The Account Owner Profile

When a new Montessori Compass account is created, the person who's name and email are used to initially start the account automatically becomes the "Account Owner". The Account Owner is an Administrator-level user that can access all features of the system, and is the ONLY profile with the ability to create or edit other Administrator profiles. Additionally, all communication regarding billing or account maintenance will be sent to the email address associated with the Account Owner's profile.

There can be only one Account Owner for each MC account. So, in the event that you need to change who that person is, any changes to the Account Owner's profile will need to be made while logged into that profile. Therefore, you will need to gain access to the current Account Owner's profile (username and password), or at least to the email address used on that profile (in order to reset the password). Here are the steps to change the Account Owner:

1. Log into the Account Owner's current profile.
2. Click the down arrow next to the name in the upper left of the screen and select "My Profile" from the dropdown menu options. 
3. You may change the name, email, and/or any other contact info included in this profile. 
4. Remember to "Save Changes."
5. Click the "Change password" link in the upper right corner and enter a new password twice.

This new person will now assume the Account Owner profile, and the updated email address will become the new username.

Actively Using Account Owner Profile 

The Account Owner is often the Head of School, Director, or other school administrator that manages the school's MC account. It is NOT necessary or recommended to create a second user profile for that person, unless the Account Owner is also a parent and needs access to a parent profile. In most cases, it is recommended that the Account Owner carry out his/her day-to-day work in MC from that profile. Since the Account Owner is an Administrator-level user, he/she will be able to access all aspects of the account from that profile. There is no need to create additional Teacher of Administrator profiles for the same person. If you maintain both an Account Owner profile and an alternate admin/teacher profile on your MC account, this can create confusion in your school community (e.g. your name will be listed twice for messaging, calendar, photos, etc.). 

Generic Account Owner Profile

Some schools choose to use a generic name for the Account Owner profile. This can be useful if 

• Your original Account Owner is no longer with your school (or no longer manages the MC account), and the new person in charge already has an active MC profile.
• You want multiple people to have access to the Account Owner profile, such as an IT specialist, office administrator, etc.
• You are in between Heads of School, and you want the current person in charge to have access to the Account Owner's profile, but it may be temporary.

In these cases, and likely several others, it is recommended to give the Account Owner profile a generic name and email address (for example, name: MC Manager, email: info@yourschool.com). That generic name will display in your account, but is unlikely to cause confusion since it will not be the name of a person someone may be trying to contact. And since the person using this account may change again, a generic school email address will allow any person with access to that email account (like an interim Head of School) to reset the password and gain access to the Account Owner profile. 

Keeping historical data on old profile

As with any user profile, the email address must be unique. So, if you want a current User to assume the Account Owner role, you will first need to either change the email address used on the person's existing profile or delete their existing profile so that the email address will be available to use on the Account Owner's profile. If that user had an Administrator profile, it can only be deleted by the current Account Owner. Additionally, you may be concerned about losing any data from the previous User profile. But since the Account Owner is an administrator-level user that has full access to all features of MC, the only data that would be unique to the former Teacher or Administrator profile would be Messages. Messages are only visible to the sender and recipient(s) of the message. So, prior to deleting the new Account Owner's old profile, you should have them check their Inbox. If there is information they wish to keep, you may decide to edit the email address instead of deleting the old profile. If this is the case, we also recommend changing the name on the old profile to a generic name so there will not be duplicate profiles for that person which may confuse members of your school community. Remember, the email address does not have to be valid, it just has to be unique to serve as the username for the profile. But without a valid email, the password reset function will not be available.