What Are Family Connections?
Managing relationships between parents, guardians, and staff is crucial for running an organized childcare center. Enrollio's Family Connections feature lets you create structured links between people in your system — like connecting parents to each other, linking guardians to emergency contacts, or associating staff members with their supervisors.
Instead of keeping disconnected profiles, you can now show clear relationships that make sense for your center.
Types of Connection Labels
Single Label: A label that applies to both people in the connection (e.g., "Co-Parent").
Pair Labels: Distinct labels for each person in the relationship (e.g., "Primary Parent" and "Secondary Parent", "Director" and "Teacher").
Why Use Family Connections?
Better Organization: Connections give you a clear picture of how families and staff relate to each other, making it easier to find information when you need it.
Faster Communication: Quickly see who's connected to whom. When you need to reach a child's emergency contact or a teacher's supervisor, the relationship is right there.
Clearer Relationships: Whether it's parents, guardians, staff hierarchies, or emergency contacts, connections help you understand your center's network at a glance.
Less Duplicate Work: Update connected people together and keep your system clean without re-entering the same information multiple times.
Where to Find Family Connections
You can access connections in two places:
Family Profile: Open any parent or staff profile and look for the Connections icon in the right-side panel. This shows everyone connected to that person.
Settings: Go to Settings > Objects > Families to see all your connection types and create new relationship labels.
[SCREENSHOT: Show the right-side panel of a parent profile with the Connections/Associations icon highlighted]How to Create a New Connection Type
Setting up connection types is straightforward. Here's how:
- Open the Objects Section: Click Settings > Objects, then select Families.
- Click "Create Connection": Select the "+ Create Connection" button to define a new relationship type.
- Choose What to Connect: Pick what you're connecting — usually Families to Families, or Families to Staff.
- Select Label Type: Decide if you need a Single Label (like "Emergency Contact") or Pair Labels (like "Guardian - Dependent").
- Define Relationship Type: Choose between Many-to-Many (one parent can connect to multiple other parents) or Many-to-One (one staff member reports to one director).
How to Link People Using Connections
Once you've created connection types, linking people is easy:
- Open a Profile: Go to your Families section and open the parent or staff member's profile.
- Click the Connection Icon: Find it in the right-side panel.
- Add the Relationship: Click "Add", search for the person you want to connect, and select the appropriate label.
- Confirm: The connected person appears in the Related section, and both profiles automatically update to show the connection.
Managing and Editing Connections
Edit an Existing Connection Type
Go to Settings > Objects > Families, find the connection type you want to change, and click the three-dot menu (⋮) to modify it.
Remove a Connection
Open the profile, navigate to the Related section, find the connected person, and click to remove the link.
[SCREENSHOT: Show the three-dot menu next to a connection type in Settings, and the remove option in a profile's Related section]Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between Single and Pair Labels?
Single Label: Both people get the same label (e.g., "Co-Parent").
Pair Labels: Each person has a distinct role (e.g., "Primary Parent" and "Secondary Parent").
Can I use connections in automations?
Currently, connections are an organizational tool to help you see relationships at a glance. We're exploring ways to incorporate them into automations in future updates.
Can I connect custom objects?
Yes, you can create connections between families and custom objects you've set up in your account. More custom object options are coming soon.
Can I delete a connection label?
Yes, but deletion is permanent. You'll need to remove all existing connections using that label first before you can delete it.
How many connections can one person have?
Each family or staff member can have up to 10 different connection types, and one label can link up to 1000 people. That's plenty for even the largest childcare centers.