Playground can be customized for each program and the global settings on the admin dashboard can be configured to preference. This guide explains each available setting.

Center Name

This is the name your program will display to staff and families on Playground, including all emails, notifications, and payment statements. Administrators with permissions to edit settings can change it at any time.

Reply-to Emails

System emails sent to families and staff (like invoices, overdue payment reminders, announcements, etc.) have a reply-to email that sends all family & staff responses to administrators. Playground requires at least one reply-to email on the account, with no limit to the number of reply-to emails administrators can add.

Taxpayer Identification Number

Add the program’s Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) or Employer Identification Number (EIN) to ensure it appears in the top right corner of each payment statement families receive.

State

Set your program's state to access state specific licensing paperwork and reports that are pre-loaded into the account.

Timezone

Set your program's timezone. Ensure your timezone is correct so that reports remain accurate and payout timing is not disrupted.

Immunization Tracking

Enable the immunization tracking feature in Playground to add an immunization tab on student profiles and allow administrators to pull immunization reports.

QR Code

View, download, print, or regenerate the program's QR code for attendance. Learn more about QR code check in & out.

School PIN Code

The code used by staff to enable and disable Kiosk Mode on the mobile app. View the code by clicking on the eye to show the PIN. Learn more about having families and/or staff use a PIN code for attendance.

Wellness Check

Decide if families and staff need to complete a wellness check before checking in. If enabled, a wellness questionnaire will appear during the check-in process. Learn more about wellness checks.

Contactless Sign-in/out

For programs using the Roster on the mobile app to initiate check-ins or check-outs, this setting determines whether signature requests appear on the staff device or the family device by default.

Families Can Mark Absences

Decide if families can mark absences for their students. If enabled, families can mark a student as absent from the student's profile. Share these instructions with families on how to mark an absence from the student profile.

On My Way Queue

Enable the On My Way Queue feature to allow families to notify staff of their expected arrival times for pick-up and drop-off. This queue keeps staff informed about arrival times, ensuring efficient check-ins and check-outs for students and guardians. Learn more about how the On My Way Queue streamlines attendance.

Chat

Decide if families and staff have the ability to use the chat feature.
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​Active Hours for Staff and Admin

Set the hours when your team is typically available to respond. Guardians will see a banner if they send a message outside these hours so they know replies may take longer.
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Family Permissions

Choose which role types families are allowed to start chats with.

Teacher Permissions

Choose which role types teachers are allowed to start chats with.
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Calendar

Choose whether the calendar is visible to families and staff. If turned off, any scheduled events will not be visible to families and staff.

Require Post Approval

Decide whether teacher feed posts require administrator approval before being published for families. By default, post approval is not required.

Schedule Activity Posts for Check-out

Choose whether daily activity posts (excluding announcements and non-activity custom posts) are grouped into a daily overview sent to families at check-out. By default, all posts are shared immediately, subject to any necessary approvals.

Activity Notifications

Choose whether families receive notifications for each post.

Carpools

Choose whether families can create carpools with other families. Learn more about managing carpools.

Able to Add Guardians

Choose whether families can add other guardians to the student profile. If disabled, only staff can add guardians.

Guardian Contact Information Accessibility

Choose whether teachers can view guardian profile contact information in the teacher app.

Hide Teacher Last Names From Families

Choose whether families can see teachers' last names in the feed and chat.

Track Staff Current Classroom

Choose whether staff should be prompted to select a classroom when clocking in. This is needed to track staff transitions and name to face reminders.

Lesson Plans Require Approval

Choose whether lesson plans created by teachers require administrator approval before becoming visible.

Restrict Teacher Check-in Hours

Choose to restrict teachers from clocking in more than 5 minutes before their scheduled shift time. This setting does not affect clocking out and does not apply to administrators.

Round staff hours

Rounds staff clock-ins and clock-outs to the nearest fifteen minutes.

Center Type

Select whether the program is a center or family child care program.

Language

Select the preferred language for the dashboard.

Clear cache

Clears saved website data to help fix loading issues.

For a walkthrough on configuring billing settings, check out this guide.

The Scheduling tab enables administrators to configure overage policies & fees. Make sure to click Save button on this screen to keep the changes made.
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Overage Billing Type

Choose whether overage fees apply when a student remains in attendance beyond their scheduled hours or after a specific time, regardless of their schedule. If overage fees are applied after a specific time, enter the time when the overage billing rate begins.

Overtime Billing Rate

Set the billing rate for overage fees as the $ amount per minute.

Default Grace Period

Choose to add a buffer to a student's overage time where guardians aren't charged overage fees. This grace period can be overridden on a case-by-case basis for students when charging the overage fees.

Number of hours to be Full Time
Used to define and track how many hours a student must be scheduled to be considered full time. Any hours above this is capped at max FTE per day
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​Max FTE per day

Set the maximum amount of FTE a student can contribute in one day. (E.g. 0.2 for 5 day schedules and .14 for 7 day schedules)

Manage your team's access in Playground by assigning them permissions with roles. For a walkthrough of how to configure roles, check out this guide.

Administrators can change the default emails that go out to families for statements, overdue reminders, sign up confirmations, failed payments, and enrollment listing invitations. Each of these emails can be edited and customized with the program's unique branding, colors, logos, and content.

Choose the email address families will see when they reply to messages sent from Playground.
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Send an email when Playground sends money to your bank. This helps you know when funds are on the way without checking your account.

Send an email at the end of each billing period with a simple overview of your billing activity. This gives you a quick snapshot to help with record keeping.

Receive one email each day that lists all payments and their status for that day.

Send an email every time a family payment goes through.
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Send an email every time a family payment does not go through.

Receive an email whenever a child’s enrollment status changes.

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Send payroll updates to the email addresses you choose.

Receive an email whenever a staff member submits a time off request.
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Get an email when a family books a drop-in session.

Get an email when a drop-in request is approved.

These templates control what families receive. All templates can be edited.

Emails sent to families with their billing statements.

Emails sent to families who have a past-due balance.

Emails sent when a family creates a new Playground account.

Emails sent to families when their payment does not go through.

Emails sent when a family is invited to complete an enrollment form.

The Custom Values settings tab consolidates all customizable fields in Playground—like student, guardian, and staff profile fields, lesson units, note tags, and expense categories—into one place for easy viewing and management.

Categories
Categories act as subsections that organize custom fields within student, staff, and guardian profiles. In this section, you can add edit or delete them.
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​Custom fields
Custom fields are additional pieces of information that can be added to student, guardian, or staff profiles to collect data specific to your needs. Once a custom field is created for a profile type (student, guardian, or staff), it appears on every profile of that type. For example, you might add a custom field labeled “Photo Permission” to track consent for each student or guardian. In this section, you can add custom fields.

Lesson units

These are the learning themes or topics for your lesson activities in Playground. You can add new ones or edit/delete existing ones by clicking the ellipsis (three dots) or the pencil icon next to each unit’s name.

Lesson tags

Tags help you label and organize your lesson activities. You can use them to easily filter and access related information later in reports. You can add new ones or edit/delete existing ones by clicking the ellipsis (three dots) or the pencil icon next to each tag's name.

Staff note tags
Use these tags to label staff notes, making it easy to organize and retrieve this information in reports later on. You can add new ones directly from here or edit/delete existing ones by clicking the ellipsis (three dots) or the pencil icon next to each tag's name.

Student note tags
Use these tags to label student notes, allowing you to organize and easily access this information in reports. You can add new ones directly from here or edit/delete existing ones by clicking the ellipsis (three dots) or the pencil icon next to each tag's name.

Here, you can view and manage all your custom expense categories.

For programs using Playground Payroll, the Payroll settings tab will be visible.

Payroll Status Emails

Similar to general reply-to emails, payroll admins can add emails to receive payroll email updates, including payroll approval reminders, payroll confirmation, failed payroll funding, failed employee payments.

Edit Company Information

Able to edit company details if any data has changed.
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Weekly Overtime

Any hours tracked for an employee beyond the set weekly threshold will be marked as overtime in staff payroll reports and during payroll processing. A week is defined as 7 consecutive workdays, starting from the first day of the reporting period.

Daily Overtime

Any hours tracked for an employee beyond the set daily threshold will be marked as overtime in staff payroll reports and during payroll processing.
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This section lists all bank accounts used for payroll. You can use the Manage Account button to add a new payroll account or remove an existing one. For each account shown, you can click the three dots to edit the nickname or set that account as the default for payroll.