Our new Student Custom Fields module is a powerful tool for collecting all kinds of data from all the different users accessing your QuickSchools account. And this comes from the ability for school administrators to define which users can edit which fields:
Here we discuss 2 scenarios for using the Student Custom Fields to allow parents to interact with the school by recording important information about the student.
Student Re-Enrollment
At the end of the school year, it’s often difficult to determine which parents will be re-enrolling their children for the new school year. One way of doing this is by creating a custom fields section for parents to record this information. Here an example:
STEP 1: Create the Custom Fields
Open a student record while logged in as a school administrator, and go to the “Custom Fields” tab. From there, just add the appropriate fields using the “Add Custom Field” button.
STEP 2: Configure the Custom Fields
After clicking the “Configure” button, you can then define who has read/write access to each custom field that you created. You can also use this field to sort or edit fields as well, as discussed in the original post:
Just make sure that you’ve allowed “All Parents” to edit the field by adding them to the “Who can edit” column.
STEP 3: Announce new fields to parents
You can announce the new fields either via a Mass Message, or via a Portal Announcement. When parents log in and go to the “Custom Fields” tab, they’ll see the following:
STEP 4: Use the Reports module to consolidate results
Finally, you can use the “Student Custom Fields” report to view what has been entered for each field.
Using this information, you can continue with setting up the new school year before manually de-activating students who will not be returning.
Permission Slips
Very similar to Student Re-Enrollment, you can set up the custom fields as follows:
Just follow the same steps as discussed above (with Re-Enrollment):
- STEP 1: Create the Custom Fields
- STEP 2: Configure the Custom Fields so that they are accessible by the parent
- STEP 3: Announce to parents that they can enter information related to the permission slip.
- STEP 4: Use the Reports module to determine which student students have completed the permission slip.
Other Scenarios
Here are some other note-worthy scenarios that may be solved using the Student Custom Fields:
- Library Books
- Volunteers
- Surveys / Questionaires
Custom Apps and the App Store
If you can’t quite get the Custom Fields to work for you, there’s always the option of building or request an App from the QuickSchools App Store. Apps can be built and are charged separately from the main QuickSchools application. Contact us for more information.
Updated Mar 5, 2014
This Custom Fields approach is great for schools where students’ enrollment into subjects is based on grade level, since each parent only has one set of custom fields to submit for each student. Basically, a parent would say via the Custom Fields, “My child is returning next year”, and based on the grade level, the school admin can enroll the student into the subjects at the appropriate grade level.
However, for schools that require a more granular approach to enrollment, you can use the “Approve Me – Online Requests” app. What this essentially does, is allows parents to submit an enrollment request for each subject. So a parent can submit a request for “Algebra 1” as well as a separate request for “Modern History 2”. And the administrator can decide how to handle each request independently (by checking pre-requisite requirements, payment information, and other considerations).
You can check out the app here: http://blog.quickschools.com/2013/12/06/approve-me-online-requests/