New Feature – Custom Grading Categories

We’re excited to announce a nifty new feature – Custom Grading Categories in Gradebook! With this feature, teachers can make their own categories in their own subjects, in addition to the ones already setup in school. Let’s take a look at how it works.

First, administrators will need to enable this feature by going to Turn Features On/Off –> Gradebook / Report Cards “Configure” menu, and select “Teachers can create their own grading categories”. Now, teachers can begin to create their own categories from the Gradebook.

Gradebook
Grading categories are used in the Gradebook, so teachers are able to setup their own custom categories within the Gradebook.

Within a Gradebook, scroll down to the bottom of the page and select “Change Grading Scale”. This brings up the Gradebook configuration page.

Change Grading Scale
Use the “Edit your own categories” link to setup your courses’ grading categories.

Next, select the “Edit your own categories” link:Read More »

Updated Transcripts Module for HTML5

Hello all,

I know it’s been a while since we last posted an article on our QuickSchools blog. Believe me, there are a tonne of improvements coming very soon, but we’ve just been too busy to tell you about it. The HTML5 release is in its final stages of beta testing. In fact, all new trial accounts automatically get the new HTML5 version. Existing subscribers can request to be transitioned to the new HTML5 version whenever they’re ready.

So let’s go over some new improvements in the transcripts module. Here’s a screenshot of our new “Basic Transcript” template that will be replacing the “Generic Multi-page Transcript”:

New Basic Transcripts on HTML5
New Basic Transcripts on HTML5

Here are some highlights:Read More »

Adding Chat to Zendesk: Real-time web technology with Firebase

Together with our upcoming HTML5 release, we will be introducing more and more real-time features into QuickSchools. The web is getting social, and we need these real-time features in order to make social features work.

This is where a service called Firebase comes in. They offer a fantastic service that allows developers like us to have access to a secure & scalable real-time backend. But before we roll it out in our main QuickSchools product, we tried it out in our internal Zendesk customer service portal. Like many customer-service oriented companies, we use Zendesk internally to manage customer tickets.

Read More »