This article is a school admin cheat sheet of sorts, and describes a list of areas that school administrators need to know when rolling out QuickSchools for the first time:

• Clearing Test Data from the Test Drive
• Importing and Setting up Teachers
• Importing and Setting up Students
• Setting up Modules and User Access (via the Features Page)
• Setting up Subjects and Enrollment
• Introducing QuickSchools to Teachers
• Introducing QuickSchools to Parents

Clearing Test Drive from the Test Drive

When you first sign up for a trial, you probably used the Test Drive feature to try out some of the modules. The Test Drive is designed to quickly show you how the modules work by creating sample test data. And now that you’re ready to use real data, you’ll want to remove the test data, which can be done quickly and easily.

To remove the test data, simply go back to the “Getting Started” page and click on the “Clear test data” link (just below “Step 2”). Note that this will also remove some of the menu items along the top (if you had originally enabled the module via the test drive). Not to worry. If you want to use these modules, you can turn them back on via the Features page.

One final step: Since you’re probably done with the Test Drive feature anyway, we recommend removing the page completely by clicking on the “Remove this Getting Started page” button (just below “Step 3”).

Importing and Setting up Teachers

If you haven’t done so already, you should either import or enter your teacher information manually. The most important information to have is the teacher’s name and email address. Although you may opt to invite the teachers later, it’s important to give teachers access quickly, so that they can start getting familiar with QuickSchools right away. You’ll need to set up teachers before you can continue with many of the remaining steps. To learn more about importing teachers from Excel, click here:

http://blog.quickschools.com/2011/12/29/importing-studentsteachers-from-excel/

Importing and Setting up Students

Just like for teachers, you’ll need to either import or enter your student data manually. We support all kinds of fields for import, including Custom Fields. For more information on importing students, click here:

http://blog.quickschools.com/2011/12/29/importing-studentsteachers-from-excel/

Setting up User Access via the Features Page

The Features page is where you turn on modules, and enable access to specific areas of QuickSchools to specific users. We have an entire article (with screenshots) on how to use the Features page. You can check it out here:

http://blog.quickschools.com/2013/05/03/managing-user-access-via-the-features-page/

Also note, that we recommend introducing new modules one at a time, to ensure that teachers are not overwhelmed with all that QuickSchools has to offer. You can read more about this strategy here:

http://blog.quickschools.com/2013/04/29/key-to-a-successful-roll-out/

Setting up Subjects and Enrollment

If you’re using the Gradebook and Report Cards module, then you’ll definitely need to set up subjects, and enroll students into subjects. Your Gradebook and subject-based attendance rosters are based on enrollment into the subjects (and remember, student can be enrolled into subjects from any grade level). To learn more about setting you subjects and enrollment, you can click on the link below:

http://blog.quickschools.com/2013/07/09/setting-up-subjects-and-enrollment/

Introducing Teachers to Quickschools

We try to make QuickSchools as easy-to-use as possible. But just to your teachers started, we’ve put together a short article on what you need to know as a teacher:

http://blog.quickschools.com/2013/06/26/getting-started-as-a-teacher/

We really think you can build a strong community with your students and parents via all the portals available. You can find out more about it here:

http://blog.quickschools.com/2013/07/15/building-a-community/

Introducing Parents to QuickSchools

Finally, if you’re going to introduce parents to QuickSchools, we highly recommend putting up a simple FAQ page on your website, with steps on how to log into their account. We even have sample HTML that your webmaster can use as a starting point. You can read about it here:

http://blog.quickschools.com/2013/08/03/introducing-parents-to-quickschools/

With that, you should have all you need to get started for the new school year. As always, we welcome your feedback. Just send us an email, or come chat with us online.

Welcome back to school!

Update August 24, 2013

We recently posted an article for parents on using the Parent Portal. Please feel free to check this out:

http://blog.quickschools.com/2013/08/22/tips-for-the-parent-portal/