Write a note

Put something on the record that the next shift will actually see.

Who can do this

• Front-line staff
• Site director
• Organisation admin
• Super admin

The screen applies no role check of its own beyond hiding the New Note button and the per-card controls, so a regional director or a read-only account reaches the screen and sees a message saying the notes failed to load, since the actual rule refuses both. Editing and removing a note follow a narrower rule than the one that governs reaching the screen at all: the note's own owner, or a super admin.

Before you start

Know who will see it. Every note in the organisation is shown to everyone who can manage members, with no owner check and no limit on how many are returned, and there is no way to mark a note confidential. If the note needs to be restricted, write it on the child's own record instead, where a confidentiality flag actually exists. See Members.

Know that it will not be attached to anything. See step 3.

Steps

1. Open Notes and press New Note

The button appears only if you hold one of the five roles that can reach day-to-day actions. The dialog is titled Create Note.

2. Choose a category

Ten are offered: General, Medical, Academic, Behavioral, Attendance, Safety, Parent Communication, Program Achievement, Facility, Credential.

These ten are only a choice on the screen, not a fixed list PTRS itself enforces. The category is stored as plain text, capped at 100 characters. PTRS will accept any text you send it; these ten are simply what the screen offers and what its own colour scheme covers.

3. Type the note and press Create Note

Required, up to 50,000 characters, enforced on both the screen and the saved record.

This note is attached to nothing

The screen saves every note here as a general, unattached record, no matter what you were looking at when you opened it. The screen's own subtitle promises notes across members, incidents and programs, and a card only shows a record type when the note has one, which a note created here never does.

To attach a note to a specific child, use the Notes area on that child's own record instead, which writes a different kind of note entirely. See Members.

Checkpoint

The dialog closes and the note appears at the top of the list. Unpinned notes sort newest first, with pinned ones above them.

4. Pin it if the next shift must not miss it

The pin icon on the card. A pinned note sorts to the top for everyone, not just you.

Anyone can pin or unpin anyone's note

Pinning has no ownership check at all, unlike editing and removing, which both have one. Anyone who can manage members, including Staff, can pin or unpin any note in the organisation, including one somebody else pinned.

Result

A note visible to everyone who can manage members in the organisation, searchable by its content, and filterable by its category.

What gets saved:

Field	Value
Content	what you typed
Title	the first 100 characters of the content, worked out automatically, and shown on no screen
Category	your choice, saved as plain text
Record type	the fixed word "general"
Attached record	none
Pinned	no
Owner and author	your own account
Organisation	yours

A matching audit entry is written in the same save, so the note's creation appears on the audit trail.

Editing and removing

Both controls appear on every card for every role that can reach day-to-day actions, and both are refused unless you own the note.

The rule PTRS applies: your account owns the note, or your account is a super admin, or your account holds a role named "Admin".

"Admin" is not a role PTRS actually has

The seven roles PTRS actually knows are super admin, organisation administrator, regional director, site director, Staff, guardian and read-only. Nothing grants anyone that third clause, so it admits nobody.

The rule that actually applies is: the note's own owner, or a super admin. An organisation administrator cannot edit or remove a note written by a member of staff who has since left.

A refusal is silent. Neither the screen nor its own save actions handle a failed attempt, so a refusal leaves the edit dialog open with Save still enabled, or the removal confirmation still showing Delete, with no message anywhere. It reads as though the click simply did not register.

Removing a note keeps the underlying record rather than erasing it outright, and its removal is captured on the audit trail like any other change.

What this does not do

Show who actually wrote the note

The identity stored against a note and the identity every screen tries to match it to are two different kinds of identifier, so they never actually match. The author's name is blank on every note, and searching for a colleague's name by typing it in finds nothing.

Restrict a note

This kind of note has no confidentiality flag. See Before you start.

Find a note written more than a page ago

There is no paging. Every note in the organisation is returned in one response, and the screen sorts, filters and searches all of it in your own browser. It works, and it will keep loading everything every time.

Common errors

What you see	Why	What to do
A message saying the notes failed to load	You hold a regional director or a read-only account. The wider check lets you reach the screen; the actual rule behind it refuses both	Neither role has a notes workflow today
The edit dialog stays open after Save Changes and nothing happens	You do not own the note and are not a super admin, and neither the screen nor its save action handles the failure	Close the dialog. Ask the owner, or a super admin
The removal confirmation stays open after Delete	The same	The same
The author line on every card is blank	The identity mismatch above	Nothing from the screen itself
A note you did not write is now unpinned	Pinning has no ownership check	Nothing from the screen itself
Notes appear here that were written on a child's own record	The list is unfiltered, so attached notes show up alongside unattached ones	Use the category filter, or open the child's own record instead
New Note is not there	You do not hold one of the five roles that reach day-to-day actions. If the list also fails to load, PTRS refused you too	Not applicable

Related

• Notes & Audit overview
• Read the audit trail
• Who can do what on Notes & Audit
• Notes & Audit troubleshooting