Visits & Actions are two areas of Observatory that go hand in hand. Visits bring your actions to life and tie everything into one place. No more sending Word documents or uploading to drives! The visits and actions modules in Observatory save you the hassle. For more information on Actions, click here.
Please Note: Visits & Actions are only available to Observatory premium customers. You can still record notes against your schools if you don't subscribe to premium. If you wish to get in touch about signing up for Observatory premium, please contact perspective@angelsolutions.co.uk.
Quick Steps
- Click Schools on your main Observatory toolbar.
- Click on the school name.
- Click the Visits tab.
- Click Create New > Visit.
- Complete the relevant fields, and your visit will autosave as you go.
- Add any required actions as a result of the visit.
- Change the visit status to Finalised to publish to a broader audience
- Click Save & Close.
Need More Detailed Help?
Creating a Visit
Before creating a visit, we strongly suggest that you make sure all advisers are set up with an Observatory account (with the visits permissions enabled) so that they can create a visit. Observatory Administrators can add new users via Settings (cog icon) > Users > Create New User.
To create a visit for a school, click Schools on your main Observatory toolbar and then select the school in question (you can use the search & filter options to narrow your results).
You can also navigate to Activities > Visits and create a visit from that dashboard.
Click on the school name to open the dashboard, then select Visits.
The Visits tab is also where Observatory Premium users can create Notes. For more information on Notes, see our Notes & Alerts guide.
If you need to locate a previously saved visit for the chosen school, you can use the filters within this tab to narrow your search.
To create a new visit, click Create New and then select Visit.
Firstly, you'll be taken to the quick version of creating a visit, in which you'll enter the basic visit information before progressing to the finer details.
Enter a name or reference in the top field. This will be the unique identifier for the visit you are creating.
Then, select a template. A template is the specific structure your administrators have defined. For example, they may set up a termly template that contains sections specific to certain times of the year, e.g. Spring Template. For more information on setting up Visit Templates, click here.
If you are unsure which template to use, ask your administrators or select Default.
Then select the schools or groups that were visited, as well as the date and time of the visit.
If you'd prefer to enter the more finalised information at this stage, select Show Full View in the top-right corner.
Tip: Use the Activity Slider when you want to quickly add supporting information alongside a visit, such as follow-up actions, contacts or KPI updates. More information on the Activity Slider can be found at the bottom of this guide.
Schools Visited
The Schools Visited section allows you to select a school to assign the visit to. However, you can also record a cluster visit. For example, if you've provided some training with multiple schools in attendance, this saves you from creating a visit record for each school individually.
If you created a visit for a specific school via the Schools dashboard, that school will automatically be added as the lead school. You can add more by selecting them from the dropdown. Type their name or reference numbers to narrow your results. Please contact your Observatory administrators if a school is not on the list.
Each school in the Schools Visited section will get a copy of the record under the Visits tab within their dashboard.
Please note: Any action you add to a visit that contains more than one school will be assigned to the lead school only.
Date & Time
The Date & Time section gives you complete control of the visit and allows you to track the time spent accurately. Choose whether it was a half-day, full-day, or other and set the specifics using the date & time picker underneath.
You can use Admin time to record your time on administration work, such as preparing for the visit, writing up the visit, etc.
You can add the visit to your calendar by clicking Download To Calendar. This will download a calendar event for the specified date and time using the default system on your device, such as Outlook.
This gives you the option to schedule a visit in advance. You can create a visit in Observatory, add the date and time and then download the calendar invite. The visit is then ready for you to return to any time!
Visit Details
The Visit Details section allows you to assign a reference and category. Is the visit designed around a particular focus, for example, Governance? You can log this as your visit category. You can choose a funding category depending on how the visit was funded.
Your Observatory administrators create and customise your Visit and Funding Categories via Settings > Visits & Notes.
Advisers & Attendees
The Advisers and Attendees sections are where you choose the people involved in the visit. The logged-in user who created the visit will be listed as the lead adviser unless removed by clicking the cross alongside their name.
Please Note: Adding an additional adviser does not give them editing rights. They will be referenced on the report but won't be able to view it until the creator finalises it, providing they have the relevant permissions.
To add other advisers, click the dropdown menu and search for their names on the list. You can begin typing their name to refine your search.
As mentioned earlier in this guide, you will need to ensure that any potential advisers are added as users within Observatory before you can add them to a visit. Contact your administrator for more information.
The Attendees field is designed so you can add anyone external who was present for the record of visit. This may be staff you liaised with, teachers running lessons you observed or anyone within any meetings that occurred during the visit.
Click Add Attendee to proceed. As these users won't be part of your trust or organisation, you'll be presented with a text box instead of a dropdown menu. You can type their name or role (e.g. SLT, Year 6 teacher) and click Save.
When you are happy with that core content, click Create Visit.
Visibility to schools
The visible to schools lozenge allows you to choose whether you'd like your visit to be visible to your school(s) or whether you'd prefer to keep the visit stored internally within your organisation.
If you choose to keep this option ON, hovering over the information icon alongside it will present you with a table outlining the visit's visibility within the school.
Visit Content
Once you have created a visit or edited a previously created visit, you are taken to the visit content area.
Please note that the content you see may differ depending on which template you selected when creating the visit.
If you used a custom template, the template name will be displayed at the top. If you used the default template, the visit category will be displayed here if one was selected.
That core visit content you set up earlier, such as date & time, school, and staff, will be displayed in the panel on the right-hand side. If you need to make any changes to that content, click Edit.
The Sections tab is the core location for your main visit details. If you selected our Default template, it will contain a single Comments field. If you selected a custom template, these fields may be different.
The fields displayed here are flexible text fields that allow you to add as much or as little information as you require. You can go into depth about the visit and everything that occurred or simply record a more summarised, informal catch-up with the school.
Standard formatting, such as bold, italic, and bullet points, is available here. You can also insert tables using our table picker to help structure your content or just add some evidence and statistics!
Actions
Actions are tangible items that you can add to your visits so you can log any tasks that need to be done before or after a visit to a school.
We have a separate help guide for Actions; please see our Actions guide to learn more about those.
Attachments
The Attachments section allows you to upload supporting evidence for your visit. Locate the file you want to upload and drag & drop it into the box, or click and browse for your file. Successful uploads will be confirmed via a green box and displayed in the Attachments section.
External files and links can be included within your visits. These are files that you can link to that are stored elsewhere, such as within Dropbox, OneDrive, etc. It's important to note that if using one of these external platforms, the user for whom it is intended has access to the relevant cloud storage or link.
Saving and Finalising the Visit
Your visits are automatically saved as you go along, giving you peace of mind that your work is stored regularly.
When you first create a visit, it will be a draft record. You can change this at any time by clicking Finalise at the bottom of the screen.
When you change a visit to finalised, you can choose to set the visibility of the record to who you'd like to have access, whether it be Private, Teams or all permitted users. For more information, see our Visit Visibility guide.
Whenever you finish working on a visit, whether draft or finalised, click Save to store your work so far.
When you are happy with the visit content, you may wish to finalise it so it's visible to that wider audience.
To finalise the visit, click Finalise before selecting whether the record is visible to the school via the School Visibility toggle, and who in the organisation can see the visit via the Organisation Visibility dropdown. For more information on Organisation Visibility, see our Visit Visibility guide.
That's it! You've successfully created and finalised a new visit record for one or more schools in your Organisation.
For information on how to edit a saved visit, please see our Editing Visits guide.
Need to find a Visit? You can use our Keyword Search to find it quickly.
Using the Activity Slider
The Activity Slider is available from the Visits area, including the Visits Dashboard, Editing Visits and Visits Keyword Search.
The slider opens from the right-hand side of the page, allowing you to quickly add or update related information without losing your place. This means you can keep a visit open while creating linked items such as Actions, updating KPIs, Contacts or a Record of Visit.
When creating an action, contact or record of visit from the Activity Slider, the form will open in the slider rather than taking you away from the page. The exception is when you actually create a new visit from the slider, as this will take you into the visit record itself so that the full visit can be completed.
You can also use the Activity Slider to update KPIs. This is useful if you are working through a visit and want to update key information for the school at the same time, without navigating away from the Visits page.