Author: Azroy Kandan

New Policy for Sender Email

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What you need to know

ALL EMAILS sent through QuickSchools will use QuickSchools.com in the Sender Email Address. 

This change is primarily in response to Google and Yahoo beefing up their policy for handling spam. This change also improves email deliverability – emails sent from QuickSchools will no longer appear in the spam folder.

In addition, emails sent through QuickSchools will still have the original sender’s email address in the “Reply-To” field. This means that when a recipient of your email clicks “Reply”, the email will be directed to the original sender.

We are still working on the ability for schools to use their own domain name in the sender address. If you’re interested in this feature, please let us know via email or chat, and we can contact you once the feature becomes available. 

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New Instant Triggers for Zapier

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Our QuickSchools Integrations on Zapier is undergoing a big change. The new version 2.0.0 introduces support for Zapier Instant Triggers, where changes in QuickSchools can immediately trigger a zap. There are also several improvements to the available Searches and Actions.

The new version will unfortunately deprecate several of the existing functions. Schools on the existing version 1.3.4 will have until Jan 1, 2025 to upgrade to the new version. Zaps would need to be recreated using the upgraded methods.

Support for the QuickSchools Integrations on Zapier (version 1.3.4) will end on Jan 1, 2025

Summary of Improvements in Version 2.0.0

Here is a summary of improvements:

  1. New Triggers and Actions:
    1. Triggers
      1. New Student Record (INSTANT)
      2. New Teacher Record (INSTANT)
      3. New Parent Record (INSTANT)
      4. Updated Student Record (INSTANT)
      5. Updated Teacher Record (INSTANT)
      6. Updated Parent Record (INSTANT)
      7. Updated Student Custom Fields (INSTANT)
      8. Updated Parent Custom Fields (INSTANT)
      9. Updated Teacher Custom Fields (INSTANT)
    2. Actions
      1. Create Parent Record
      2. Link Siblings
      3. Re-activate Student Record
  2. Ability to add optional fields in the response for specific Triggers and Actions
  3. Modified deduplication key to ensure that updated records will trigger the zap
  4. Modified search parameters – ability to search either by ID or by keyword
  5. Option to select name format (Full Name or Complex Name) when creating Student/Teacher
  6. Refined Dynamic Dropdowns, Input Fields and Output Fields for all of Actions, Triggers, and Searches

Summary of Deprecated Functions in Version 1.3.4

If you’re using any of these functions, we recommend upgrading them to the latest version:

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New Release – Jan 4, 2024

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We’re happy to announce our first release for the year. This QuickSchools release contains improvements to the Orchestra Master Scheduler and API improvements for Zapier and Engage, with some general improvements to our general Student Information System: 

Master Scheduler

  • Daily Schedule Support for Year-Long courses
  • Support Frequency more than a week
  • Import Duplicate Course Requests
  • Show Caseload from Course Requests tab on Student record
  • Bug Fix “Student Schedule Listing” report

General Bug Fixes / Improvements

  • Extend Enrollment Date Widget to 3 years
  • Subscription Billing with Debit Notes
  • Improve Cut-Off Time for Lunch Ordering App
  • Transcripts support for Semester Start/End Dates
  • Fix Email History for Mass Email Messaging with BCC

Beta Improvements

  • Improve Enrollment Periods screen without Master Scheduler
  • API Improvements for Engage CRM and Zapier (WebHooks)
  • New Parent-Teacher Conference App
  • Daily Status from Attendance Codes App now shows in Program Attendance
  • Display GPA and Class Rank for Chronos Transcripts
  • Option to exclude courses from GPA for Chronos Transcripts
  • Bug Fixes to Learn LMS (Student Activity and Assignments)
  • Bug Fix District-Wide Teachers

We’ll continue to make improvements to our infrastructure and product. If you have any suggestions or comments for improvement, please don’t hesitate to let us know via chat or email. We look forward to working with you.

Happy New Year!

2023 Year in Review

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I can’t believe that the last time I wrote a “Year in Review” was for 2020 for QuickSchools – a whole 3 years ago. How time flies! Azreen wrote one for 2021 – Bringing 2021 to a close. So I guess we only skipped a year.

Orchestra Master Scheduler

The big focus for 2023 has been the Orchestra Master Scheduler. We made several improvements to the module, and beefed up its overall performance, robustness and usability.

Some of the new features to highlight include:

  • Course Load (i.e. Caseload by Teacher and Course)
  • Room Assignment and Room Conflicts
  • Section Assignment by Tags (Course Request Tags, Student Tags and Teacher Tags)
  • Improved Email Notifications to Students and Teachers
  • Expanded Functionality for Add/Drop History
  • Support for Duplicate Course Requests

Payment Plan App

We introduced a new Payment Plan App that allows schools to schedule automatic charges to credit cards.

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New Release – Dec 5, 2023

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Our latest QuickSchools release contains primarily improvements to the Orchestra Master Scheduler and API improvements for Zapier and Engage, with some general improvements to our Email Deliverability and Lunch Orders / Shopping Cart. 

Match Tags on Course Requests against Teachers

Full list of improvements are below:

Master Scheduler

  • Optimize Step 5 “Load Students”
  • Expand Tag functionality in Step 5
  • Improve Multi-Semester Support for Schedule PDF
  • Improve Multi-Semester Support in Teachers Schedule
  • Improve Step 6 Add/Drop Notifications
  • Bug Fix Advanced Search for deleted courses

General Bug Fixes / Improvements

  • Bug fix Lunch Ordering for expired Shopping Cart items
  • Improve support for Lunch Orders PDF (without Homerooms)
  • Improvements to Email Deliverability

Beta Improvements

  • Bug Fix Transferring Students for Group Schools
  • Restrict access to accounts based on Geo IP
  • Updated Webhooks API Framework for Zapier
  • API Improvements for Engage CRM

New Release – Nov 14, 2023

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Our latest QuickSchools release contains primarily improvements to the Orchestra Master Scheduler, but also includes API improvements for Zapier and Engage, as well as general improvements to our Student Information System. 

Full list of improvements are below:

Master Scheduler

  • STEP 2: Freeze Number of Sections per Course
  • STEP 5: Scheduling Algorithm Option to Force Conflicts
  • STEP 5: Display Course Request Tags and Teacher Tags
  • STEP 5: Link to View Add/Drop History
  • STEP 5: Improve Tracking of Dropped / Unassigned Section Enrollments (with Drop Reasons)
  • STEP 6: Customize Add/Drop Notifications to Teachers
  • Link to View Add/Drop History from Course Requests tab on the Student record
  • Improve Email Customization for Teacher Schedule

General Bug Fixes / Improvements

  • Export Support Reports to CSV (See below)
  • Student Portal and Parent Portal Home notifications on new grades from Standards-Based Gradebook (See above)
  • Improve Payment Plan module for Student Billing
  • Bug Fix Loading Section Attendance when moving between days
  • But Fix Section Attendance for Inactive Students

Beta Improvements

  • New Webhooks API Framework for Zapier
  • New SFTP Importer for Course-Teacher Configurations
  • Refactor District Settings, Enrollment Periods and CA-related Fields
  • API Improvements for Engage CRM
  • Account Restrictions based on GeoIP Location
  • General Improvements on Email Messaging

Export Summary Report to CSV

The option to export to “Excel” in the Summary Reports has been changed to a simple “Export” button:

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New Release – Oct 23, 2023

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Our latest QuickSchools release contains improvements to the Orchestra Master Scheduler, Email Messaging as well as general improvements to our Student Information System

Master Scheduler

  • Ability to bulk delete Courses in Course Catalog
  • Improve support for multi-semester (i.e. Full Year) Enrollment Periods
  • Miscellaneous UI Improvements to Step1 and Step 5
  • New Rejections for Tag Mismatch

Email / Deliverability

  • Upgrade Integration to MailGun
  • New Option to change Sender for better Deliverability (See below)
  • Bug Fix logging for bad email addresses 

General Bug Fixes / Improvements

  • Payment Plan support for students with multiple Primary Payers
  • Show student nick names in “Classes & Homerooms”
  • Improve how Attendance Roster is Refreshed
  • Cosmetic improvements to Featured App Widget
  • Improve support for White Label
  • Bug Fix Section Attendance for Periods that are Not-A-School-Day
  • Bug Fix Summary Reports for Attendance by Week
  • Bug Fix Generated PDF for Homework / Assignments
  • Bug Fix set Enrollment Date when re-enrolling from Admissions

Beta Improvements

  • Mass Set Section Attendance
  • Option to remove “Now” Indicator for “Courses & Sections”
  • Refactor / Improve Chronos Transcripts

Email Deliverability (Emails going to Spam)

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New Release – Oct 2, 2023

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Our latest QuickSchools release contains improvements to the Orchestra Master Scheduler, the Payment Plan app as well as general improvements to our Student Information System and API Resources:

Master Scheduler

  • New Room Constraints in Step 3
  • Room Assignment in Step 4
  • Updated Room info in Schedule PDF
  • Bug fix in Step 4 when teacher is assigned multiple departments
  • Email History for Add/Drop Notifications in Step 6 (See above)
  • General Improvements to Add/Drop Notifications

General Bug Fixes / Improvements

  • Payment Plan support for manual payments (See below)
  • Improve how periods are displayed in Courses & Sections
  • Ability to configure who can use a specific Attendance Codes
  • Bug Fix Attendance Alerts when default attendance is Not-Yet-Taken
  • Bug Fix Online Lunch Orders for Declined Credit Cards
  • Bug Fix Class Discussions when there are many Pinned messages
  • Miscellaneous Bug fix to Schoology Integration
  • Improve Assignment PDF Support for Foreign Languages

Beta Improvements

  • Gradebook Point Floor
  • Miscellaneous updates to SFTP Importer
  • Bug Fix Clever SFTP Integration when teacher is removed from a class.
  • API Improvements for Engage CRM (Status Color Code)

Manual (Check) Payments for Payment Plan

The Payment Plan App on our App Store now supports Manual Payments. When this option is enabled, you can mark payments manually (instead of automatically charging the credit card on file):

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