing: a short highlight that greets one family on their parent home screen for the week. Staff nominate a family from that family's detail page, and the nomination sits as Pending until someone on your team publishes it. Nothing reaches a parent until a person says go.

This article covers two separate jobs: working the week's spotlight queue, and sending a parent a secure portal link.

Open the spotlight planner

In the app the screen is titled Spotlights. On the web it's the Family spotlights page. Both show every nomination at your school for a single Monday-to-Sunday week, grouped by status.

Move between weeks

The week navigator sits at the top.

• On the app, use the back and forward chevrons to step one week at a time. On the web, use the left and right arrows.
• The web page adds a date picker to jump to any week, plus a This week button.
• On the app, tap the week label (Week of …) to come back to the current week.

When you're on the current week and a nomination is still pending, a reminder shows up so you don't leave a family's spotlight tile empty.

Pending spotlights for the current week also publish themselves on Monday morning, through a scheduled job. Publishing one yourself ships it right away instead of waiting for that.

Review and publish

Nominations are grouped into Pending, Published, and Dismissed, each with its own count. A pending row shows the family and the reason for the nomination.

For each pending row:

1. Read the reason to confirm it's the right family and the right moment to celebrate.
2. Tap or click Publish. The spotlight lands on the family's parent app right away.

Once published, a spotlight is read-only and shows when it went out. There's no undo, so give the reason a read first.

Dismiss a nomination

To clear a nomination without publishing it, dismiss the pending row. On the app that's the Dismiss button; on the web it's the discard (X) button next to Publish.

• On the app, confirm in the dialog.
• On the web, the Dismiss this spotlight? dialog lets you jot an optional internal reason before you confirm.

Dismissed nominations move to the Dismissed group and are never shown to the parent. If the timing was just wrong, you can re-nominate the family for another week from their detail page.

Send a parent portal link

This is a separate action, and you start it from a family. The screen is titled Send portal link. The parent gets a secure, one-time link by email that expires in 3 days.

1. Pick a recipient under Known contacts, or type one into the Email field.
2. Choose a Purpose: Accept offer, Schedule tour, Track application, or General portal.
3. Tap or click Send link.

The address has to belong to someone already on the family. You can't send to a brand-new email. Add the parent as a contact first, or Send link stays disabled.

On the web, after the link goes out you also get Copy link and Open in email so you can hand it off yourself. The app emails the link and stops there.