Use the Return to School Management app
Microsoft Return to School Management app provides step-by-step instructions for school IT administrators who want to manage their school facilities. Application administrators can use the app to set up multiple schools and their related hierarchy within a co-op or school district. They can also use the app's COVID-19 testing features to schedule and track appointments and monitor results. Additionally, the app offers optional features such as case management for contact tracing and daily passes. This enhances entry controls for its staff and students. As part of Return to School, the School Management app helps organizations ensure a safe learning environment for students and staff.
App at a glance
Microsoft Return to School supports a school or school district's goal to return to normal and reopen to its students and staff as safely and quickly as possible. As a school IT administrator, you can use the Microsoft Return to School Management app to manage and support your specific reopening plans and the associated phases and goals. You can monitor and track the health of your students and staff, and support and manage healthcare services, including COVID-19 testing.
App components
The Microsoft Return to School Management app has the following components:
Testing group components
Appointments: This subarea of the app provides school administrators with the ability to manage appointments. They can view existing appointments or manually create or update them. Most appointments will be created with the integrated Microsoft Return to School Portal app. Students and staff will use the Portal app to schedule their own appointments for healthcare services such as COVID-19 testing.
Test Results: This subarea of the app provides school administrators with the ability to manage test results. They can view existing test results or manually create or update them. Most test result records will initially be created automatically when an appointment is created. Once created, it can be updated manually or through integration with another app. Additionally, the test result records can be manually uploaded with the Microsoft Return to School Portal app, which will create a test results record.
Passes group components
Daily Passes: This subarea of the app provides school administrators with the ability to monitor and track daily passes. They can view passes created with the integrated Microsoft Return to School Portal app, where students, staff, parents, and guardians create daily passes to enter their desired school.
Visits: This subarea of the app provides school administrators with the ability to extend the out-of-the-box functionality in Return to School and incorporate actual visit data and link it to daily passes. Daily passes provide students, staff, and others with authorization to enter schools, and this can be coupled with an actual visit record to provide a complete picture. It allows administrators to view persons who generated a pass and actually visited the school on a particular day.
Cases group components
- Cases: This subarea of the app provides school administrators with the ability to manage the cases of students and staff, and to perform a simple level of manual contact tracing. School administrators can create new cases and are guided thorough a process flow of four stages (Open, Investigating, Monitoring, Resolved).
Manage testing
School administrators can use the functionality provided in the Testing area of the Microsoft Return to School Management app to help them monitor and manage healthcare service appointments and related test results for their students and staff.
Appointments
Typically, appointments will be created by users through the Microsoft Return to School Portal app, but the capability is present in this app as well, to allow school IT administrators to view appointments, and also to create and edit them manually, if needed.
To create a new appointment:
On the left pane, select Appointments, and then select New.
Enter appropriate values in the fields.
Field Description Subject Enter a subject for the new appointment. Start Time Select an appointment start date and time for the new appointment. End Time Select an appointment end date and time for the new appointment. Person Select a person (student or staff member). Healthcare Service Select a healthcare service for the appointment. Test Category Available values are Screening or Diagnostic. Leave this field as blank when creating a new appointment. Test Location Select a test location for the appointment. Description Enter a description for the new appointment. Actual Start The actual appointment start date and time. Leave this as blank when creating a new appointment. Actual End The actual appointment end date and time. Leave this as blank when creating a new appointment. 
When the appointment record created is populated with a Person, Test Location, and Start Date & Time, a flow will trigger for an email to be sent with the appointment details to the owner of that appointment. If the owner has a parent or dependent, this email will also be sent to them.
Test results
The Test results area of the app allows school administrators to view a person's test results. The test result record includes information such as healthcare service, lab, test date, and the result. Test result records are automatically created when an appointment is scheduled and when an individual using the Microsoft Return to School Portal app uploads a test result. Additionally, if school IT administrators are receiving test result files from test labs, the app provides the capability to upload them into the test results table.
View test results
On the left pane, select Test results. There are three views for Test results: Active Test Results, Inactive Test Results, and Pending Test Results. The three views use an editable grid for fast update of test results.
To view the details of a particular test result for a person, locate your desired record from the list view.
Select the individual record to open it in the Test Result form.
The following fields are available for review on the Test Result form:
Field Description Person Person associated with the test result. Healthcare Service Healthcare service associated with the test result. Test Date Date and time for which the test for the healthcare service was reported to have been performed. Lab The test lab that processed or will process the specimen. Test Location Location of the lab where a person's test will be administered or was administered. Appointment Name of the associated appointment for the test result, if an appointment was scheduled for this test (not self-reported). Walk In Yes/No flag that identifies whether or not the test result was recorded for a person that had a test administered without an appointment. Self Reported Yes/No flag that identifies whether or not the test result was reported by a person that had a test administered outside the school system. Result A test outcome that will be displayed as one of the following values: Positive, Negative, or Inconclusive. Result Interpretation A description of an interpretation of the test results. This is an optional field. Result Date Date and time for which the test result or outcome was determined. Specimen Code A field that labs are able to populate to allow linking a test result to a particular specimen.
Manage test attachments
In the Test Attachments section, you can see files that have been attached to the test result or attach files yourself. These are saved as notes.
To view an attached file:
Select the hyperlink with the filename.
You will be prompted to download the file.
After you download the file, you will be able to open and view the file.
To attach a file:
Select the paperclip icon.
Navigate to and select your file.
Add a title (optional).
Add a description (optional).
Select Add Note to finish creating your attachment.
You will be able to see your attachment in the Test Attachments section.
For more information about configuring file size limits and unsupported extensions for attachments, go to Enable file attachments.
Import test results
When you want to import your own test results, you can download a template to use for data import.
To import test results data to the Test Results table:
In the left navigation pane, under Testing, select Test results.
Select Import from Excel, and then select the test results data file.
After the test results data is imported, you'll see the imported records in the table.
Manage passes
School administrators can use the functionality provided in the Passes area of the Microsoft Return to School Management app to monitor and manage entry to school sites, including the creation of passes and tracking of actual visits.
Daily passes
The Daily passes subarea of the app allows administrators to keep track of daily passes created by or for persons. Daily passes are created by users of the Microsoft Return to School Portal app when they complete the steps to generate a day pass for entry into their desired school. The Daily passes subarea captures day pass records, including both successful attempts (Attested = Yes) and unsuccessful attempts (Attested = No).
To view daily passes:
In the left navigation pane, select Daily passes. The Active Passes view is displayed.
To view the details of a particular pass for a person, locate your desired record from the list view.
Select the individual record to open it in the Daily Pass form.
The following fields are available on the Daily Pass form:
Field Description Person Person associated with the test result. Healthcare Service Healthcare service associated with the test result. Test Date Date and time for which the healthcare service was reported to have been performed. Lab The test lab that processed or will process the specimen. Test Location Location of the lab where a person's test will be administered or was administered. Appointment Name of the associated appointment for the test result, if an appointment was scheduled for this test (not self-reported). Walk In Yes/No flag that identifies whether the test result was recorded for a person that had a test administered without an appointment. Self Reported Yes/No flag that identifies whether or not the test result was reported by a person that had a test administered outside the school system. Result A test outcome that will be displayed as one of the following values: Positive, Negative, or Inconclusive. Result Interpretation A description of an interpretation of the test results. This is an optional field. Result Date Date and time for which the test result or outcome was determined. Specimen Code A field that labs are able to populate to allow linking a test result to a particular specimen.
Visits
The Visits subarea of the app allows schools to extend the capability for tracking actual visits to particular schools. A visit to a school can be linked to the person's daily pass.
To view visit information:
On the left pane, select Visits. The Active Visits view is displayed.
To view the details of a particular visit for a person, locate the record from the list view.
Select the individual record to open it in the Visit form.
The following fields are available on the Visit form:
Field Description Person Person associated with the test result. Healthcare Service Healthcare service associated with the test result. Test Date Date and time for which the test for the healthcare service was reported to have been performed. Lab The test lab that processed or will process the specimen. Test Location Location where a person's test will be administered or was administered. Appointment Name of the associated appointment for the test result, if an appointment was scheduled for this test (not self-reported). Walk In Yes/No flag that identifies whether or not the test result was recorded for a person that had a test administered without an appointment. Self Reported Yes/No flag that identifies whether or not the test result was reported by a person that had a test administered outside the school system. Result A test outcome that will be displayed as one of the following values: Positive, Negative, or Inconclusive. Result Interpretation A description of an interpretation of the test results. This is an optional field. Result Date Date and time for which the test result or outcome was determined. Specimen Code A field that labs are able to populate to allow linking a test result to a particular specimen.
Manage cases
The Cases area of the app provides school administrators with features for managing cases in their school.
To assist administrators, and to help ensure proper case handling, this area implements a four-step process. The current stage of a case is clearly depicted in the business process flow on the case form. Cases will be managed through the following process stages:
Open: In this stage, you record basic information about the case. At this point, the administrator also becomes the case manager.
Investigating: In this stage, you perform steps to ensure that person checks and screenings are being completed in accordance with school policy. The result of these checks is a clear instruction to the person. When this is communicated to the person, the case is moved to the next stage.
Monitoring: After the Investigating stage is complete and the person has been given instructions or guidelines, they're monitored until they're healthy enough to be eligible to return to the school.
Resolve: This is the wrap-up stage for the case, where you can enter closing remarks.
Managing a case – moving a case through the process stages
The following illustration of the case manager process explains how a case is created and managed by capturing different data at various stages to identify, investigate, and resolve the case. When a case manager is notified, a case is created. The case is taken through stages where you get more details and perform a screening (investigating), provide instructions (monitoring), and close the case (resolved).
Case creation
Case managers are the resources who manage cases.
In the left navigation pane, select Cases, and then select New.
On the General tab, enter the name of the person associated with the new case (student or staff).
Save the record.
Open
When first created, the case is in the Open process stage. The case manager starts the case and can verify that all basic information is available. By default, the current user (school administrator) becomes the case manager and will verify the person's details; however, a different case manager can be assigned by the school administrator.
The key piece of data to be captured and recorded before moving to the next stage is:
Case manager owning the case.
Investigating
In this Investigating process stage, the case manager contacts the person (student or staff member) to verify how the person is feeling. The case manager continues to investigate by capturing and recording the case-related data and updating fields on the case form.
The key pieces of data to be captured and recorded before moving to the next stage are:
Person Contacted (Yes/No)
Screened (Yes/No)
Risk Assessment
Monitoring
In the Monitoring process stage, the case manager monitors and manages the case. The case manager ensures that guidance or instructions that were provided are being followed and that expected target dates for being eligible to return to school are updated for the person. This stage can be regarded as a holding stage, meaning that it's clear when the next moment of contact will be and when to follow up on the case.
The key piece of data to be captured and recorded before moving to the next stage is:
Instructions Provided (Yes/No)
Under Instructions, a person can be blocked from or allowed to access schools.
The case manager can inform a person that the school is not available to enter for a while. When School Access Available is set to No, the person won't be able to get a day pass. To inform a person that school access is not available, you'll be able to give instructions that are visible in the app. With the School Access Available Date field, you can inform the person of when they will be able to get a day pass again. A flow will automatically reset School Access Available when the date is reached.
Resolve
In the Resolve process stage, the case manager completes the process by resolving the case, and then selects Finish. After the process is finished, the person's case becomes inactive. The inactive case is then considered completed.
The key piece of data to be captured and recorded is:
Instructions Provided (Yes/No)
Complete case
After you complete the process for a case, with Finish selected in the business process flow, the case becomes inactive. You can also make cases inactive for certain reasons if the case is no longer being worked on. In that event, you can deactivate the case from the command bar.
Case views
The Cases subarea has the following views to help school administrators monitor and track cases:
Active Cases: Shows all active cases. A case is considered active when the status field value is set to active. Active cases are limited to one per person.
Closed Cases: Shows all closed cases. A case is considered closed when it is made inactive either by the case manager or by completing the process.
Manual contact tracing
To facilitate manual contact tracing, Case Contacts are included in the case form.
Case contacts
A person under investigation might have had contact with one or more individuals. This type of information can be captured in the Case Contacts tab.
On the Case Contacts tab, select New Case Contact to relate a person to the case record. When the record is created, select the record and select Edit to add the following details:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Risk Assessment | Allows you to prioritize other people based on their interactions with the person under investigation. |
| Case | Refers to an open case for the person. By default, the lookup will filter on active cases for the person. |
| Comment | Enter additional information, when applicable. |
A case can be directly created from a case contact record. To do so, select the record in the subgrid, and then select Create Case.
The Create Case option is only visible when a record is selected. The following actions are performed:
- A new case is created.
- The new case is linked to the case contact record.
- The new case has the person of the case contact record entered.
- The new case is assigned to the current user.
- The user is navigated to the newly created record.
- The new case number is entered in the case field on the contact record.
- The case contact record is deactivated with status Case Created.
A case manager can enter additional information. Select Save & Close to return to the original case record.
Case contact status
A case contact has three status options:
- To be evaluated (Active)
- Case Created (Inactive)
- Evaluated (Inactive)
With these three status options, a case manager can clearly indicate which case contacts have been traced and how they have been dealt with.
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