Phone Numbers

SchoolInsight has a new way to manage phone numbers for students, contacts, and employees. The new features include:

• A single field with unlimited numbers
• Configurable phone number types
• Data validation to verify that phone numbers are valid
• Indicate numbers that can receive text messages
• Reorder phone numbers by priority
• Set a default area code
• Use international country codes

Managing Phone Numbers

Each user has a single phone field with multiple numbers per person. All numbers will use the same format. The area code is surrounded by parentheses and followed by three digits, a dash, and four digits. Optionally, you can enter an extension after the “x” at the end of the phone number.

When entering a phone number it will look like this:

The table below explains the features available for each icon:

	The phone icon indicates that the text must be a properly formatted phone number. Click on the phone icon to toggle off the formatting and enter a note or other information.
	The phone with a line through it indicates that the text is not required to be an actual phone number. This is useful for entering atypical phone numbers or notes. Note that phone numbers with this icon cannot receive texts. Click on the icon to toggle on the proper formatting.
	The texting icon indicates that the phone number can receive texts. This setting is automatically set when the phone type is set to mobile or pager. Click on the text icon to toggle off.
	The texting icon with a line through it indicates that the phone number can not, or does not want to, receive texts. Click on the icon to toggle texting.
	Click on the trash can to remove a phone number.
	Drag phone numbers to change their order, and store a call priority. To do this, click and hold the left button of the mouse on the icon and slide it up or down. Release the mouse button at the correct position. This allows you to indicate the order of numbers to call to reach the given person.
	Click on the blue plus button to add another phone number.
	Indicate each phone number’s type from the drop down adjacent to it.

Please note that one (1) is used to dial an area code. As a result, it shouldn’t be used as the first digit for an area code or right after the area code; otherwise, the number will be stored as atypical. For example, [phone] is atypical due to having 1 in the area code 123. Also, [phone] is atypical, because 1 is used right after the area code.

Finally, when viewing phone numbers, they will be uniformly formatted. An icon indicates when a number supports text messaging.

Managing Phone Number Defaults

Districts admins can set the default area code for districts.  This is useful when most of the district is inside one area code. When entering a new phone number, the default area code is pre-populated to reduce data entry keystrokes.  This way, the area code needs to be entered only when it is different from the default area code, rather than for every phone number.

To set phone numbers options:

1. Go to School District Admin > Options > Miscellaneous > Phone Number Defaults
2. Provide a Default Area Code
3. Save

For example, let us assume that the district level options are set as follows:

Phone numbers in custom reports

You can use custom reports to export students and contact phone numbers to other platforms, such as autodialers. Usually, you will create a custom report with a CSV output, then you schedule this export to be generated each day. In this section, we will list the filters and fields that affect the way you can pull phone numbers in custom reports. For more information about exporting data from custom and other reports please read the following knowledge base article: 

• How do I manage scheduled exports?

To create a custom report that pulls students and contacts phone numbers, follow these steps:

1. Go to Main > Reports > Saved Reports
2. Create > Classic Custom Report
3. Report Type
   • Check the checkbox Contacts to pull data for contacts
4. Filters
   • Apply any filters to pull only the data that you need
5. Data
   • Add the required phone number fields and other fields
6. Sorting
   • Determine the sort order of data in the resulting file
7. Output
   • Select the type of the output format. Comma Delimited (CSV) file is the type used for scheduled exports
8. Save

Your existing saved custom reports are not going to change yet. You can still use the student or contact old phone number fields (Home Phone, Cell Phone, Contact Home Phone, Contact Cell Phone, etc). The new phone numbers give you new fields to work with. We will deprecate the old data model in the future.

The following table lists the most notable filters when exporting student and contact phone numbers:

Filter Name	Accepted Values	Effect
Phone Number Type	[No Value Entered], Home, Mobile, Work, Other, Direct Line, Main, Home Fax, Work Fax, Pager	Use this filter to output phone numbers of a certain type only. For example, when sending faxes, set this filter to Home Fax OR Work Fax.
Phone Can Receive Texts	Yes, No	Useful when creating a list of numbers you can send texts to.
Show all contacts on one row	Yes, No	When yes, each student will be listed once, and all their contacts will be listed on the same row.

The following table lists the most notable data fields you can add when exporting student and contact phone numbers:

Field Name	Results
Phone Number	Outputs the first phone number from the list of phone numbers. The format is a 10 digit phone number with leading + sign. Example: [phone]
Phone Number Type	Outputs the type of the first phone number from the phone numbers list. Example: Home
Phone Number List	Outputs all phone numbers for the student in the same output table cell. Each phone number is a 10 digit number with a leading + sign. Example: [phone], [phone], [phone]

All phone number filters and fields apply for student phone numbers. Contact filters and fields are prefixed with Contact, for example, Contact Phone Number List.

When you add a Phone Number List field, the order of the phone numbers is determined by the order you set when editing the phone numbers on the student. The same rule applies for Contact Phone Number List.

For example, if we set the order of phone numbers for a Mrs Melissa Cunningham, contact, like this:

Then the custom report will render the data like this:

When you add the Phone Number field to a custom report, it will display a single phone number that is the first one from the list of phone numbers. If you apply a Phone Number Type filter, then the Phone Number field will display the first phone number from the type specified in the filter.