Perfect for Weekend Schools
One question we often get asked is if QuickSchools is beneficial for schools that only operate 1-2 days a week, or just on the weekends. Some would think that since instruction is sporadic, then a system is less necessary. But to the contrary, the less teachers meet with students, the more impact a system like QuickSchools can make.
Interact with Students
While students are not at school, you can use the Class Discussion module to discuss learning topics online. Share pictures, links and files. The Student Portal is a great way for students to stay ahead by accessing all related student information like homework assignments, grades and report cards. Teachers and students can also communicate directly via the Private Messaging module.
Share information
Throughout the course of the week, teachers and staff can more easily share / broadcast information to students and parents using our Mass Messaging Module, which includes email, text and voice. Administrators can also make announcements via the Parent Message Board. And when teachers use the Class Discussions module, an email notification can also be sent out as well. Finally, we have new apps on iOS and Android to make notifications even easier.
You’re still a school
So in addition to engaging students and parents throughout the course of the week (ie. when students are actually in front of the teacher), there are still many benefits to having a centralized system. Just to name a few:
Read more…Setting up Programs for Vocational Schools
QuickSchools has been supporting Trade Schools and Vocational schools for many years now, primarily due to the flexibility afforded by our platform. In this article, we’d like to elaborate specifically on setting up your Programs.
Class Setup
When “College-Level Settings” is turned on, you’ll see a new module called “Class Setup”, which displays all the grade levels (relabelled as “year levels” or “classes”):
Depending on your institution, you can repurpose this module to display the program or year levels. For example, you can set up classes as Programs:
For vocational schools, your programs may look like this:
Read more…Online Form Reference Numbers Report
QuickSchools has just released a new Summary Report for the Online Forms App — Online Form Reference Numbers Report. This report is available for all users with access to the Online Forms Reports, and is ideal for schools that use Public Online Forms.
If you do not have access to the Online Forms Reports, you can enable this by going to App Store > My Apps tab, and click on “Configure” in the Online Forms app. In the configuration window, enter the user or role in the “Who can view Summary Reports” option and Save.
Once this has been enabled, go to Reports, and search for “Online Form Reference Numbers”.
Here is what the report would look like:
This report can be filtered by Online Form Packet, Student Name, and Submission. If you have suggestions for more reports, please feel free to reach out to our support team.
The Case for Importing Fees
Collecting fees is an important part of the school operations. And although QuickSchools provides an integrated way to collect fees online via Stripe, many schools choose to collect fees via their own payment gateway. When doing this, keeping both systems in sync can be a challenge. So here’s what you can do:
First off, you can use the “Outstanding Balances by Student (For Export)” Summary Report to export all outstanding balances out of QuickSchools in Excel format. Simply search for “Outstanding”, and you should see it:
You should hopefully be able to import the outstanding balances back into your payment gateway, and then charge your students/parents based on the new outstanding balances. Successful payments should create payment transactions (i.e. receipts) within your external system. Finally, you can then export all the payment transactions, and re-import them back into QuickSchools.
If you’re using an external system to manage all payments and fees, and you simply want to display all fees and payments in QuickSchools via the Student and Parent Portal, you could import all transactions as well, but this is a different scenario.
Read more…New Release – June 13, 2020
Here are the latest improvements in QuickSchools:
Online Learning Improvements
- Option to create Gradebook Column when adding Homework (See below)
- Expanded WYSIWYG support for Report Creator
- Expanded WYSIWYG support when posting Homework from Lesson Plans
- Fix display of “Homework Due” notification on Student and Parent Portals
- Fix text alert for Homework assignments using WYSIWYG
- Enable new “Homeworks” tab in Student and Parent Portals
- Framework Improvements for upcoming Assignments module
Other Improvements
- Failed Credit Card payments no longer adds phone/text credit
- Improve Session-Based LogOff function
- Fix loading error when synchronization between browsers
- Fee Tracking Import no longer in Beta
- Add usage note on Custom Embed section for Admissions
- General Security Improvements
- Support Mapping to Canvas when users in Canvas do not have login information
- Improve Gradebook Sync for Google Classroom
Create Gradebook Column from Homework module
When adding / editing a Homework assignment, you know how the option to “Grade this assignment”, which will automatically create a column in the Gradebook:
Some things to note about this function:
Read more…Tracking Late Arrivals and Early Dismissals
There are times when the school needs to track when students arrive late to school, or when they leave early. In most cases, you can use the Sign-In/Sign-Out app in QuickSchools, which works like a kiosk for signing in students on premise. If you want students/parents to notify the school of late arrivals or early dismissals from their portal, then the Online Forms app might be the better way forward.
Submitting Forms
Here’s an example of how you can use the Online Forms to allow parents to notify the school about late arrivals and early dismissals. A parent simply needs to log into his/her account and fill out the form every time their child comes in late or needs to leave early.
The form can be as simple as the example form below. The parent will fill out a few fields then submit the form.
Parents can use the same link to submit the same form over and over again, for different days, or for different students.
Reviewing Submissions
As an administrator, you can be notified via email whenever a form is submitted. You just need to add the appropriate emails when configuring the Notification Emails:
Sign-In Sign-Out App Review
The Sign-In Sign-Out app has been on the QuickSchools App Store since 2014, with various improvements made over the years:
- Parents can sign students in and out via PIN
- Students can sign themselves in and out via PIN
- Sign-In Sign-Out App Reports
This article aims to clarify some of motivations behind the app.
This Sign-In Sign-Out app was originally designed to digitize a paper process. So if a student arrives late, and is required to sign-in at the front office, instead of filling in a paper sheet, an administrator can record that the student came in late via this app in QuickSchools. The staff would simply select the student from a list of students, in order to sign the student in or out. The system would record the date and time of the event.
Interested in an Online Demo?
We designed QuickSchools to be as simple and easy-to-use as possible. With on-screen video tutorials, online manuals, and live chat, schools can easily jump in and try things out all on their own. We even offer a free 30 day trial with complete access to all of our features to get started.
However, if you prefer to see QuickSchools live in action, or if you have more complicated questions to ask, you can schedule an online demo with us. Demos typically last between 20-40 minutes. Here’s what our standard agenda includes:
- School Details
- Share basic information about your school. We’ll then tailor the live demo to fit your requirements.
- Why Quickschools?
- We’ll discuss what makes Quickschools different compared to other Student Information Systems.
- Live Demo
- We’ll demo some of our features! The features highlighted will be specific to your needs.
- Pricing Information
- Our pricing information is available here, which we will briefly review.
- Q&A
- Here’s where we’ll take on any questions you may have.
If you are interested, you can request a demo via chat, emailing us at support@quickschools.com, or by scheduling via the link below:
Connecting to Canvas
So for new schools connecting to Canvas for the first time from QuickSchools, Canvas has added a new security feature, where you have to authorize external systems for integration (via a Developer Key). Remember that the integration from QuickSchools to Canvas only works for the paid version of Canvas for schools (not the free version for teachers).
Enabling the Developer Key
In Canvas, go to “Admin” > “Developer Keys” and click on the “Inherited”:
From there, scroll down and find the “QuickSchools” app. You may need to to click on “Show All Keys” at the bottom to view more apps:
Finally, just turn on the Developer Key.
Connecting in QuickSchools
Back in QuickSchools, once the app is installed and enabled from the App Store, go to the Canvas App and click on the “Connect to Canvas” button:
Read more…Patch Release – June 3, 2020
Unfortunately, QuickSchools has recently been targeted for Phone Fraud and the 809 phone scam. This is where a malicious user attempts to use the Voice Messaging feature to call toll numbers which charge exorbitant rates for calls. As a result, we’ve had to disable the “Buy Credit” feature for Paid Messaging in this patch release:
New schools will have to go through a verification process, before they can be allowed to purchase credit in order to make paid phone calls. If you see this message and would like to purchase credit, please contact our support team to have the feature reinstated.
Read more…
