Category: News and Announcements

Displaying SBG Grades to Parents and Students (D12/E8)

Azroy KandanLeave a comment

If you’re using our Standards-Based Gradebook (SBG) app from our App Store, you have the option of sharing the latest grades and assessments with your parents/students. This is simply done by configuring the app in QuickSchools:

Configure Access for the Standards-Based Gradebook (SBG) App
Configure Access for the Standards-Based Gradebook (SBG) App

There are several options for restricting parent/student access to SBG grades from their respective portals. Here we discuss the available options:

DEFAULT (FULL) ACCESS

  • Show List of Standards
  • Show Grade for each Standard
  • Show Assessments for each Standard
  • Show Grade for each Assessment
 HIDE GRADES FOR STANDARDS

  • Show List of Standards
  • Show Assessments for each Standard
  • Show Grade for Each Assessment

Grade for each Standard is hidden
HIDE ASSESSMENTS

  • Show List of Standards
  • Show Grade for each Standard

Assessments are completely hidden

 LIMITED ACCESS

  • Show List of Standards ONLY

All Grades and Assessments are hidden

Default (FULL) Access

By default, students and parents have full access to all data from the Gradebook, which includes the following:

  • List of Standards
  • Grade for each Standard (including Calculation Formula)
  • List of Assessments for each Standard
  • Grade for each Assessment

Here’s an illustration of what all users see by default (including teachers):

Default View for Standards-Based Gradebook by Student
Default View for Standards-Based Gradebook by Student

Clicking on “See Gradebook” for a particular subject lists standards for that subject:Read More »

New Release: Sprint E8

Azroy Kandan1 Comment

Here’s a list of the latest improvements in QuickSchools:

  • Mobile App Framework (Coming Soon)
  • Odysseyware (Beta) Final Improvements
  • Master Scheduler Improvements
    • Support for Breaks in PDF
    • Room number in PDF for Block Scheduling
  • Admissions Improvements
    • Updated Dropdowns
    • Upload Document to Invited Online Forms (See Below)
    • BUG: Submission of Invited Online Forms
  • Miscellaneous Bug Fixes / Improvements
    • Lock Final Grade in Gradebook (See Below)
    • Student Importer supports Student Number
    • BUG: New Transcript PDF displays Override School Name
    • BUG: Accessing Online Form submission on Student record for Group Schools
    • New Standards view for Parent Portal

Uploading Documents for Admissions Applications

In the previous Sprint E3, we released the ability for schools to invite parents to fill in an existing Admissions Application. In today’s release, parents are able to upload files/documents online via this process:

Uploading Documents for Applications

Lock Final Grade in Gradebook

We now have a new feature for Gradebook Administrators “who can enter grades for all the teachers” (as configured in the “Report Cards / Gradebook” module under “Settings” > “Turn Features On / Off”):

Configure Access to Lock Gradebook Final Grade
Configure Access to Lock Gradebook Final Grade

When accessing a Gradebook, if a formula is designated as “Is Final Grade”, there is an additional check box to “Lock Final Grade”:Read More »

Teachers and Staff (E7)

Azroy KandanLeave a comment

By default, QuickSchools will designate all users at your school as “Teachers”. This is just our way of keeping things simple and consistent. All teachers (and by extension, all users) will have the same access.

Over the years, we’ve seen strong demand to have a separate role of users for “Staff”. And for a while now, we’ve provided this feature for schools that request it under Private Beta. Users who are designated as Staff have limited access. Since Staff users don’t teach, they don’t get access to Attendance, Gradebook and Report Cards by default. But you can give Staff users access to specific modules, based on their role in your school. For example, you can designate your Bookkeeper as a Staff User with access to the Fee Tracking module. Your Bookkeeper will not have access to Grading.

After much testing and refinement, we’re happy to announce that the Staff module is now available to all our schools with the Sprint E7 release. To turn it on, simply configure the “Teachers” module under “Settings” > “Turn Features On / Off”:

Turn on Staff Module
Turn on Staff Module

Once enabled, you’ll see a new “Staff” menu under the main “Teachers” menu:

New Staff menu under Teachers
New Staff menu under Teachers

When editing a record, you can designate the user as “Teacher” or “Staff” or both:Read More »

New Release: Sprint E7

Azroy Kandan2 Comments

Here’s a list of the latest improvements in QuickSchools:

  • Mobile App Framework (Coming Soon)
  • Odysseyware (Beta) Framework Improvements
  • Admissions Improvements (see below)
    • Inquiries now has Status view (similar to Applications)
    • Renamed “Show All” to “Show All Active”
  • Change Color Scheme (see below)
  • Support for Staff (see below)
    • New setting to turn on “Staff” module
    • Events can now be shared with Staff
  • Miscellaneous Bug Fixes / Improvements
    • Report Creator Date Filter for “is this week” (see below)
    • Subject Importer supports column for Semester Name
    • Parent Messaging Caller ID requires Credit
    • Submitted Online Forms bug for Student Portal
    • Master Scheduler “Copy Settings” button bug
    • Graduation Requirements bug on Student Tab

Admissions Improvements

In a previous Sprint E5, we introduced a new “Applications by Status” feature. We’ve now done the same for Inquiries:

Admission Inquiries by Status
Admission Inquiries by Status

Remember that you can lock the selected status by clicking on the Lock icon below the Search Box on the right.

We also took the liberty of renaming the “Show All” status to “Show All Active”, to make it clearer:Read More »

New Release: Sprint E6

Azroy Kandan2 Comments

Here’s a list of the latest improvements in QuickSchools:

  • Mobile App Framework (Coming Soon)
    • Homework Data Retrieval via API
    • Schedule Data Retrieval via API
    • Miscellaneous API Improvements
  • Graduation Requirements now supports decimals
  • Gradebook Importer now supports Comments
  • Transcripts Importer handles empty values better.
  • Disable Siblings (for adult education / vocational schools)
    • “Parents” tab can also be relabeled (Beta)
  • Miscellaneous Bug Fixes / Improvements
    • “Session Expired” error for Online Forms when using public URL

We’ve had a recent increase in interest from adult education and vocational schools. Since these schools typically deal directly with students as customers, we now have the option of re-labelling the “Parents/Siblings” tab to something more relevant, like “Contacts”. You can also remove the “Siblings” dropdown via the “Student Portal” configuration:

Disable Siblings from Student Record

With the “Disable Tracking of Siblings” enabled, the “Parents/Siblings” tab will no longer show the siblings dropdown:Read More »

New Release: Sprint E5

Azroy Kandan2 Comments

We’ve changed our engineering schedule a little bit. Our development Sprints will now be 2 weeks long, instead of 3. This should make for a smoother rollout of new features.

Here’s a list of the latest improvements in QuickSchools:

  • Mobile App Framework (Coming Soon)
    • Gradebook Data Retrieval via API
    • Attendance Retrieval Board via API
  • Admissions Improvements (See Below)
    • Applications by Status
    • Override Built-In Fields
  • Bug Fixes
    • Bug related to Subjects Associated with Homerooms
    • Online Forms bug for Group Schools using Submissions Retrieval
    • Transcripts Importer support for apostrophes
    • Bug Migrating to Next Year with Master Scheduler
    • Updated Message for Suspended School Accounts

Admissions Improvements

We are continuing our improvements to the Admissions module, in preparation for the upcoming new school year.

Applications by Status

We’ve moved the Application Status search functionality from the Advanced Search, to the main screen, so that you can easily view and select a Status:

Admissions Applications by Status
Admissions Applications by Status

You can also use the “Lock” feature, so the system remembers the Status that you’ve selected. If you log out and back in again with the Lock feature enabled, the Applications module will load the last Status you were viewing:

Lock to Remember Selected Status
Lock to Remember Selected Status

Override Built-In Fields

When configuring the Embedded Form for the Applications module, you now have the option of renaming the system fields included with the form. This is particularly helpful if you want the fields to appear in another language, like Spanish. So from the configuration form you can edit the fields as follows:Read More »

New Release: Sprint E4

Azroy KandanLeave a comment

We just released a new set of improvements earlier this morning. Here’s a list of the latest improvements in QuickSchools:

  • Odysseyware (Beta) Framework Improvements
    • Improve Student Mapping
    • Improve Teacher Mapping
    • Map Semesters / Grading Periods
    • Map Grading Categories
    • Improve Course Mapping
  • Mobile App Framework (Coming Soon)
    • Student Data Retrieval via API
    • Parent Portal School Board Retrieval Board via API
  • New Transcripts Importer
  • Admissions
    • Custom Fields in Embedded Application
  • Bug Fixes
    • Master Scheduler Period Structure Bug
    • Student Listing loads faster
    • Restrict Online Forms submissions by Status bug
    • Download Online Forms Attachments bug
    • Private Messaging Timestamp bug
    • Private Messaging Delete History bug
    • Lesson Plans Compatibility with Internet Explorer

We’ll be working on improvements to the Admissions module in the coming weeks. If there are improvements you’d like to see over the summer, please let us know. We’re always looking for feedback.

New Release: Sprint E3

Azroy Kandan6 Comments

We released Sprint E3 earlier this week, which primarily contains small improvements and bug fixes. Here’s a list of the latest improvements in QuickSchools:

  • Improvements to Admissions (See Below)
    • Updated Dropdown for Inquiries
    • New Link for Applications
  • Advanced Discipline (Coming Soon)
  • Odysseyware (Beta) Framework Improvements
    • Map, Export and Refresh Student Data
    • Map, Export and Refresh Teacher Data
    • Map Sections to Courses
  • Mobile App Framework (Coming Soon)
  • Miscellaneous Bug Fixes
    • Sort Subjects on Student record by Code
    • Enrollment Date enabled by default
    • Fixed Label for Subjects linked to Resigned Teachers
    • Updated dropdown for Attendance Settings
    • Lesson Plans PDF Printout no longer shows duplicates.
    • Rollback SBG Scroll Bar for Assessments
    • Error Message for Duplicate Student Numbers
    • Discipline “Response” is now in Report Creator
    • Support for Student Number in Attendance Importer
    • Improve Parent portal access for students with siblings
    • Fix hidden “Paid” section in Online Forms

Admissions Improvements

With the current school year coming to a close, schools are beginning to ramp up admissions for the new school year. With that, QuickSchools will be making improvements to the Admissions module ahead the summer term. If you have suggestions for improvement, please do let us know. For this release, we have the following 2 improvements:

Firstly, the dropdowns in the Inquiries module now uses the new dropdown UI, including dropdowns for Custom Fields:

Updated Dropdowns in Admissions Inquiry
Updated Dropdowns in Admissions Inquiry

Secondly, after converting an inquiry to an application, you can now send a link to parents to fill in the application form online. Just use the “Send Invitation” button:

Send Invitation to Admissions Application
Send Invitation to Admissions Application

Fill in the email address to send out the invitation:

Send link to Application to a specific Email
Send link to Application to a specific Email

Once invitation is sent, the status is set to “Enabled”:Read More »