Booklist Reviewer – Guide to Booklisting

To access your school’s Booklists, login to your Box of Books school portal using your school email address and password. Navigate to ‘Booklists’ from the left-hand menu:

From this view, you can select any draft booklists from the Booklists (In Progress) section by selecting which booklist to open:

Once you have selected the booklist you wish to edit, to make any changes, you will need to check out the booklist for editing, by selecting the blue ‘Edit Booklist’ button:

Only one person can check the booklist out for editing at a time. This is to ensure that all changes are saved correctly when a user is reviewing the booklist.

The most important feature we regularly advise to anyone involved in the booklisting process is to save the booklist and to do this often. This is to ensure that if the Box of Books portal times out whilst you are checked out for editing, you will not lose the progress you've made on the booklist.

Please ensure you are regularly clicking on the ‘Save & Continue’ button, located at the bottom of the booklist:

When you are finished making your changes, click on ‘Save & Continue’ a final time, then click on ‘Release Booklist’. This will allow other users from your school or the Box of Books team to be able to go in and edit the booklist. This button is also located at the bottom of the booklist:

To add a book, stationery item or other resources to your booklist, scroll to the subject that requires this item and select ‘Add Catalogue Item’ at the bottom of the subject container:

This will open Box of Books’ Master Catalogue of items we have available to list on your booklist:

Booklist Reviewers have a number of ways to search for their requested item, including:

Once you have searched for your requested item and it appears in the catalogue, select the item by clicking the checkbox next to it. Then, select the blue ‘Add Book’ button at the bottom:

Note: Only one book or resource can be selected to add to a subject at a time. If multiple items are ticked, this will not add all of the selected items to the subject.

Any resource on the booklist can also be moved within or across subjects by holding left click and dragging the ‘two horizontal lines’ icon next to the resource item’s container:

If different format options of the resource are required as a choice for parents/students (e.g. they can choose either the Digital & Print or Digital Only format), you can add this by clicking ‘Add Additional Format of this Book’ underneath the resource:

By clicking this button, it will open our Master Catalogue window. Select the format option you require, through the same process as before and you will see it appear as a different format option underneath the text:

By adding the additional format, this gives parents/students the choice of selecting only one of these options, ensuring that the same resource cannot be purchased twice.

During our QA process, we review the booklist and ensure that the Digital & Print format is listed first on our shop across all subjects. This ensures consistency and minimises user error when making purchases across multiple subjects.

However, if digital is the preferred format for your school, please let us know via a flag and our team will make a note of this during our QA process. The placement of the formats can be swapped by holding left click and dragging the ‘two horizontal lines’ icon next to the resource:

New Title Requests:

If a title you are searching for is not available in our Master Catalogue, do not fret, as we can request this through our catalogue team to source your title.

The information our team requires to source a title is the following:

You can request a new title by creating a flag or reaching out to our School Support Team via the chat bot:

Please do not request new titles in the notes, as this can be easily missed during the booklisting process.

Do note that we are unable to guarantee that we can source the requested title, due to turnaround time or contract restrictions.

New Digital Titles

If we do not have a digital contract with the requested text's publisher, it may take up to 6 months to acquire one, after which it is also not guaranteed that the publisher will allow us to add the text to our catalogue.

For the major publishers listed below, we are usually able to receive a response within a few weeks:

New Print Titles

For most print texts, like novels, we are usually able to source these, however the turnaround time depends on the publisher/supplier. Please provide clear indication of the quantity required so we can chase availability with our suppliers.

Cut off Deadline for Requesting New Titles

To ensure that we can add the text to the booklist in a timely manner, please submit your request before the cut off deadline, as processing times apply.

Cut-off Date: TBC

Our team will let you know the outcome of your request as soon as possible.

Flags are used as a notification tool to alert users (Box of Books team and school staff) when there is a query regarding a product or subject.

Some of the most common flags raised by schools are listed below:

The Box of Books team commonly uses flags to alert schools of the following:

To create a flag, head to the product you would like to raise a query about and click on the ‘flag’ icon next to the product:

Once selected, a description box will appear to type in your query or comment:

After writing your query or comment, select the red ‘Add Flag’ button to submit this flag:

This will then appear on the booklist under the product. The top of the booklist will indicate the total number of flags raised for review, as well as which subjects have pending flags:

You are also able to comment on already raised flags to answer a query by selecting the ‘comment’ icon:

This will then open up a comment box, where you will be able to reply to your own or another user's raised flag. Once you have written your comment, select the blue ‘Add Comment’ button to submit it:

There will be flags that both the Box of Books Booklisting and Catalogue teams raise on products asking the school to review and confirm. These flags will appear in red.

You may choose to comment your answer using the same comment function as above:

Or you can close the flag if it is resolved, by clicking on the ‘tick’ icon:

You will be able to see previously closed flags for any items still remaining on the booklist by clicking on the ‘Review Summary’ button at the top right-hand side of the booklist:

From this view, you can see any previous queries raised or answered:

You may want to add a new subject that is not already on your school’s booklist, or you might want to split up subjects that require different titles (e.g. Mathematics Standard and Mathematics Advanced).

There are two ways to create a new subject on the booklist.

The first way is to select the ‘Create Subject’ button at the bottom of the booklist:

Once selected, it will create a subject container at the very bottom of the booklist, like so:

You can then add the subject’s name by clicking on the ‘Add Subject Name’ field with the pencil icon next to it. Click the ‘tick’ icon once complete:

Our team keeps subjects in alphabetical order for easy reference, however, if your school prefers a different layout, please let us know.

You can also be taken directly to the subject you require by selecting it from the subject menu at the top of the booklist:

In cases where the subject has been created at the bottom of the booklist, you may need to move it up. To do this, you can hold left click on the ‘two horizontal lines’ icon next to the subject’s name, then drag and drop the subject in the position you would like:

You can also move the subject by clicking on the ‘up’ and ‘down’ icons to move the subject above/below another subject, one at a time:

If you click on the ‘three vertical dots’ icon, this will also give you the option to move the subject all the way to the top or bottom of the booklist:

The second way to create a subject is our recommended method. If your booklist is very long, it can be hard to drag and drop or use the arrow keys to reposition the subject. If you go to an existing subject on the booklist, you can create a subject directly above it, by clicking on the ‘+’ icon. This is the fastest way to have the subjects listed in alphabetical order without needing to move the subject around:

Our Parent Purchase Booklists require expected student enrolment numbers to proceed through to the review process. Box of Books requires these numbers for our logistics team to forecast stock in preparation for parent purchasing during the busy back to school periods.

These expected student enrolment numbers do not need to be an exact number and can be just an estimate of the class size. This will give our logistics team a rough idea of how much physical stock to order from our suppliers/publishers.

To enter in the expected student enrolment numbers, head to the subject that requires your review and click on the orange 'Expected Student Enrolments' field:

From here, you can insert the expected student enrolment numbers for this subject and select the ‘tick’ icon to submit these numbers:

If these expected student enrolment numbers change throughout the editing process, you will still be able to edit them until the booklist is submitted to us for review under the School Approved status.

Please note that our system will not allow for the booklist to progress to School Approved if there are subjects with missing expected student enrolment numbers. Please ensure that numbers are entered for every subject (even if it's a rough estimate), before moving the booklist to School Approved.

Entering in the Purchase Quantity numbers for School Purchase Booklists is very similar to entering expected student enrolment numbers for Parent Purchase Booklists, but it is used for a different purpose. The Purchase Quantity is an indication of the amount your school would like to purchase of a particular resource.

For Print/Digital and Print Only products, we require an exact number that the school requires of the text. This is to ensure that we do not overcharge the school for more than what's required. Our logistics team will then order that quantity of stock before fulfilling the physical order to dispatch out to the school.

For Digital Only, Reactivations or other digital products, we can use a rough estimate of class numbers, if required. This is because there are no physical items to be shipped out, only digital licences that are allocated to users.

Any changes in numbers after the approval of the pricing proposal will be captured and resolved in during the reconciliation process. During the reconciliation process, if more or less digital licences are required (than what was originally purchased), these will be invoiced/credited after the Term 1 period.

To enter in the Purchase Quantity numbers for your School Purchase subject, click on the orange 'Purchase Quantity needed' field:

From here, you can insert the purchase quantity numbers for this subject and select the ‘tick’ icon to submit these numbers:

If a Print/Digital text is added to a subject, the Box of Books team will also add an ‘overage’ underneath the Print/Digital item. This means that for any students exceeding the original Purchase Quantity number (e.g. 40x in the screenshot below), they will automatically be allocated the Digital Only item:

This process ensures that any new students entering the cohort will be allocated the text immediately, without the school having to ask us for another pricing proposal.

A purchase quantity number is not required for this second overage field, unless your school would like to purchase a certain number of Print/Digital items and Digital Only items upfront.

For example, your school has a total of 40 x students in Year 7 History class who all require digital access. However, you'd also like 10 x Print/Digital copies for your library. In this case, we can also use the 10 digital licences from the print copies for students, so the school would only need to purchase 30 x Digital Only texts for the remainder of the cohort.

As a result, we would enter a quantity of 10 in the original Purchase Quantity field, indicating 10 x Print/Digital texts are required. Then a quantity of 30 is entered in the overage's Number to Purchase field, indicating 30 x Digital Only texts are required:

While the total amount (40 x students/texts) will not be shown in the fields, our team will have a breakdown summary in the notes above, indicating the total number of texts being purchased.

Overages can be applied to a range of different digital products that require an overage, including reactivations (discounted digital pricing) or school specific publisher deal items.

Reactivation items are a digital product at a lower cost than the text's RRP. Your school may be entitled to this discounted pricing depending on the publisher and what the school may have purchased in the previous years. For example, if the school previously purchased 100 x Print/Digital copies of a particular text, they may be eligible for discounted reactivation pricing the following year if they choose to go with the same text.

During our Booklisting Rollover Process, we duplicate all previous years' booklists in preparation to open them up for the school's review. This process involves meeting with individual publishers to ensure that we are applying the correct pricing on your booklists. As a Box of Books school, you can rely on us to ensure that you are receiving the best pricings, as we understand the time constraints around reaching out to publishers to liaise school specific deals.

Once these booklists are opened for your school to edit, you may notice a reactivation product on your booklist with a note:

This note means that we have used the previous year's booklisted text to apply the best deal available for your school.

Our team uses these notes to track where your school's publisher deal is up to, including how many years is remaining and how many reactivations the school is eligible for, indicated by the "Max" number in brackets.

So, how does this relate to the Purchase Quantity number?

If your school has a ‘Max’ number in brackets in the note, this is the number of reactivations your school is eligible for:

Using the example above, this means that if the cohort exceeds a total of 50 students, the remaining texts will need to be charged as the full price Digital Only item, to be added as the 'overage'.

All you have to do as a Booklist Reviewer, is enter in how many students are in the class in the Purchase Quantity field, and our team will do the rest.

If we use the same example, if there are 60 x students in Year 11 Ancient History, please enter 60 in the Purchase Quantity field, like so:

Once submitted to our team for review, we will edit these products to show the breakdown and total number of students by adding in a Digital Only overage:

If you ever have any queries surrounding entering Purchase Quantity numbers, reactivation products, overages or this process, you can leave a flag on the item or reach out to us via the chat bot.

At Box of Books, we have standardised notes we use across all booklists. These standardised notes are in place based on past experiences of using the parent shop. We want to create an easy shopping experience for all parents and ensure that the language is clear and concise. The key to a user-friendly experience is keeping notes as simple as possible.

In saying this, we are also happy for schools to add their own notes if they believe that this will help the customer’s experience and provide further context for certain subjects.

We also have attributes that our Box of Books team can tick on our backend for resources that are 'Optional Purchases' or those that can be 'Retained from the previous year'. When these attributes are ticked, this ensures that the items are not added to carts automatically, by default. We place notes above these texts so that parents are aware that the text is an optional purchase or that their student may already have the text.

On the opposite end, we also have an attribute called ‘Full Cohort’ which indicates that the resource is required by the entire year group. Once ticked, the item will automatically be added to students/parents' carts upon loading into the shop. This removes the need to place a note, like ‘Required Text’, above certain items, as they will automatically be added.

Notes are not the place to ask queries or answer questions on a booklist as they do not create a notification on both our and the school's end and can be easily missed. This is why we ask that if you do have a question to please use the flag function or reach out via our chat bot.

Please note that as a Booklist Reviewer, any notes created will not be able to be deleted by yourself. This is a function only reserved for the Booklist Owner and the Box of Books team. While you will be able to remove the contents of the note, the note container itself cannot be removed once added. Removing unwanted notes will need to wait until the Booklist Owner or the Box of Books team undertakes this task.

We also ask the school to please not remove the contents of the notes that our team have added, as this is a manual process undertaken during the Booklisting Rollover Process. If you do require a note we have written to be amended, please leave a flag or email us with the request.

If you require a note to be placed on your school’s Parent Purchase booklist, head to the subject that requires the note. Click on the ‘Add Notes’ button:

Once clicked, this will appear at the bottom of the subject container:

You can move notes within and across subject containers by holding left click and dragging the ‘two horizontal lines’ icon next to the note:

To write a note, select the description box that will allow you to write and format your note, as needed. When complete, select the ‘tick’ icon:

At Box of Books, we have standardised notes we use across all booklists. These are especially important for our School Purchase Booklists as they provide the most up to date pricing and information around publisher or school specific deals. We ask the school to leave these existing notes on the booklist as is.

Whilst there is generally no need for the school to add in notes on a School Purchase booklist, some schools may choose to add in specific cohort information for certain subjects.

ADD SCREENSHOT HERE of a note with cohort information

Notes are not the place to ask queries or answer questions on a booklist as they do not create a notification on both our and the school's end and can be easily missed. This is why we ask that if you do have a question to please use the flag function or reach out via our chat bot.

Please note that as a Booklist Reviewer, any notes created will not be able to be deleted by yourself. This is a function only reserved for the Booklist Owner and the Box of Books team. While you will be able to remove the contents of the note, the note container itself cannot be removed once added. Removing unwanted notes will need to wait until the Booklist Owner or the Box of Books team undertakes this task.

For School Purchase Booklists, on most subjects, there will be a note above a resource to outlines the type of purchase being made. For example, the below indicates a reactivation purchase in the 1st Year of a 4 Year Deal:

These notes are for the benefit of both your school and our team to keep track of what type of purchase is listed, total quantities purchased, how our reconciliation process will retrieve future data and any other important information relevant to the item itself.

If you require a note to be placed on your School Purchase booklist for it to appear on your pricing proposal, head to the subject that requires the note. Click on the ‘Add Note’ button:

Once selected, this will appear at the bottom of the subject container:

You can move notes within and across subject containers by holding left click and dragging the ‘two horizontal lines’ icon next to the note:

To write a note, select the description box that will allow you to write and format your note, as needed. When complete, select the ‘tick’ icon:

For some subjects, you may find that you don't need to make any changes at all to the subject, particularly if there are no changes from the previous year. However, you will still need to review and approve the subject, to ensure that the booklist can progress to School Approved for our team to start our review process.

Please ensure the following information is reviewed and correct within the subject:

If all of this information is correct, you can approve the subject. To approve the subject, please click on the ‘tick’ icon in the right-hand corner of the subject container.

Once you have approved the subject, your profile icon will appear next to the check box to indicate to our team that this subject is ready to progress to the Box of Books review process:

Once the Booklist has been finalised by all Booklist Reviewers and Owners, the Booklist Owner can change the status from School Reviewing to School Approved.

This lets our Box of Books team know that the Booklist is ready to undertake our Quality Assurance process and progress to the final stages of review and approval.