Setting up your school's new Populi account

Here are the steps you'll take when you first set up your school's new Populi account. If you have any questions about this, don't hesitate to contact your Populi Account Manager.

Setting up your account

Using the account setup site, you'll give us the basic information to establish your school's unique Populi site as well as your own user account.

1. You'll receive an email from notifications@populi.co with a link to the account setup form.
2. On that form, you'll provide us with your name and email address. We'll use this to set up your user account.
3. You'll also provide us with basic information about your school. The most important item here will be your school's Populi subdomain—this will set up the site where everyone at your school will eventually access Populi.
4. You'll also tell us whether you wish to import legacy data from your old system into Populi.
5. Finally, you'll indicate your acceptance of our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy.

Here's what will happen after you submit the form:

• We will create your school's Populi site with the URL you chose. It will include some basic academic information (which you can easily edit for your own purposes) to help you get started with setting up the various sections of Populi.
• You will receive a welcome email with a link to set up a password and log in for the first time.
• You will be given the Account Admin user role and will be listed as the Billing Contact for your school's Populi site. These two items will let you enter some important settings, pay your Populi invoices, add other users to your account, and upload data for migration into Populi (if required).
  • Later on during setup, you'll need give the Account Admin role to another person as well as designating another Billing Contact.

Very important: Add the Populi SPF record to your domain

The very first thing you'll need to do is add Populi's SPF record to your school's domain. If that sounds technical and over-your-head, don't worry—whoever manages your school's website (whether it's your own IT staff or an outside contractor) will know what this is. Basically, it lets Populi send email on behalf of your school's web domain in such a way that it will not be marked as spam or blacklisted. Since email is woven throughout Populi, you'll want to get this set up as quickly as possible.

This article has the details. It's a quick, simple change to make, but it does require access to your school's domain manager and a knowledge of how to properly edit your domain's TXT field.

Start adding new people to your system

Even if you're going to be the primary Populi user at your school, setup is a big job and you'll want to get others on board. You'll want to add more people to the system, give them user accounts, and direct them to our training resources.

• This article describes how to add new people to Populi. You'll also want to consider which user roles you'll assign each person.
• This article describes how to set up user accounts.
• Point new users to our support resources and our guides to setting up different areas of Populi.

Add another Account Admin and Billing Contact

Two people you'll want to add right away: another Account Admin and another Billing Contact. You should always have two or more people at your school who can access your school's Populi settings and make sure monthly invoices get paid.

Who should get the Account Admin role? This role should only be assigned to people who will be using Populi on a regular/daily basis. It requires familiarity with your school's daily operations and, to a lesser extent, its various software systems. Periodically, we will send important updates to our customers' Account Admins, so pick someone who's likely going to open an email (and read it!). Your school's IT Manager would be a good choice; a trustee who only shows up for fundraisers would not.

If someone besides you should have the job, a person to serve as your school's Billing Contact. The Billing Contact will receive notices about monthly Populi invoices and will have access to the Invoice and Payment Settings sections in your Populi Account. (If need be, the other Account Admin can also be the Billing Contact.)

To add another Account Admin:

1. Go to that person's profile.
2. Click edit roles (in the column on the left side of the profile).
3. Select Account Admin from the Choose drop-down and then click Add Role.
4. Click Save.

To add another Billing Contact:

1. Go to the Account app, click Invoices/Payments, and select the Payment Settings view. You can also search for "Payment Settings"; click the result that says Payment Settings in Account.
2. In the Billing Contacts setting, search for the Staff user you wish to add.
3. Scroll up to the top of the screen and click Save Settings.