Author: Azroy Kandan

LMS Survey Results

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Many thanks for those who participated in the recent LMS Survey. Your feedback helps us improve the QuickSchools product and services, to better suit your needs:

2020 Survey on the New QuickSchools Online Learning / LMS Capability

This survey in particular is to help guide the development of the Online Learning capability we are building within QuickSchools. We hope you’ll continue to participate in future surveys.

We wanted to give you guys a quick summary of the results of this survey, and share our plans moving forward.

Common Requests

There were several commonly requested improvements, such as:

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Planned Outage – Dec 27, 2020

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We have a planned outage this Sunday, on Dec 27, 2020. We will be updating our hardware infrastructure to improve general performance and availability. This update requires that some of our servers be taken offline.

The outage will begin at 3:00 am US Eastern time (or 12 am US Pacific Time), and will last up to 3 hours. If we’re able to complete the update earlier, the QuickSchools service will be brought back online immediately.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our support staff via email or chat.

SSO via Google SAML

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We recently announced that QuickSchools now provides Single Sign-On (SSO) functionality via the SAML protocol. This means that for schools on the Google ecosystem, you can use Google SAML as the Identity Provider (IDP), and have it manage users centrally.

QuickSchools Single Sign-On (SSO) via Google SAML

The SSO functionality is still in Private Beta, but schools can start using it at their own discretion. You will need to have the District (or Group) School feature enabled, in order to use this feature. We are looking for feedback to make the experience better. For more information on the new SSO functionality, you can check out this article:

https://blog.quickschools.com/2020/11/20/single-sign-on-sso-via-saml/

For Google SAML in particular, we’ve written up some quick notes on how to set it up (with screenshots and instructions). You can check it out on our support site here:

https://support.quickschools.com/hc/en-us/articles/360053886052

Please note that to set up Google SAML for your school, you will need a Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) account.

Let us know how it goes!

Half Day Attendance

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QuickSchools is introducing a new status for Daily Attendance, called Half Day Attendance. So when taking daily attendance, you’ll see an additional option for “Half Day”.

New Half Day Option for Daily Homeroom-Based Attendance
NOTE: This feature is in Private Beta. Please request access by contacting QuickSchools Support.

Where do these changes apply?

The new Half Day status only applied to Daily Attendance. So anywhere you expect to be able to add / edit Daily Attendance, you should now see an option for Half Day.

Student Attendance tab

There is a new legend (and color) for Half-Day Attendance:

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Attendance Codes Report

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If you’re taking daily Homeroom-based attendance in QuickSchools with the Custom Attendance Codes app, we’d like to highlight a new report called “Homeroom/Class Teacher (Consolidated Exception) Attendance” Summary Report (Yes, it’s a mouth-full):

Summary Report on Attendance Codes in QuickSchools

This report consolidates all attendance codes, both custom and system codes, into a single roster-style report. Since this is an Exception report, all Present records are excluded. So the report only shows codes that are applied OTHER than Present. This will make it easy to identify trends in attendance for students and classes.

As with all Summary Reports, be sure to STAR this report, to add it to your favorites. You can check out other Attendance-related Summary Reports here:

https://blog.quickschools.com/2019/10/08/attendance-reporting/

Google Drive Integration (Beta)

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We have a new app in Private Beta that was released earlier this month. The Google Drive Integration app allows schools to backup files in QuickSchools by copying them to Google Drive:

New Google Drive Integration App (Private Beta)

Since this app is in Private Beta, you’ll need to request access from our support team. Once beta access is granted, the app will appear under your “App Store” > “My Apps” menu. Click on “Configure” to configure access to the app:

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Email from Gradebook

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In a recent release (back on November 10, 2020), QuickSchools introduced a new feature to allow teachers to email parents and/or students directly from the Gradebook. This is just one of the many ways teachers can engage parents/students (in addition to Mass Messaging, Class Discussions and Homework / Assignments). Notice the new mail icon on the top right corner of the Gradebook:

New Email function from QuickSchools Gradebook

Clicking on the mail icon will allow you to compose an email message:

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New Release – Dec 3, 2020

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As the new year approaches, we will be making improvements to our Master Scheduler module, in addition to refinements to our Learning Management (LMS) offering. Here are the latest improvements in QuickSchools:

LMS: Assignments and Live Stream modules (Beta)

  • Ability to rename zoom meetings
  • Notification on Assignment Submissions by Students
  • Notification on Discussion of Submissions with Students
  • Improve Alerts when publishing Assignments
  • Bug fix for Assignment Due Date related to changes in Time Zone
  • Warning when submitting assignments with no attachments

Google Classroom

  • Improve Google Classroom Sync from Gradebook
  • Support Gradebook Sync by Default User
  • Bug Fix when marks are removed from Google Classroom and resynchronized
  • Improve run time

Master Scheduler

  • Enable “Semester Management” within the “Master Scheduler” menu
  • Expand support for assigning teachers to courses
  • Expand support for assigning courses to placeholder teachers
  • Miscellaneous refinements Master Scheduler screens
  • Enable Course Catalog Importer (previously in Beta)

Other General Improvements

  • Google Drive Integration (Private Beta)
  • Sort students in Merit app PDF
  • Bug fix to Gradebook Formula with no marks
  • Improve tracking of subscription payments via check
  • Roll-Out Gradebook Scale Scores (previously in Beta) – See Below
  • Roll-Out Gradebook formula date range (previously in Beta) – See Below
  • Bug fix when viewing District-Wide students (for Group Schools)
  • Support Leave Date when importing Students
  • Support Sort Order when importing Grade Levels
  • Support update by Subject ID when importing Subjects
  • Support additional fields when transferring students (for Group School)
    • Lives with Student
    • Emergency contact
    • Authorized for Pickup
    • Student Tags
  • Support End Date for recurring tasks
  • Extend timeout when recalculating penalties in Library App
  • Bug fix when refreshing transactions after exporting to QuickBooks
  • Bug fix when exporting Family Billing go QuickBooks
  • Advanced Search for QuickBooks Integration App – See Below

Gradebook Scale Score and Formula Date Range

These Gradebook features were previously in Private Beta, but is now available to all schools. You can enable this feature when you configure the “Report Cards / Gradebook” module under “Settings” > “Turn Features On / Off”:

When adding / editing a column, if Scale Score is enable, you will see a new section to scale up the weightage of the column:

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QuickSchools Webinar for December

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In case you missed, we had our second QuickSchools webinar yesterday, as part of our new Webinar Series. Our topic was on how to produce professional looking transcripts. 

In preparation for this webinar, we published several new articles to help explain some of the functionality, as well as announce 4 new templates:

Thank you to those who were able to attend. We appreciate your participation, and hope you can give us feedback on how we can improve our product and services.

Azroy presenting the December Webinar on Transcripts in QuickSchools

Our next webinar will likely be in February. We’re considering many different topics like Admissions or Online Forms. If there’s a particular area you’d like to learn more about, or if you’re interested in attending our webinar in general, feel free to leave us a comment, and chat with our awesome support team.