Overview

This article is addressed to music teachers. The functions music administrators have access to are described in the article Manage Resources.

Music teachers who have the necessary permissions can administer the loan or hire of instruments to students, manage the instrument records, and carry out an instrument stocktake in Music Monitor.

Setup

You don't need to do any setup, but there are settings required in the back end for you to have access to these functions.

Teacher Settings

The music administrator can turn on or off teachers' access to the Resources module. If it is turned off, the icon on your Home screen will be greyed out and you will not be able to use it.

Privilege Set

Music teachers with a "Teacher - Basic" Privilege Set can view the Resources records but cannot edit them. You can still loan or hire instruments to students.

Music teachers with a "Teacher - Full Access" Privilege Set can edit Resources records, allowing you to manage the resources.

If you can open the Resources module from your Home screen, but you can't make any changes to the records, your account is set to a Privilege Set that doesn't allow you to manage this module. Speak to your music administrator if that should be changed.

Loans & Hire

Provided the settings above are correct, all music teachers in Music Monitor can manage the Loans & Hire records for your own students. "Loan" and "Hire" in this context are distinguished only by the fact that hiring incurs a charge and loaning does not. In this article the terms are used interchangeably except when referring to fees.

The most convenient place to manage this is (perhaps unexpectedly) from your rolls.

On your Home screen, select Tuition and Staff Rolls
Select a roll to open
Select the student name on the roll to open their record
Select the green Instrument Allocation button in the middle of the screen
A popup window will show the current instrument allocation and some buttons to manage this.
To hire, return, or manage an instrument, select the black Edit Details button at the bottom of the window.
The Loans & Hire record window will open.
If the student has a current loan, the details will be visible.
1. To return a hired instrument, enter a date in the Date Returned field.
2. To loan or hire a new instrument, select the red Assign New Instrument button. This will enter a Return Date for the currently hired instrument and open a window where you can select a new instrument to hire.
If the student has no currently recorded instrument on loan, a window will open where you can select an instrument to loan out. Fill in the fields:
1. Instrument: Choose an instrument type from the list
2. Ref No: Select a specific instrument by its reference number. You will only see available instruments in the list.
3. Instrument details: Music Monitor will fill in the Description and Serial No. from the information in the Resources record.
4. Date Borrowed: Today's date will be pre-filled. Edit if needed.
5. Hire Description: Select the list of hire arrangements set up in your system.
6. Amount: Music Monitor will fill in the amount based on your selection in Hire Description.

This video demonstrates the process. Note that updates in Music Monitor since the video was made mean that the advice in the video sometimes conflicts with the text. The text in this article is more up to date and correct.

Manage Records

Music teachers with the necessary Privilege Set can manage the Resources records more generally.

View Records

On your Home screen, select the Resources icon in the middle of the screen.
The Resources menu will open, showing icons for the different types of Resources:
1. Music & Books
2. Instruments
3. Audio Visual
4. Costumes
5. Lockers
6. Rooms
7. Other
8. Stocktake (not a resource type, but a function applicable to your other resources)
Select a Resource type.
1. We will use Instruments as an example here, but the other types behave largely the same apart from Rooms (see Manage Rooms)

You will see a List view of the items in the type you selected, showing information of two types:

Information about the Resource itself. These fields are described in the lower section about adding a new record.
Information About Loan or Hire of the Resource
1. Status: You can set this manually to "Current", "On Hold", or "Archived". Only instruments with a "Current" status can be available for loan.
2. Loans & Hire record fields
  1. Hired to: The name of the student or contact
  2. Form: The student's form from their student record
  3. Hire description: The fee level allocated to the hire
3. Availability: This is set automatically by Music Monitor
  1. Available: If the Status is "Current" and none of the conditions below apply.
  2. On Loan: If there is a current Loans & Hire record for this item.
  3. Overdue: If there is an overdue Loans & Hire record for this item.
  4. In Repair: If it is marked as out for repair and not marked back in.
  5. Unavailable: If the Status is "On Hold"
  6. Archived: If the Status is "Archived".

Finally, on the right-hand end of each row is a button to quickly manage the hire, where applicable. Items that are available for hire have a green New Borrower button that opens a window where you can enter the details of a new borrower and create the Loans & Hire record. Items on loan have a red Quick Return button that enters today's date in the Date Returned field and makes the item available again.

Edit Records

Select an item in the list to view more detail and edit any of the details. The record opens on the Details tab, showing most of the information held about the item, but there are additional tabs to select. In particular, note the Repairs tab where you can record when an instrument goes out for repair, and when it comes back in, as well as the details of the repair including the cost. See Instrument Repairs for guidance.

Add a New Record

On either the List view or the detail view, select the green + button to add a new record.
Fill in the fields:
1. Category: This is the primary type, such as "Instrument", "Music & Books", etc.
2. Department: This is usually a music department such as "Brass", "Strings", etc., but can include other terms. Any entry you use here will join the list of options for future use.
3. Category 2: For instruments, this is the type of instrument, e.g. Cello, Trumpet, etc.
4. Category 3: A further sub-category for use if needed. It is often unused for instruments, but is used more for costumes and other types.
5. Description: For instruments this is usually make and model information. For other Resource types it can be different information.
6. Size: You will see options drawn from all the entries used in this field for other records. They can include violin sizes such as 1/4, 1/2, etc., viola sizes such as 10", 12", etc. as well as costume sizes, L, M, S, and so on. Select the one relevant to the Resource you are setting up.
7. Location: Where the instrument should be found when not on loan.
8. Ref No.: The instrument's reference number.
  1. If you use barcodes, you can click in this field and scan the barcode to enter the number.
  2. Alternatively, type a number in.
  3. Optionally select the Show existing ref nos. button to see all your reference numbers. This can help you format the number consistently with your system and select the next number in the sequence.
9. Optionally select the Image field to upload a picture of the item.
10. Alternative Ref No.: The alternative reference number. If you use barcodes for your Ref No., you may wish to have a more human-readable code in this field.
Select Save and the record will be created.

Add Multiple Instruments

If you have a list of similar instruments to add, follow the process as above, with the following caveats:

When filling in the fields, enter the details that are common to all of the items you're setting up.
Enter the Reference Number for one item.
Select the blue Add Another button
1. Tip: If you can't see that button after entering the first reference number, select anywhere in the dialogue background (outside of the data fields) and the button should become visible.
Enter the Reference Number for the next item.
Select the blue Add Another button again.
Continue to enter reference numbers and select the Add Another button until you have set up all the items.
Select Save
You will see a list of your newly created items. If needed, open each item to enter further details that are unique to that item.

See below a video that demonstrates these processes.

Manage Resources - Teacher