Frequently Asked Questions

Please check the questions and answers below. Most issues are best directed to your school since the school controls the information and settings in PTO.

Frequently Asked Questions

The hours required to organise school interviews by teachers and administration staff are extensive and costly. Additionally, there is the hassle of organising schedules suitable for both teachers and parents. Parent Teacher Online offers parents, teachers and administration staff a stress free, simple approach to organising interviews and we calculate that the system more than pays for itself the first time it is used!
To ensure a stress-free booking system, CountryNet provides unlimited FREE support in establishing and maintaining PTO in your school. Our online booking system allows complete access for multiple interview rounds throughout the year. Many clients also choose to use the system throughout the year for information nights or training night bookings.
Primary Schools have a fixed yearly fee with unlimited bookings, unlimited students and unlimited access to the Help Desk.
Customised packages for High Schools are available that allow schools to conduct parent teacher interviews with ease. Contact CountryNet to discover the most cost effective package for your school.

Administration staff have the ability to “Act as a Parent” to book teacher interviews on behalf of parents.
Another solution is to make an internet-enabled computer available in the school foyer during the lead-up to interviews in order to make interview bookings.

PTO maintains the highest level of Internet Security available. This means that any data entered into the system is as secure as information held by banks and large businesses.

Schools and parents will need access to the internet using any standard browser.
Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari and Google Chrome are able to be used.

Internet cookies are small pieces of information in text format that are downloaded to your computer when you visit some websites. We do not use cookies at all on our PTO site.

To log in to PTO, go to your school website. There will normally be a PTO logo or link on your school web site that you can click to go to the PTO login page. If your school web site has a parent area/portal, you may need to log into that area first. Please contact your school directly if you can’t find the login logo or link, or if you have having trouble logging in to PTO. Each school controls the way parents log in to PTO. Please check the login information provided by your school. Check that your school has released the system for parent access — it will say on the login screen “This system is currently unavailable to parents” if it hasn’t yet been released or has been closed for any other reason. If your school is unable to help you, they can contact us for assistance. Only contact us via the feedback page if these measures don’t help.

PTO has two booking modes, Manual and Automatic. Manual mode is always available, but your school decides if automatic mode is available and whether it appears first when you log in. If automatic mode is available you can always switch between automatic and manual using the ‘Change’ button. In manual mode bookings are made AND CONFIRMED one at a time. In manual mode confirmed bookings are shown at the top of the screen in time order with a green background. You can also download or email a PDF report of your bookings using the printer/calendar button at the top left of the page. The bookings that you see on the PDF report and at the top of the screen in manual mode are confirmed. There is no ‘save’ action or button as this is not required. In automatic mode you select the teachers you wish to see and the preferred starting time. PTO then takes you through four simple steps to give you an optimised set of bookings for the teachers you’ve chosen. On the fourth step if any of the times were NOT booked (it’s sometimes possible that another parent books one of the times you’ve selected just prior to your booking request) then these will be displayed on the screen as not booked. The final step of automatic mode takes you to manual mode where you will see your confirmed bookings as described above.

The length of interviews is set by your school – it’s not something that PTO dictates. PTO allows schools to set any interview length they wish. Please contact your school if you want them to have longer interview times.

Like most booking systems, manual or on-line, those who book earlier have more time options available. Those who book later have to choose from a more limited set of times or may even see teachers fully booked.Schools have the option in PTO of providing a ‘Please contact me’ booking if:

  1. The teacher is fully booked and has no times available
  2. If there are still times available but none of them is suitable.

This option is set by the school and may not appear at all if the school chooses not to enable it. If the option is set, the school also decides whether to use option 1 or 2. If you can’t get suitable times with the teachers you need to see and if you don’t see ‘please contact me’ at the end of the list of times, please contact your school to see if they can make alternative arrangements.

PTO has two booking modes, Manual and Automatic. Manual mode is always available, but your school decides if automatic mode is available and whether it appears first when you log in. If automatic mode is available you can always switch between automatic and manual using the ‘Change’ button.In manual mode bookings are made AND CONFIRMED one at a time. In manual mode confirmed bookings are shown at the top of the screen in time order with a green background. You can also download or email a PDF report of your bookings in time order using the printer/calendar button at the top left of the page.In automatic mode you select the teachers you wish to see and the preferred starting time. PTO then takes you through four simple steps to give you an optimised set of bookings for the teachers you’ve chosen. In automatic mode bookings do not appear in time order. The final step of automatic mode takes you to manual mode where you will see your confirmed bookings in time order at the top of the screen as described above.

Please contact your school directly for help with this problem. Your school is able to check and correct the information in PTO which has been uploaded from the school’s records. As the service provider we cannot change this type of information in PTO.

PTO shows you the times that are available for teachers. This includes all scheduled times but excludes all the times for that teacher that are already booked by other parents, and times that you have already booked with other teachers (i.e. you cannot double-book yourself). Schools can also block certain times as unavailable for a teacher if necessary. Occasionally all of a teacher’s times are blocked out if the teacher is, for example, sick or on other leave, and in this case the school may or may not indicate the reason for this on the screen. If you are seeing no times available for a teacher and you need to see this teacher urgently, please contact your school. Your school may be able to make an exception for you or arrange alternate times. As the service provider we cannot do those things.

Schools can put limits on bookings in PTO. These are optional — PTO normally operates without imposing booking limits. Your school can set two types of limits:

    1. Limiting the number of interviews you can book for a single student.
    2. Limiting the number of interviews you can book for a student/teacher combination.

In other words, if your student has the same teacher for multiple classes your school can limit the number of bookings you can make for that teacher and student.

If either of these limits is set, it will be shown at the top left of the booking page in PTO.

If you are seeing a limit and it is causing a problem for you, please contact your school. As the service provider we cannot change this limit. Your school may be able to make an exception for you or arrange alternate times.

If teachers will be located in various places around your school for interviews, your school can provide this information and it will then appear on the booking page in PTO and on your booking reports PDF. This is optional information in PTO and schools may not provide it, especially if teachers will all be in one large location like a school hall. Schools may also provide a map for parents. If a map is provided a logo will appear at the top left of the booking page near the printer/calendar button.

CountryNet Software guarantees it’s services with a full money back refund.

In the event that you are dissatisfied with our product because it did not deliver what we said it would, we will refund your payment for our services. All refunds must be claimed prior to completion of the interview round.

If the services has been used in the same year, the refund will then be pro rated.